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Doesn't gunpla have a market way bigger than GW's and also mostly restricted to one bracket (asian) with less being done outside. Which isn't to say that they don't supply other territories, but that their home-base is very strongly embedded in one region.

Plus do they run their own stores and setup and also produce in china/asian bracket?

All things that might give them not only vastly increased sales but also lower overall operating costs.




Part of the luxury cost of GW is paying to have products produced in the UK as opposed to China/India etc...

Yeah, about GW's pricing.
1. Secondhand is a thing. You can get TERRIFIC deals if you are willing to wait and look around a bit.
2. Compared to what I've sunk into M:tG, the amount that GW has gotten off of me has been a comparative pittance.

Also, keep in mind that a retailer tends to get stuff for about half of what is marked on the box, so keep 2 things in mind:
1. You can usually get some discount if you ask for it.
2. If you like to play in a FLGS setting, don't begrudge that same FLGS the markup.

At the risk of being called a white knight I honestly think a lot of the complaints about price are unreasonable.

The scale GW is operating on nowadays versus in the past is completely different. They have literally hundreds of stores (at least 500), they've expanded their production capacity, they've increased Black Library's output ( compared to when I started in 4E, both in number of authors and frequency of releases), are expanding the breadth of their product line year over year, have a community engagement team, and are now even branching into doing visual media with Story Forge.

There is no other company that I can think of in the miniatures wargame space doing anything close to all of that, much less on the same scale.

If you expand to any miniatures then the closest you can get is probably Bandai with Gunpla. But Bandai is massively larger than GW, sells Gunpla as just a single facet of their media mix strategy, doesn't have to worry about all of the associated trappings of a miniatures game, or doing significant amounts of design work on new releases (yes I know the kit designs and variations like Super Deformed don't just materialize from thin air, but the actual suit designs and lore are largely just taken from the anime/manga/games).

So yeah, as a consumer would I like cheaper priced kits? Of course I would!
Am I willing to pay a higher price if it means that GW continues to operate Warhammer stores I can visit, constantly releases new products (while rarely discontinuing old ones), and continues to develop and expand into new forms of media for me to enjoy and share with my friends. Absolutely!

 Overread wrote:
Doesn't gunpla have a market way bigger than GW's and also mostly restricted to one bracket (asian) with less being done outside. Which isn't to say that they don't supply other territories, but that their home-base is very strongly embedded in one region.

Plus do they run their own stores and setup and also produce in china/asian bracket?

All things that might give them not only vastly increased sales but also lower overall operating costs.




Part of the luxury cost of GW is paying to have products produced in the UK as opposed to China/India etc...

yeah, but as a consumer, i don't care about the back end stuff, what matters to me is 1: the quality and 2: the price.
Gunpla outmaches GW's quality by a very large margin while staying more affordable.

As a British citizen it actually matters a lot to me that GW manufactures here.

Yeah. One has to recognise that GW pays UK salaries to UK citizens (Or well, European ones) with European job conditions and pays taxes in UK.


The crime would be if they produced chinese kits with chinese factory workers (I know their print material and some scenery or most of it is from china, thats why I don't buy those kits) and still had those prices, like Apple or most electronic companies.


That doesnt mean GW could shurely not lower but not increase prices as aggresively. I have only bought from GW direct like 3 times in my life. The collection of armies I have would not be possible buying from GW with GW prices: Ebay, second hand, people leaving the hobby, and many buys at stores both from spain and UK with 15-20% discount are the things that allowed me to actually be part of this hobby with armies that I can use.

I just looked at £ to $ conversions for a few models and it seems we are paying $10-$15 extra per box in the US and that is AFTER the exchange rate. Not to mention there are several options that are out of stock for the US that are available webstore only for UK. I understand there are additional costs for shipping and such but that seems a pretty steep markup.

I definitely see 3D printing as a threat to this market and another avenue would be things like tabletop simulator. Especially if the new normal is no in-store gaming.

TheAmazinGreat wrote:
I just looked at £ to $ conversions for a few models and it seems we are paying $10-$15 extra per box in the US and that is AFTER the exchange rate. Not to mention there are several options that are out of stock for the US that are available webstore only for UK. I understand there are additional costs for shipping and such but that seems a pretty steep markup.

I definitely see 3D printing as a threat to this market and another avenue would be things like tabletop simulator. Especially if the new normal is no in-store gaming.

oh noes you gone dun pressed the ozzy summoning button

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Doesn't gunpla have a market way bigger than GW's and also mostly restricted to one bracket (asian) with less being done outside. Which isn't to say that they don't supply other territories, but that their home-base is very strongly embedded in one region.

Plus do they run their own stores and setup and also produce in china/asian bracket?

All things that might give them not only vastly increased sales but also lower overall operating costs.




Part of the luxury cost of GW is paying to have products produced in the UK as opposed to China/India etc...

yeah, but as a consumer, i don't care about the back end stuff, what matters to me is 1: the quality and 2: the price.
Gunpla outmaches GW's quality by a very large margin while staying more affordable.

Thing is I think the back end is important to consider as a customer.
It's very very very easy to ignore it and in general most of us do ignore it a lot. However when you sit down and start hammering out numbers and comparisons and such then the back end has to come into consideration. Scale, location, size, support, features etc... How many of us praise GW for their customer service; how many are grateful for the GW stores staffed by eager staff who know their products and hobby decently well etc....

 Jack Flask wrote:
At the risk of being called a white knight I honestly think a lot of the complaints about price are unreasonable.

The scale GW is operating on nowadays versus in the past is completely different. They have literally hundreds of stores (at least 500), they've expanded their production capacity, they've increased Black Library's output ( compared to when I started in 4E, both in number of authors and frequency of releases), are expanding the breadth of their product line year over year, have a community engagement team, and are now even branching into doing visual media with Story Forge.

There is no other company that I can think of in the miniatures wargame space doing anything close to all of that, much less on the same scale.

If you expand to any miniatures then the closest you can get is probably Bandai with Gunpla. But Bandai is massively larger than GW, sells Gunpla as just a single facet of their media mix strategy, doesn't have to worry about all of the associated trappings of a miniatures game, or doing significant amounts of design work on new releases (yes I know the kit designs and variations like Super Deformed don't just materialize from thin air, but the actual suit designs and lore are largely just taken from the anime/manga/games).

So yeah, as a consumer would I like cheaper priced kits? Of course I would!
Am I willing to pay a higher price if it means that GW continues to operate Warhammer stores I can visit, constantly releases new products (while rarely discontinuing old ones), and continues to develop and expand into new forms of media for me to enjoy and share with my friends. Absolutely!

Economies of scale allow you to reduce prices, they don't require you to raise them.

They run those stores because they make money, not as a charity gesture. Same for the books. Nothing GW does loses money.

 harlokin wrote:
As a British citizen it actually matters a lot to me that GW manufactures here.

I think this is a key element to remember, and if GW is doing the various pro-UK things that I've heard, more power to them. I'm definitely willing to pay a bit more because of it, and I say that as an American.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
As a British citizen it actually matters a lot to me that GW manufactures here.

I think this is a key element to remember, and if GW is doing the various pro-UK things that I've heard, more power to them. I'm definitely willing to pay a bit more because of it, and I say that as an American.

 Overread wrote:

Part of the luxury cost of GW is paying to have products produced in the UK as opposed to China/India etc...

but they still make a lot of profit
it is not like that they are on the edge breaking even and therefore have those high prices to cover their high costs

and I don't think that producing in house with european level of payment is a disadvantage for GW but makes the whole process cheaper. They won't do that if there would not be a huge benefit

so there is room to to adjust prices, they don't need to be that high to cover their cost, changing them would only reduce the profit, but why should GW say no to more money as long as the costumers is willing to pay

I'm not sure how things are at the minute with the new factory (is it online yet?) and COVID precautions, but before all of that I'm under the impression that their factory was struggling to keep up with demand. You'd have a hard time arguing to their shareholders that their prices are too high when they're selling everything they make and actively setting up a new factory so they can make stock faster.

I suppose that illustrates that as much as we collectively like to complain about their prices, there's probably not many of us who actually stop buying because of it. I know I'm guilty - I grumble every time prices go up or a new kit comes out with a higher than expected price, but it hasn't stopped me buying GW. Not as much as I might have done if the prices were lower, perhaps, but I'm still buying. And if GW are getting the same amount of money out of me either way, then I'm sure they prefer the version with higher prices where they give me less product for that money.

When these sorts of discussions come up, I always find it interesting to study their financial reports - see 2018-2019 for example. The report breaks down the sales and operating profit between their three main sales avenues of trade, stores and online. Interestingly, the 2019 figures break down as 47% trade, 34% retail and 19% GW direct online. So as much as we like to say that their high street stores are an outmoded model, the figures say that physical high street sales are not far off double their direct online sales - which I find rather surprising, I'd have thought online would have overtaken GW stores long ago.

Comparing sales and operating profit, the most profitable branch is online - in actual rates, that's sales of £47.3M with a profit of £29.2M - a whopping ~62% profit. But that's also their smallest sales avenue.

The next highest profit margin is trade (i.e. sales to FLGS). I don't know what their trade sale prices are, but it's reasonable to assume that they're in the region of 50-70% of rrp, and they obviously want to make a profit on that. £121.5M sales, 43.7M profit - a very nice ~36% profit margin, and that's nearly half of their overall sales at that profit margin.

And finally, their retail stores, at £87.8M sales, £10.4M profit, a ~12% profit margin. Which I expect a lot of businesses with more competition would consider to be a good, healthy profit margin for their entire operation. For GW, it's their least productive branch.

My reading of the figures is that they're setting their prices so that their retail sales deliver an acceptable profit margin. Retail is still a significant part of their business model as a gateway to try to bring in new hobbyists, and it's a large enough chunk of their overall figures that they want to make a profit on it. Because their costs are lower for trade sales and especially for direct online, those branches deliver stellar profit levels, which means the company's overall profit margin is excellent. If they had tougher competition they could certainly afford to reduce prices, even if it meant operating their high street stores as a loss leader, but they have absolutely no incentive to do so when their financial performance is as excellent as it is.

I think GW has managed to buck the trend of store vs online because many people still buy direct through GW either at a store or online; where GW keeps the price the same.

Furthermore because a store isn't just a retail outlet; its also the place where you might well game or learn how to paint from the staff etc... Heck many even have hobby stations in them too.

So basically the store is a social hub and hobby hub not just a retail outlet. That coupled to the same prices in store and online means that its much much easier to get tempted into spending money in the store before we've even got to things like customers being loyal to a store to help it survive because its where they also game.

Most other retail product lines the store is selling the same product, but not actually giving you much else save sales advise. So as a result many will often buy online for home delivery rather than head to the shops for a higher price.

Heck GW stores even let you order direct in store from the computer so if its not in the store you can still get it ordered in yourself.




In short GW has made it work by having a unique business model that isn't actually geared toward devaluing their highstreet stores; and by making the store a hobby and social area not just a retail one.

Shinji wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNzSOyYBaH4
Games Workshop Price INCREASE Scam Explained (June 2020)

Found this.

So that is why those boxes are $55... because new sets are coming out at $60, that makes sense now.

Yeah scam is to harsh a word for that. They are not doing hiding anything or using any special tricks to manipulate consumers there outside of what you can see in other products.
It's just a pretty aggressive pricing policy.

It's more of a question if you find enough value in the product to justify the price point.

Agreed! Not a scam, still dirty a pricing policy, but aren't marketing strategies manipulate consumers in a way.

Speaking of value, $11 per DE Incubi is an absolutely unreasonable value.
$80-$95 for a (start collection) box on the other hand quite reasonable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sunno wrote:
It wont just the the $55 for the box of dudes. Sadly many games companies are really expensive these days.

It’s the money you will also need to spend on:

Ever changing Codex’s and/or a new monthly App subscription
Constant new books that add to rules
Objectives Cards
Other faff that GW puts out.
etc etc.

And
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=10&v=VU0rc0EOOys&feature=emb_title



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
Honestly GW's inflated prices in the UK aren't as bad as some other hobbies - I've seen camera year go up by insane amounts as a result of market slowing, inflation, recessions, china messing around with raw material imports etc...

In the end we all hate paying more, we all dislike it. But if you want to remain part of the hobby then that's the cost you have to justify to yourself to keep involved. One big bonus is that whilst GW releases new models and updates old ones, many of the armies are still running around with models where generation 1 models are still valid.

My tyranids still have gaunts, zoanthropes, warriors, rippers - all things that were around in generation 1 and most of those I stated can still be used without any issue today. Sure things like warriors have more weapon options now and things like Hive Tyrants and Carnifex have become far larger than in the past. But in general a lot of the models have retained a valid place in the army. Heck look at eldar - one of the regular requests is for plastic aspect warriors and yet when GW redid the banshee they are still of the same size and style as the first generation ones. If you've still got first gen you don't "have" to get the new ones.


So on many ways one big bonus is that GW's models do retain quite a decent long term value.

Oh there are many bonuses for GW, for example no one has came close to the design and quality of the sculpts, and of the molds to anything that GW puts out.
You are right, I cant justify paying $11 per model.

So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

 Mothsniper wrote:


So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

Yes, like many hobbies, there is a financial outlay required to participate.

The Newman wrote:
Slightly different take here:

GW is behaving exactly the way any company big enough to have shareholders behaves when some disruptive technology is on their radar. You don't have to be particularly tech-savy to know that 3d printing is right on the edge of being mature enough to invalidate GW's entire business model. They just invested in that big new factory (relatively speaking), and now they're trying to squeeze every penny they can out of that investment before the timer runs out. None of us like it, but expecting anything else is silly.

We even have a pretty good idea of what the aftermath looks like, we've seen stuff like this happen before. Compare the price of a CD right before file-sharing took off to the price of a CD today. GW is the RIAA, Thingiverse is Limewire, the end result will be a box of Intercessors costing $15-$20 like it should be now based on production costs, and there will be some ugly lawsuits between here and there.

Interesting point.
I agree that they are not doing anything different from other companies.
However I do not think 3D printing at home is as comparable to CD vs usb drives or file-sharing.

Because if you had to clean off spruces and sand and smooth printed model at home not a problem,
but if you need to do that for 80 models, you could go reason to go and buy overpriced kits.

3D printing is new tech, but not as scary to GW, now what is really scary to GW is is computer games.
Shiiiiiiiee man, Warhammer Mecanicus 40k on steam was so good, made me want to buy a stater box of Skitari, until I saw the price, and remembered how long it takes to de sprue, clean, prime, paint, varnish, detail, base.
That I just que in next deep dive at DeepRock Galactic and enjoy my break.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 harlokin wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:


So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

Yes, like many hobbies, there is a financial outlay required to participate.

Yes, I was not talking about hobbies... I was talking about games
tamiya models is a hobby, that costs money, but it is not a game.

and its not pay to win as nearly all factions good and bad units cost mostly the same, admittedly its a pain when that can flip-flop on whim but theres alway nu-marines whose version is better and even more betterer

 Mothsniper wrote:

Speaking of value, $11 per DE Incubi is an absolutely unreasonable value.
$80-$95 for a (start collection) box on the other hand quite reasonable.

which is were the marketing strategy was successful, as with other games, people would never say that 80$ to start the game is reasonable, a starter set that costs 30$ has not enough models to play the full game would be called scam and bad value
for GW, paying 80 for a box and you need at least 2 of them to play the full game is reasonable

 Mothsniper wrote:

So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

you pay to be part of an exclusive community with an exclusive hobby, (it was never pay to win but pay to play)

thing would be, if people would have those high standards regarding GW rules as they have with the models and/or would be as forgiven torwards model quality from other companies as they are to GW rules, the market would be less exclusive and GW would have some problems to get people playing their games
(yet, people say that they don't care about the quality of the game as long as the models look good is modern trend, also with computer games and movies, and not a good one)

 harlokin wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:


So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

Yes, like many hobbies, there is a financial outlay required to participate.

Is everyone running primaris only due to estetic reasons?

 BaconCatBug wrote:

nekooni wrote:
The actual cost of moving mail around should DECREASE per item with increased volume, though.

No? You can't just slap more letters into a van and expect the price/letter to go down. Eventually you'll need a second van, which doubles the cost. You need more infrastructure and more staff to meet with rising demand, plus privatisation means you need to may middle and upper management more.

Do not forget the need to insure everything as well, speaking of...

How much of model companies prices have to do with insurance costs, works comp and such?

Shinji wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:


So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

Yes, like many hobbies, there is a financial outlay required to participate.

Is everyone running primaris only due to estetic reasons?

I don't know, ask someone who plays them.

I was responsding to the shock/horror that a hobby might cost you money.

 Jack Flask wrote:
At the risk of being called a white knight I honestly think a lot of the complaints about price are unreasonable.

The scale GW is operating on nowadays versus in the past is completely different. They have literally hundreds of stores (at least 500), they've expanded their production capacity, they've increased Black Library's output ( compared to when I started in 4E, both in number of authors and frequency of releases), are expanding the breadth of their product line year over year, have a community engagement team, and are now even branching into doing visual media with Story Forge.

There is no other company that I can think of in the miniatures wargame space doing anything close to all of that, much less on the same scale.

If you expand to any miniatures then the closest you can get is probably Bandai with Gunpla. But Bandai is massively larger than GW, sells Gunpla as just a single facet of their media mix strategy, doesn't have to worry about all of the associated trappings of a miniatures game, or doing significant amounts of design work on new releases (yes I know the kit designs and variations like Super Deformed don't just materialize from thin air, but the actual suit designs and lore are largely just taken from the anime/manga/games).

So yeah, as a consumer would I like cheaper priced kits? Of course I would!
Am I willing to pay a higher price if it means that GW continues to operate Warhammer stores I can visit, constantly releases new products (while rarely discontinuing old ones), and continues to develop and expand into new forms of media for me to enjoy and share with my friends. Absolutely!

To avoid misunderstanding:
That IS the discussion, GW is operating on nowadays versus in the past is completely different, that is true and awesome, does that mean GW wont begin to operate like they did in the past? No
When we talk about price increase it brings up the aspects from how they operated in the past, thus the discussion.

I never said that price increase is un justified, I said it is un reasonable, because I go to one of 500 new stores look around and walk out, and hope that at least my friends could afford new developed forms of media.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:
Yeah. One has to recognise that GW pays UK salaries to UK citizens (Or well, European ones) with European job conditions and pays taxes in UK.


The crime would be if they produced chinese kits with chinese factory workers (I know their print material and some scenery or most of it is from china, thats why I don't buy those kits) and still had those prices, like Apple or most electronic companies.


That doesnt mean GW could shurely not lower but not increase prices as aggresively. I have only bought from GW direct like 3 times in my life. The collection of armies I have would not be possible buying from GW with GW prices: Ebay, second hand, people leaving the hobby, and many buys at stores both from spain and UK with 15-20% discount are the things that allowed me to actually be part of this hobby with armies that I can use.

I did not know that it is Made in UK.
Checked one of me boxes, and yep, made in UK, and that is friking awesome.
Now price increase is a bit more reasonable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 harlokin wrote:

Shinji wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:


So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

Yes, like many hobbies, there is a financial outlay required to participate.

Is everyone running primaris only due to estetic reasons?

I don't know, ask someone who plays them.

I was responsding to the shock/horror that a hobby might cost you money.

... what are you talking about? am I this bad at communicating?
When I said (So this is not Pay to Win game ) we talked about participating in playing the GAME

 Mothsniper wrote:
GW is operating on nowadays versus in the past is completely different, that is true and awesome, does that mean GW wont begin to operate like they did in the past? No
When we talk about price increase it brings up the aspects from how they operated in the past, thus the discussion.

yet they don't operate differently, not at all
some thing they do now are direct results of failures in the past, like don't take too much afford in translations as those cost them too much if they got the numbers wrong (like having English Box Sets sold out while French are still on stock means they need to order new English Boxes, and the printed cardboardbox costs more than the models inside)

what they changed is their marketing and interaction with the community, but the rest is till the same

 harlokin wrote:

Shinji wrote:

 harlokin wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:


So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

Yes, like many hobbies, there is a financial outlay required to participate.

Is everyone running primaris only due to estetic reasons?

I don't know, ask someone who plays them.

I was responsding to the shock/horror that a hobby might cost you money.

Understood. It's about when they came out I decided to get repurpose my GW stuff for other things.
I figured they were going to planed obsolete the older ranges at some point and I figured I'd get a head start. I've never bothered to check back really.

 Mothsniper wrote:
Stopped by local store.
checked out some new boxes. and was a bit stunned for a heartbeat.

5 Incubi $55 bucks?! that is $11 per model, are you kidding me. I can eat out for a week.

Repentia squad $55 bucks, that is quite an investment, but kinda reasonable, but kinda not.
Retributor Squad, $55 bucks... I am done.

Is this normal, or I have not been at a local shop in a while?

Things have prices.

Dakka loves to make it sound as if GW is seeing 9 dollars in pure profit from each of those 11 dollar miniatures, but this is not the case.

Building an new factory, raising salaries for their workforce, paying UK taxes, hiring new and very talented sculptors, writers, community team members, artists, graphic designers, web and IT services. It all costs money, boat loads of money.

My friend is an arm-chair photographer, and she routinely drops 1-2 K on new cameras and lenses to test out the latest stuff. Software for that hobby is incredibly expensive, running hundreds if not thousands of dollars. I've another friend who is into motorbikes, drops hundreds of dollars per month on parts, labor and other things.

Hobbies aren't cheap. The best thing is to decide if you can live with the price of your chosen hobby. On 40K front, we now have Killteam (less than 100$ buy in) and Combat Patrol games (probably a 200$ buy in). So there are many levels of cost and availability.

 kodos wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:

Speaking of value, $11 per DE Incubi is an absolutely unreasonable value.
$80-$95 for a (start collection) box on the other hand quite reasonable.

which is were the marketing strategy was successful, as with other games, people would never say that 80$ to start the game is reasonable, a starter set that costs 30$ has not enough models to play the full game would be called scam and bad value
for GW, paying 80 for a box and you need at least 2 of them to play the full game is reasonable

 Mothsniper wrote:

So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

you pay to be part of an exclusive community with an exclusive hobby, (it was never pay to win but pay to play)

Yes!! I said it is NOT Pay to win game like.... nm
Ok! you pay to be part of exclusive community, therefor I can't afford to be part of exclusive community. Enjoy your excusivness lolz. I'll go back painting me dust tactics then



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Togusa wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:
Stopped by local store.
checked out some new boxes. and was a bit stunned for a heartbeat.

5 Incubi $55 bucks?! that is $11 per model, are you kidding me. I can eat out for a week.

Repentia squad $55 bucks, that is quite an investment, but kinda reasonable, but kinda not.
Retributor Squad, $55 bucks... I am done.

Is this normal, or I have not been at a local shop in a while?

Things have prices.

Dakka loves to make it sound as if GW is seeing 9 dollars in pure profit from each of those 11 dollar miniatures, but this is not the case.

Building an new factory, raising salaries for their workforce, paying UK taxes, hiring new and very talented sculptors, writers, community team members, artists, graphic designers, web and IT services. It all costs money, boat loads of money.

My friend is an arm-chair photographer, and she routinely drops 1-2 K on new cameras and lenses to test out the latest stuff. Software for that hobby is incredibly expensive, running hundreds if not thousands of dollars. I've another friend who is into motorbikes, drops hundreds of dollars per month on parts, labor and other things.

Hobbies aren't cheap. The best thing is to decide if you can live with the price of your chosen hobby. On 40K front, we now have Killteam (less than 100$ buy in) and Combat Patrol games (probably a 200$ buy in). So there are many levels of cost and availability.

Exactly, so I guess I just wanted to buy something new to support the local, and realized I cant afford to.

Covid has probably been good for GW itself, their profit margin on sales from the online store is VASTLY higher than the profit margin from selling to stores. A lot of those sales migrated to GW's website instead, with the result being that they suddenly started making 2-3x the profit they would have made if those boxes had been sold to stores and then to a consumer.

And then you figure in all the people who are stuck at home instead of being out doing something, some of whom will naturally take the money they would have spent on other things and redirect it towards plastic miniatures instead.

 Mothsniper wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:

Speaking of value, $11 per DE Incubi is an absolutely unreasonable value.
$80-$95 for a (start collection) box on the other hand quite reasonable.

which is were the marketing strategy was successful, as with other games, people would never say that 80$ to start the game is reasonable, a starter set that costs 30$ has not enough models to play the full game would be called scam and bad value
for GW, paying 80 for a box and you need at least 2 of them to play the full game is reasonable

 Mothsniper wrote:

So this is not Pay to Win game like MMORPG or airsoft, this is Pay to Participate?

you pay to be part of an exclusive community with an exclusive hobby, (it was never pay to win but pay to play)

Yes!! I said it is NOT Pay to win game like.... nm
Ok! you pay to be part of exclusive community, therefor I can't afford to be part of exclusive community. Enjoy your excusivness lolz. I'll go back painting me dust tactics then



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Togusa wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:
Stopped by local store.
checked out some new boxes. and was a bit stunned for a heartbeat.

5 Incubi $55 bucks?! that is $11 per model, are you kidding me. I can eat out for a week.

Repentia squad $55 bucks, that is quite an investment, but kinda reasonable, but kinda not.
Retributor Squad, $55 bucks... I am done.

Is this normal, or I have not been at a local shop in a while?

Things have prices.

Dakka loves to make it sound as if GW is seeing 9 dollars in pure profit from each of those 11 dollar miniatures, but this is not the case.

Building an new factory, raising salaries for their workforce, paying UK taxes, hiring new and very talented sculptors, writers, community team members, artists, graphic designers, web and IT services. It all costs money, boat loads of money.

My friend is an arm-chair photographer, and she routinely drops 1-2 K on new cameras and lenses to test out the latest stuff. Software for that hobby is incredibly expensive, running hundreds if not thousands of dollars. I've another friend who is into motorbikes, drops hundreds of dollars per month on parts, labor and other things.

Hobbies aren't cheap. The best thing is to decide if you can live with the price of your chosen hobby. On 40K front, we now have Killteam (less than 100$ buy in) and Combat Patrol games (probably a 200$ buy in). So there are many levels of cost and availability.

Exactly, so I guess I just wanted to buy something new to support the local, and realized I cant afford to.

I get it. When I started the hobby 6 years ago, I was still in college and I lived on around 70 USD a week. My first army was financed because I had some old Magic Cards that had enough value in resale to get me nearly 200$ store credit. I also had friends who were much more well off than I was and they often would give me hand me downs or even gifts of a specific kit I'd been trying to get for a while. That's why I try to pay it forward and occasionally buy models for others i know today, now that I'm a graduate with a nice paying job.

yukishiro1 wrote:
Covid has probably been good for GW itself, their profit margin on sales from the online store is VASTLY higher than the profit margin from selling to stores. A lot of those sales migrated to GW's website instead, with the result being that they suddenly started making 2-3x the profit they would have made if those boxes had been sold to stores and then to a consumer.

Apologies if I'm misunderstanding your point, but that would only be true if their bricks and mortar overheads went away during the lockdown, which they did not. GW still had to pay business rates, rent, utilities, and their employees wages (all monies recieved from HMG have been repaid).