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Aeddon wrote:The only minatures you're gonna find at a lower price (at least that I can think of right now) are D&D, Hero Clix and the like. It's a different kind of hobby al together.

Bollocks. There are lots of manufacturers who sell models cheaper than GW do. Plastics as well as metals - em4miniatures for a start, Reaper for another. And just about any historicals manufacturer on the planet...

Quality is a different issue, but so much of that is subjective anyhow.

As for whether GW models are "too expensive" though, that is a personal decision. Only we can decide whether the £10 we would spend on a GW model is value for money or not. We could get different models with that money which may or may not generate mroe fun for us.

As far as GW is concerned, their current pricing just about covers costs, (i.e. they made a loss last year) so ipso facto it must be "fair".

However, once you are "in" plastic injection molding, your costs drop dramatically.

So let's see:

Prices remain the same.

No longer metal, so alot less detail.

Metal costs more than plastic to the manufacturer by a huge amount.

Once you've got the mold done and are making plastic kits, you're basically printing money as the costs is pennies. Yes, pennies.

That would only be true if they were not constantly producing new kits. The reason they are not rolling in profits and are, instead just coming out of a three year cycle of signifigant losses, is that the cost of plastic do not stop, unless you stop making and designing new molds. Anyone who thinks that GW is fleecing them and running to the bank with thier massive profits needs only take a look at the public financial statements to see that is anything but the truth.

GW produces in the neighborhood of 20+ new plastic kits per year. That is a HUGE investment and the only reason they can do this is because they can recover that investment over the following years due to the low 'per unit' pure production cost.

You also have to factor in the organizational overhead. Hiring writers, deisgners, sculptors, acountants, secretaries, mail room dudes ect... is not free. Nor is office, warehouse or factory squre footage, insurance, utility bills, taxes ect...

The price GW pays for your 10 marines is not just the price of the plastic and the box, but a fraction of the entire organizational cost that supports their ability to produce that kit.

This is not Exon, raking in record profit margins and lauging at the little people while they buy their next private island. It is a hobby company that produces on a very signifigant scale, to a very small target market.

It is the same reason you pay 10.00 for popcorn and a coke at the movie theatre, because that where the business recoups its costs in order to make a profit. And unless you want to see GW go away, you want them to make a profit.

Really, GW probably should outsource their production to some South East Asia country. Producting plastic men in the UK must be killing them. Considering you can get engineers in Asia for pennies on the pound, and how easy it is to transfer the CAD data, it probably would make more sense.

Well, chaos termies are 5 for $50 while possessed are half as much. So yes, I think the products are over priced.

Are GW products overpriced?

Do bears gak in the woods?

I love how some people just come straight back with this "hell yeah its over-priced" without giving a reason or seemingly read the earlier examples.

One of the reasons GW doesn't outsource to somewhere else is an issue of quality... afterall that quality (or lack thereof) is the reason the spray-gun got recalled
If it had been made in house- i almost guarentee it'd have come out fine.

GW's production costs are only a small proportion of their overall costs. They also have to pay the design studio and most importantly a huge retail network, neither of which can be outsourced to China.

What GW need to do is make better use of their retail chain by selling some different games as well as WHFB and 40K.

keezus wrote:

Old Man Ultramarine wrote:

While this is true for those who play exclusively in their own private venues, this kind of attitude is what is killing the brick and mortar stores which offer gaming areas. Square footage that independent retailers devote to gaming are areas that do not contain merchandise, and as such do not directly contribute to their bottom line - as a result, paying the difference between MSRP and 20% interweb discount when using these facilities is hardly foolish, especially if players wish to "retain" said area for gaming. Those who think that they are entitled to game in stores as a free public service, using the store's facilities while purchasing all their product online - and worse still, advocating this view to other patrons - (often on store premises!), are IMHO, narrow-minded-donkey-hats that inevitably hasten either the closure of these facilities, or the store's dropping of the product line.

Granted, paying 50%+ difference between non-US MSRP and the interweb discount is a bit harder to ignore - I usually get around this issue by buying non-GW products from the retailer once in a while - (The theory holds here as well, since it is possible to get Privateer product at discount from the Warstore as well).

To hell with them. There are more than a few that dont deserve support. Its a two way street that doesnt always come back to support for the gamer.

Some of us dont wish to retain anymore. We've had enough of their nonsense.

Well the boxes and sets that offer "deals" sell out so fast it is a wonder they do not make more money. When the products are sold at 25% off people buy 100% more models it seems.

That would seem to suggest people hold off a fair deal because of the price. It is not the raw money spent either - the boxes and sets are pretty expensive for random buys.

I hit yes. If all the models sold for 25% less, I would buy 100% more. That would equal them getting more of my money, and me having more of their stuff.

shrug

Shotgun wrote:
The reply "Well, maybe, but unlike GW you don't have to buy a new core rule book every 3 years!"

Then Remix hit. I refrained from the "I told you so's".

Uhm, no. You'd still be wrong.

You didnt have to buy remix. My black and white prime book is just as good. Remix had full color, and some new rules that were in escalation and such. But unlike GW the basic rules were the same.

No contest.

I find this thread ridiculous on one factor alone. Everything is more expensive these days. At least from a U.S. perspective, it is.

I get so sick of all the, "it was cheaper back in the rouge trader days" nonsense. I could wax nostalgic about a number of things from my youth that were cheaper. I could get a brand new Nintendo with two controllers, a light gun and two games for about a hundred back in the day. Now its over 300 to buy in to a core system with no games and sometimes no controllers.

Or there is also legos. I had this big nifty space monorail that was fifty bucks. It was the "big set" of the range then. Now fifty is the price of most medium sets.

I browse the toy aisles with my daughter and am amazed at the price of most everything; G. I. Joes, Barbies, nerf guns (I had to buy one of those). Even play dough is more expensive.

So what does all this have in common with the big boy toys? You don't have to buy them. There entertainment.

If I'm going to complain it's going to be about the cost of groceries or gas or laundry or diapers or other things that are needed to live. I might also complain about working in a industry that continues to pay bottom dollar and has begun to no longer higher whites because they newcomers from the south don't complain about the wages.

In the meantime I will continue to buy another troop or vehicle as I can afford and sit and enjoy the time I have painting and making it my own and enjoy taking it to game night and losing horribly.

Bignutter wrote:I love how some people just come straight back with this "hell yeah its over-priced" without giving a reason or seemingly read the earlier examples.

One of the reasons GW doesn't outsource to somewhere else is an issue of quality... afterall that quality (or lack thereof) is the reason the spray-gun got recalled
If it had been made in house- i almost guarentee it'd have come out fine.

Come on now. Outsourcing has nothing at all to do with quality. In some instances quality can be neglected from outsourcing yes, but some of the worlds best products come from countries in Asia who get paid half of what the average US/UK worker gets paid. And that is simply because of the standards of living in those countries. And the recall was because of a lack of testing of the plastic tube (probably conducted in where else but the UK), not because they were poorly made.

Kilkrazy wrote:Economics has nothing to do with fairness. That is why it is called the "dismal science".

There are plenty of model figures costing less than GW. People can go and buy them if they want to.

Economics is the dismal science because it is full of politics and ideology, people spouting off without first really studying a market or transaction. The adherence to the scientific method, historically speaking, has been quite poor relative to harder sciences. This is largely not the fault of economics, but because their research and findings are handed on to politicians.

Fairness is a concept used in economics. Between that and utilitarianism you have the core assumptions of the desired state of economics. Many economic models and policies are built with these notions in mind.

However, the idea of a fair price, as used in this thread, has no basis in economics.

Kilkrazy wrote:I argue that GW is a monopoly supplier of 40K stuff.

The price of 40K figures cannot be explained by reference to the overall wargame miniature market. There is a very wide variety of figures from different makers, and most of them are significantly cheaper. If price of figures was the determining factor in sales, GW would not be selling anything.

As such we can examine the 40K market for the clearing price.

To the extent that words have meanings, GW is not a monopoly supplier. Your later post defending your argument that GW is a monopoly supplier appears to be confusing imperfect competition with monopoly. Wiki the two terms, it should make things clearer for you.

brado wrote:For the sake of simplicity, there are 2 answers. I wasn't going to make a poll for each GW line.

The problem isn't that there's only two answers, but that the question can be taken in so many different ways.

Is GW too expensive compared to your other hobbies?
Would you spend lots more money if GW cut their prices just a little?
Do you think GW's high prices have opened the door to competition?
Do you think GW's poor financial performance is due to high pricing?
Do you think GW should charge whatever the hell they want, you can just buy or not buy, because there's plenty of other games out there?

brado wrote:Come on now. Outsourcing has nothing at all to do with quality. In some instances quality can be neglected from outsourcing yes, but some of the worlds best products come from countries in Asia who get paid half of what the average US/UK worker gets paid. And that is simply because of the standards of living in those countries. And the recall was because of a lack of testing of the plastic tube (probably conducted in where else but the UK), not because they were poorly made.

Quality is a concern, as a number of companies have found out since outsourcing began. This is not due to the 'foreign products are rubbish, give me honest British/American/whoever' nationalism, but just because you don't have as much control over production when someone else is doing it for you.

To those that want justification....

Can charging £6 (US$12 equivalent) for a single paltry Goblin 200mm tall ever be justifiable?

http://uk.games-workshop.com/storefront/store.uk?do=Individual&code=99061462039&orignav=16

Sure there are cheaper models in the range, but that's just ridunkulous! I can buy two bottles of wine for that or a whole gallon of petrol...

Jezrael wrote:I get so sick of all the, "it was cheaper back in the rouge trader days" nonsense. I could wax nostalgic about a number of things from my youth that were cheaper. I could get a brand new Nintendo with two controllers, a light gun and two games for about a hundred back in the day. Now its over 300 to buy in to a core system with no games and sometimes no controllers.

Or there is also legos. I had this big nifty space monorail that was fifty bucks. It was the "big set" of the range then. Now fifty is the price of most medium sets.

I browse the toy aisles with my daughter and am amazed at the price of most everything; G. I. Joes, Barbies, nerf guns (I had to buy one of those). Even play dough is more expensive.

You really want to know why price comparison between GW's old prices compared to the new prices is legit? You can use the same old $10 Rhino to play the latest edition of 40K as you could the new $35 Rhino. Or $1 Beakie instead of the $3.50 new Tactical Marine. Or anything else that has had a model that still has rules (my sincere apologies to those who own Zoats and Hrud).

IF you can still sit there and play the old Nintendo Entertainment System all day and night, then sure, I'll say you have every right to complain about the prices of the new systems if you consider the new version to be no better than the old one. But, if you turn on your old NES, and stare at the dated graphics, interface, and tired plot devices, and realize that you would rather play the new games on a next gen console, then, sorry...your argument just doesn't hold any water with me.

Sure, everything goes up in price and nobody likes it. I get that. But I didn't complain back in the day when I bought G.I. Joes for $3 a figure, my Transformers Autobot cars for $8, nor did I complain about the price of my $50 Galaxy Commander Space Lego set. I felt somehow that these things delivered value for what they were charged. However, even when 30 Beakies were $30, I felt they were at the high end. Now that G.I. Joe figures are $7 each, Transformers Deluxes are $10-12 each, I still don't complain, because I still feel they are within a reasonable price/value ratio. Legos, I will agree with you, simply because, again, like my GW argument, THEY ARE (mostly) THE SAME BRICKS.

GW, on the otherhand, for items that are no better RULESWISE to their older counterparts, for which the prices are now greater than 3x what they used to be, have a very poor price/value ratio to me.

I prefer other companies mini, like the wulfen from Ragnorok. But Marines are marines, No other company does anything that looks better

pombe wrote:You really want to know why price comparison between GW's old prices compared to the new prices is legit? You can use the same old $10 Rhino to play the latest edition of 40K as you could the new $35 Rhino. Or $1 Beakie instead of the $3.50 new Tactical Marine. Or anything else that has had a model that still has rules (my sincere apologies to those who own Zoats and Hrud).

IF you can still sit there and play the old Nintendo Entertainment System all day and night, then sure, I'll say you have every right to complain about the prices of the new systems if you consider the new version to be no better than the old one. But, if you turn on your old NES, and stare at the dated graphics, interface, and tired plot devices, and realize that you would rather play the new games on a next gen console, then, sorry...your argument just doesn't hold any water with me.

Sure, everything goes up in price and nobody likes it. I get that. But I didn't complain back in the day when I bought G.I. Joes for $3 a figure, my Transformers Autobot cars for $8, nor did I complain about the price of my $50 Galaxy Commander Space Lego set. I felt somehow that these things delivered value for what they were charged. However, even when 30 Beakies were $30, I felt they were at the high end. Now that G.I. Joe figures are $7 each, Transformers Deluxes are $10-12 each, I still don't complain, because I still feel they are within a reasonable price/value ratio. Legos, I will agree with you, simply because, again, like my GW argument, THEY ARE (mostly) THE SAME BRICKS.

GW, on the otherhand, for items that are no better RULESWISE to their older counterparts, for which the prices are now greater than 3x what they used to be, have a very poor price/value ratio to me.

You can also use a coffee mug or shaped styrofoam block to represent your rhino. That would look rubbish though, and given much of the fun in this game comes from visual effect, then looking at GW miniatures purely in the context of rules effect seems to be missing the point somewhat.

wish GW would make more combo sets to help save money like the transports and some troops, also itd be cool to send the waste parts of the plastic spures back to GW to recycle and get a discount or something for them.

Jacksonhighlander wrote:wish GW would make more combo sets to help save money like the transports and some troops, also itd be cool to send the waste parts of the plastic spures back to GW to recycle and get a discount or something for them.

There were Combo sets about 3 or 4 years ago. A Chimera/Guardsmen, Rhino/Marines, Devilfish/Warriors, Chaos Rhino/Chaos Marines, Wartruk/Boyz. I think there was even a Raider/DE set too.

Le Grognard wrote:

Jacksonhighlander wrote:wish GW would make more combo sets to help save money like the transports and some troops, also itd be cool to send the waste parts of the plastic spures back to GW to recycle and get a discount or something for them.

There were Combo sets about 3 or 4 years ago. A Chimera/Guardsmen, Rhino/Marines, Devilfish/Warriors, Chaos Rhino/Chaos Marines, Wartruk/Boyz. I think there was even a Raider/DE set too.

Agreed

Best price were some Box-sets with 1-2 vehicles and 3 units of footsloggers.Up to 20% cheaper than separate buys.

In general, I don't find GW boxes overpriced. What I take issue to is the prices of things like Assassins. Why am I paying fifteen dollars for a single man-sized model, especially when it's the exact same model and sculpt that used to cost seven-fifty? Even that was something of a rip.