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Made in jp
[MOD]
Anti-piracy Officer






Somewhere in south-central England.

The Hobbit should give them a big lift. They need to use that to break out of the current cycle of decline.

The basic problem with GW (IMO) is that they have continually ballsed up the way they market the products.

Their only method of marketing is the retail chain, which is extremely expensive and keeps being mishandled.

They have spent several years in various re-organisations of the way they do retail. The latest results are that they lost 4% sales in the second half of 2010 due to "lack of trained staff at retail" (their half year report's words). The shop windows are full of grey, unpainted models, sometimes not even assembled.

Only the flagship shops are able to put on a good display, run intro games and painting lessons and so on.

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
Made in gb
Lord Commander in a Plush Chair





Beijing

They should do well from the Hobbit assuming that they get all the licences sorted. I'm surprised they still give LOTR such support, I assume they have been stringing that out specifically for the Hobbit, because without that the LOTR range has no future.

As for marketing, well they never advertise for a start. I can't think of another company the size of GW that doesn't advertise their stuff. All the GW related adverts out there are from Black Library and third party licensed computer games.

The LOTR Battle Games magazine was much better handled, GW didn't seem to turn that to their advantage.
   
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VA Beach

Have you ever been to a dedicated modelling store? GW prices make those prices look pretty high.


Let the galaxy burn.

 
   
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Somewhere in south-central England.

They vary, in my experience. See below.

Perhaps it is different in the USA.

Rhino £20.50
M113A2 Academy 1/35 Weapons carrier £16.33
M113 Tamiya 1/35 Vietnam version £17.50
M113 Academy 1/35 Gulf War £22.45
M113 Tamiya 1/35 Gulf War version £27.99

Land Raider £38.50
M2 Bradley Academy 1/35 £14.29
M2 Bradley Tamiya 1/35 £24.99
M2A2 Bradley Tamiya 1/35 Gulf War £38.99

Chimaera £20.50
BMP-2D Zvezda 1/35 £18.99

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
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Savage Khorne Berserker Biker





Tampa, FL

Requia wrote:Hmm, interesting.

OK, for CSM you can field an army for less than 300$

I'll come back to that argument in 6 months or so when you start getting 5 berserkers for 33$ instead of 12.


What's the probability of GW creating a new mold just to spite CSM players (because one sprue builds 4 Berzerkers)? I would say low.

 
   
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Perturbed Blood Angel Tactical Marine





Ft. Worth

Look at any hobby. Golf, shooting, fishing. They all cost a lot of moeny to do. Just like our hobby. If you like what you do, you willl pay to do it.

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Tampa, FL

BloodAngles_Chris wrote:Look at any hobby. Golf, shooting, fishing. They all cost a lot of moeny to do. Just like our hobby. If you like what you do, you willl pay to do it.


Yeah, IMO the cost only gets ridiculous once you start building beyond 2 armies. Some of the army populations I've seen here are absolutely insane (3 armies at 30k points? How do you store all of those models?!)

 
   
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Maryland

ph34r wrote:The thing is, there is no proof that lowering prices would get enough people into the game.

Think about it, if GW has a profit margin of 50% on a $40 box, and they lower it, they are losing $5 from their $20 profit, or 25%. Now it will take them 33% more people buying the product to stay even.

Do you think a price drop of 12.5% will make 33% more people get into the game?

I didn't think so.


Keep in mind these numbers are not official, but they show a point. Even if you disregard profit margin, I don't think that lowering prices would gain enough new players to make up for it.


Maybe not new players, but I would but a lot more models if they were cheaper.

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University of St. Andrews

BloodAngles_Chris wrote:Look at any hobby. Golf, shooting, fishing. They all cost a lot of moeny to do. Just like our hobby. If you like what you do, you willl pay to do it.


ANd the companies that make it KNOW you're willing to pay, and will try to charge as much as the market can bear. Which for luxury goods is quite high.

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BloodAngles_Chris wrote:Look at any hobby. Golf, shooting, fishing. They all cost a lot of moeny to do. Just like our hobby. If you like what you do, you willl pay to do it.


I don't think it's wrong to say that other hobbies are more expensive, but GW are rather expensive compared to other manufacturers within the same niche hobby.
   
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Kilkrazy wrote:The Hobbit should give them a big lift. They need to use that to break out of the current cycle of decline.

The basic problem with GW (IMO) is that they have continually ballsed up the way they market the products.

Their only method of marketing is the retail chain, which is extremely expensive and keeps being mishandled.

They have spent several years in various re-organisations of the way they do retail. The latest results are that they lost 4% sales in the second half of 2010 due to "lack of trained staff at retail" (their half year report's words). The shop windows are full of grey, unpainted models, sometimes not even assembled.

Only the flagship shops are able to put on a good display, run intro games and painting lessons and so on.


I dunno, the GW shop I go to, a small space in the corner of a mall, has several well-painted armies on display, puts in time for painting lessons, and often sets up events. They only have 3 tables and a painting table....small space, but they run it well, by far the best "nerdy-hobby" shop I've been to.

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Kilkrazy wrote:The Hobbit should give them a big lift. They need to use that to break out of the current cycle of decline.

The basic problem with GW (IMO) is that they have continually ballsed up the way they market the products.

Their only method of marketing is the retail chain, which is extremely expensive and keeps being mishandled.

They have spent several years in various re-organisations of the way they do retail. The latest results are that they lost 4% sales in the second half of 2010 due to "lack of trained staff at retail" (their half year report's words). The shop windows are full of grey, unpainted models, sometimes not even assembled.

Only the flagship shops are able to put on a good display, run intro games and painting lessons and so on.


I disagree, the one in the centre of Glasgow is pretty well run, theres always somebody on shift that knows what they are doing, be it painting, selling, modelling or even gaming. Theres even 2 staff members(part timers funnily enough) that do all 4 decently.

The displays are full of fully painted models, onlt the one near the back are filled with unfinished but partially painted models.

Also they arnt as a hard seller as some people make them out to be, the 1st thing they asked when i walked in was if i played, not if i needed help but if i played. Then it goes down 1 of 3 paths, needing help, painting or tutorial game.

Not only that but if your looking to start a new army they just dont go "oh get the £50 starter kit" they find out how much you can actually spend and create a starter around that (depends on staff member).

The only thing i hate about the GW in Glasgow is that one week you could see one person and not see them again due to being placed else where, and some of them were pretty awesome imo.

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I'd also be pretty put out by the "close the retail stores" line. My local GW is 15 minutes from home and it's where I do all of my hobby work. No store = no further interest in the hobby for me.

Unless one of the "Lions of Capitalism" that can run a hobby store better want to come to Westminster Maryland and open a store.

Prices: If the item has value to me, I'll be it in a matter that I feel gives me maximum value. Be it from my local shop, the Warstore, eBay or somewhere else.

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Somewhere in south-central England.

No doubt central Glasgow is a flagship store.

The Plaza, Oxford Street is also well appointed and staffed. It is a flagship store.

It's the little one man shops which are suffering.

I'm writing a load of fiction. My latest story starts here... This is the index of all the stories...

We're not very big on official rules. Rules lead to people looking for loopholes. What's here is about it. 
   
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Lord of the Fleet






Lanrak wrote:Mantic RESIN Undead cavalry £2.50.(Full regiment of 10 for £25.)

Games workshop metal riders and '1992' plastic undead horse, £7.70 or £8.70 for command models.(Full regiment of 10 for £80.)

Which undead cavalry are you referring to? I'm seeing undead cavalry from mantic at £25 for 5 = £5 each.
http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Undead/Cavalry/Product/Undead-Revenant-Cavalry-10-Figures.html
   
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Dakka Veteran




Scott-S6 wrote:
Lanrak wrote:Mantic RESIN Undead cavalry £2.50.(Full regiment of 10 for £25.)

Games workshop metal riders and '1992' plastic undead horse, £7.70 or £8.70 for command models.(Full regiment of 10 for £80.)

Which undead cavalry are you referring to? I'm seeing undead cavalry from mantic at £25 for 5 = £5 each.
http://www.manticgames.com/Shop-Home/Undead/Cavalry/Product/Undead-Revenant-Cavalry-10-Figures.html


That link is for a 10 model box for 25 L.

 
   
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Lord of the Fleet






Howard A Treesong wrote:
BloodAngles_Chris wrote:Look at any hobby. Golf, shooting, fishing. They all cost a lot of moeny to do. Just like our hobby. If you like what you do, you willl pay to do it.


I don't think it's wrong to say that other hobbies are more expensive, but GW are rather expensive compared to other manufacturers within the same niche hobby.

At least wargaming is only expensive to buy into - the cost of continuing to play is very low. There are plenty of hobbies with a high cost for activity - I pay approx £30-40 for a day's airsofting (excluding travel) while a day's wargaming only costs me refreshments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Requia wrote:That link is for a 10 model box for 25 L.

That's what I get for not looking carefully enough!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/03/13 21:18:45


 
   
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Lieutenant Colonel




Hi Scott-S6.
The 'GW hobby' is expencive to buy into.
Wargaming can be VERY inexpencive.

Eg
Full thrust rules Free down load.
12 space ships from EM4 minatures £2.50.


If you get to use a GW store for your gaming - hobbying , then you are getting the additional value you pay extra for.(The £60 million pound +, overheads of the chain of B&M stores has to be recovered from somewhere... )

Thats why GW charge so much.

TTFN


   
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Boise, ID. US

Why does GW charge so much? Its probably been said, but the simple answer is, they want to make money.
   
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[DCM]
Moustache-twirling Princeps





Gone-to-ground in the craters of Coventry

firmlog wrote:Why does GW charge so much? Its probably been said, but the simple answer is, they want to make .....
Shareholder Profit.

If this was a privately-run company, the owners may well try to keep the profit for investing in a better company.
When it floated on the market, all that incentive disappeared to the shareholders.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/03/18 14:38:35


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As someone who's worked in injection molding and plastics production, this stuff is just plain expensive to do. The tooling for a new sprue looks something like this, and a new kit will obviously involve several sprues.



That tool also needs to be regularly taken apart and cleaned, a process which takes a group of engineers up to four hours depending on its complexity.

Companies like Tamiya can do this at slightly lower cost thanks to cheap labor, low variety and large volume.

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There ya go. For all the variety and quantity GW pumps out, they're probably using multiple tons of aluminium, there's the engineers they need to keep on the payroll, and of course they need to replace the popular sprue molds every so often so that they don't wear out and get all flashy.

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United Kingdom

When these threads crop up it is always said that gaming is a niche hobby.

Does this actually mean anything?
Even stamp collecting is not universally enjoyed by all and sundry.

Candle making is hardly ubiquitous. I personally know of no one that is a train spotter.
Though "Choo Choo" Charlie three doors down thinks he is the Flying Scotsman.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/03/21 02:34:54


 
   
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Norwalk, Connecticut

I know I'm going to get lambasted for this, but while GW prices ARE going up, so are the costs for most games. Have any of you played Settlers of Catan? When it first came out, I got a copy for 20 bucks, brand new. Now it's 45 for that same copy. M:TG used to be 7.95 for a starter deck, 2.25 for a booster pack. Now it's 12.95 and 3.99 respectively. These are just two examples I'm throwing out because I know they're well known/popular and they've increased dramatically over the last ten years. Magic has gone up almost 50% since 2000 (Rath Cycle @ 2.25) and Settlers has gone up at least 55%! It isn't just GW-yes, they do charge a lot, and prices have gone up quite a bit-I hate the high prices, but it isn't JUST GW doing it. Look around and even ask your local retailers about other prices that have gone up. GW just does it in small increments each year, other companies just inflate costs all at once instead of easing you into it. I'm not trying to be a GW sympathizer, I just recognize that other companies are doing it too. GW is just getting the biggest blame.

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Out of curiosity I did a Stock check on games workshop (they trade on the london stock excahnge under GAW if anyone is intrested) and they apearently trade at 362 a share. Not too shabby except they dropped off of the "christmas season" when they were at 468 a share.

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Noble of the Alter Kindred




United Kingdom

GW gets it in the neck more than others simply because there are more people sitting at keyboards discussing them.

I thought Settlers were a '60's group and or an anti-acid tablet for curing dispepsyia. (or indigestion in case I have the wrong spelling.)


As for share prices it all depends when you take your base point from.
Looking at a 5 year chart they have recovered somewhat especially after the crash from a couple of years back.
But a longer view shows an overall decline.


 
   
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Lieutenant Colonel




Hi all.
Well just to adress the people trying to excuse GWplc price rises...

First of all plastic injection moulding is generaly used where economies of scale make it most profitable.
As the more you sell the cheaper the overall cost.
This is why most plastic manufacture is high volume production, with LOWER cost per finished item ,than metal or resin casting.

(Most other companies selling multipose 28mm plastic minatures for an average of 50p each!)

So making expensive moulds for injection plastic moulding, for 'premuim priced items' that artificialy restrict sales is NOT cost effective.(Gold Swords for example.)

So used efficiently , plastic injection moulding could let GW sell more minatures at a cheaper price, and STILL make more profit...

Over the last 10 years the average increase in retail prices has been at the rate of inflation for this 10 year period.
This is about 35%.
Eg if it cost £10 in 2001 , it cost about £13.50 now.

GWs turn over has grown at the rate of inflation , (about 35%) over the last 10 years.

However , GW has raised its retail prices by about 130% on average over the same 10 year period.

Eg if it cost £10 in 2001 it costs about £23 now.

The MASSIVE increse in retail price over the rate of inflation has reduces the GW customer base , at a faster rate then the increse in retail price can compensate for.(This is why they have reported a drop of 4% in sales volume.)

If GW had continued to sell the same amount of stuf as it did back in 2001, they would have turned over about £80 million extra this year.

GW plc are in seriuos trouble, they have relied on increacing retail prices to hide falling sales volumes .But now increasing prices is accellerating the loss of sales volues faster than they can compensate for.
So prepare for more heinous wallet rape when visiting GW plc retail outlets from now on...

Justify it how you feel you are able too, but more and more people can not.

TTFN

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/03/21 09:16:11


 
   
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Regular Dakkanaut






Lanrak wrote:Hi all.
Well just to adress the people trying to excuse GWplc price rises...

First of all plastic injection moulding is generaly used where economies of scale make it most profitable.
As the more you sell the cheaper the overall cost.
This is why most plastic manufacture is high volume production, with LOWER cost per finished item ,than metal or resin casting.

(Most other companies selling multipose 28mm plastic minatures for an average of 50p each!)

So making expensive moulds for injection plastic moulding, for 'premuim priced items' that artificialy restrict sales is NOT cost effective.(Gold Swords for example.)

So used efficiently , plastic injection moulding could let GW sell more minatures at a cheaper price, and STILL make more profit...

Over the last 10 years the average increase in retail prices has been at the rate of inflation for this 10 year period.
This is about 35%.
Eg if it cost £10 in 2001 , it cost about £13.50 now.

GWs turn over has grown at the rate of inflation , (about 35%) over the last 10 years.

However , GW has raised its retail prices by about 130% on average over the same 10 year period.

Eg if it cost £10 in 2001 it costs about £23 now.

The MASSIVE increse in retail price over the rate of inflation has reduces the GW customer base , at a faster rate then the increse in retail price can compensate for.(This is why they have reported a drop of 4% in sales volume.)

If GW had continued to dell the same amount of stuf as it did back in 2001, they would have turned over about £80 million extra this year.

GW plc are in seriuos trouble, they have relied on increacing retail prices to hide falling sales volumes .But now increasing prices is accellerating the loss of sales volues faster than they can compensate for.
So prepare for more heinous wallet rape when visiting GW plc retail outlets from now on...

Justify it how you feel you are able too, but more and more people can not.

TTFN


As an employer, they have an obligation to retain staff. That requires keeping stores open. It also makes sense to try and retain as many stores as possible, once the market begins to recover, as being slow to act in a period of recovery can seriously cripple any attempt by an indiviual company to recover.

1 store pays:

Ground rent
Business rates - An absolute killer. This is paid on a store basis, not a company basis.
Council tax
Utility
Insurance
Wages, Insurance, Matched pensions (If they do one)
Stock (not just rolling stock)
Site Charges (shopping centre overhead)
PRS ( DIE! DIE! DIE! SCREW OFF AND DIE YOU AWFUL PEOPLE! - I dislike PRS.)

It's a metric gashton.

Not every store is going to sell that much, if stock is cheaper, it's going to have to sell more, or make a bigger loss.

So on a store by store basis, they're in just as bad a place as everyone else, with the handicap of being a bit of a niche market seller.

Then there's the company.

Publication - white dwarf. All the licensing fees. Committing to a long term print in order to print the volumes they do is expensive. Distro is expensive. Staff. Writers, HR, HMRC. Site and site services. I imagine the site would cost on it's own £400k a year, and that's based on business park rent where I live up north. Further south and it's a bit more pricey). Materials - subsidised canteen and all the associate costs. Ground rent on a car park outside the building ( not included in ground rent for almost any premises!)

Production - Sculptors, artists and thier HR, HMRC etc. Time lost when projects are scrapped or put on hold. Time waiting licensing on anything resembling anyone elses product. Legal fees. Foundry. Staff wages and HMRC - Insurance ( KILLER for manufacturing!) Materials ( A lot of them, you need to buy years ahead in some cases just to secure material - I was a planner for Corus - it's what I did!) Site costs, disposal, emmisions charges, training charges. Stock loss (it happens, doesn;t matter how perfect your system is) Haulage and logistics. Import and export ( you can't zero rate VAT on everything you export - mostly just EU and even then just site to site) Legality of your CRNs for exports. Issues with supplier materials and working methods.

Castings! Having the mold cast and machined. Tooling (expensive).


Bleh. Lots more I've missed. A drop in prce at the end means an increase of cost in everything that came before it. Are you really willing to risk the jobs of all the above just to pay a little less on the box of toy soldiers that, even if the price was reduced, you wouldn't buy nearly enough of to justify the reduction in cost?

If you have, say £40 a month to spend, you're probably only going to spend that amount. If you want more for that money, it isn't going to happen. It's too big a risk for any company to drop prices when they'd be giving you more, but only recieveing the same amount of money in return.

Too much going on in brain. If anyone requires an elaboration, please let me know.


   
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Phayse wrote:
As an employer, they have an obligation to retain staff. That requires keeping stores open....



You make some very valid points were it not undermined by the fact that GW has spent the last year or so laying staff off and reducing stores to one man operations in an effort to drastically cut costs and make up for falling sales.

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filbert wrote:
Phayse wrote:
As an employer, they have an obligation to retain staff. That requires keeping stores open....



You make some very valid points were it not undermined by the fact that GW has spent the last year or so laying staff off and reducing stores to one man operations in an effort to drastically cut costs and make up for falling sales.


I lost my job at Corus because The government gave it's bail out package to a middle of the chain entity in Jaguar. The loss of my job allowed people on the shop floor to keep theirs a little longer. Translated to GW, a one man store is still better than no store at all. You can only trim the fat in the manufacturing process so much before you have to start axeing staff. At least GW has only been reducing in the last year or so. In the manufacturing industry it's been going on for half a decade, which by comparison is amazing for a company that's trying to be a manufacturer, publiisher and retailer all at once. Most organisations are only one of those.

Rubbish, but true.

Still, I agree, it does blunt my point.

   
 
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