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But if companies manufacturing historical kits , that have to research and deliver higher levels of detail in their kits than companies producing fictional vehicle gaming pieces.

This is precisely the point.
As parts and sprue numbers increase the cost of making the moulds starts to rise.
Yet some kits are devised to allow for future releases of different variants of the subject,
Extra sprues are required to allow for this.

Yet Airfix have just released a 1/48 Seafire XVII with two sets of wings so you can have the option of a wing fold for under £20
http://www.aeroscale.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=6473

Hillariously, in comparison, the new Dark Eldar fighter seems to have been conciously constrained to two sprues as a design choice. While its sleek lines are a testament to Jess' design aesthetic... the kit is also mostly devoid of fine detail.

H.B.M.C. wrote:My point wasn't to justify GW's costs (of course they're overpriced, especially when you compare it to other kits like people have). My point was more that the level of detail required on scale model kits isn't the same as the level of detail required on wargaming miniatures.

One thing to realize here is that fantasy/sci-fi wargamers/hobbyists and historical wargamers/hobbyists are different beasts entirely. What is acceptable at the fantasy/sci-fi level would be considered plain or laughable at the historical level. Historical models are expected to be a near exact replica of what actually existed at one time on the battlefield. GW can get away with some of its silly sculpts like 4 exhaust pipes at the four corners of a rhino simply because rhinos never existed but if Tamiya or another company like it were to produce something equally ludicrous, they'd be out of business because noone would buy it.

As for relevancy to gaming, no these kits are generally not used a great deal for tabletop gaming; however, there's nothing to stop someone from doing so (like I plan to at some point in the future). The level of detail on the models is just a bonus. My point in comparing the two models on the first page was simply to illustrate that GW is not "The provider of the best models in the world" as they purport themselves to be when compared with other companies that have been doing it just as long and just as well or better at a lower price-point.

GW charges what they do because they can; it's basic market economics. The day that they are unable to show a profit, even though they keep raising prices as sales figures decline, will be the day things change. It is a publicly traded company after all...

If Tamiya produced a Sci-fi range of AFV's and were marketed as such then there would be no real complaint.
There is a cross over with modellers, with all forums I have seen having a Sci-fi/fantasy section.

There might be a bit of puzzlement over the four engined Rhino, but this issue cropped up on another discussion on Dakka. 40k stuff crops up in such forums without derision to be fair.

MrMerlin wrote:Nobody would paint their models to a high standard because theyd have so many.

And this doesn't happen now? ; )

Honestly, if the high prices have an effect, it is hard to see it at my local gamestore. Week after week the tables are full of GW. It blows my mind the number of *new* armies I see - all new Tyranids, all new Orks, APOC sized games, FW mixed in for good measure - all newly purchased sometimes and awaiting their paint.

I have quite an army, but it has been assembled over time. Newstyle and Oldstyle Orks ally to create my WAAGGHH.

While I don't have a lot to spend, I also don't have lots of time to paint and play. So even if I have to pay some $$$ for the new models I want, it will be a while before I've gotten my full enjoyment from them (assemble, paint, play, master).

Solorg wrote:

MrMerlin wrote:Nobody would paint their models to a high standard because theyd have so many.

And this doesn't happen now? ; )

Precisely!
GW keeps raising their prices, and less and less people paint their armies.

The trend is excactly the opposite of what the OP suggests.

Ok I think you have convinced me that I was a little wrong about my idea. I said that, while being ridiculusly high, GWs prices may have one good effekt, this effect being that the hobby is taken a bit more seriously. It might be right up to some degree, but not really. I read my op again and i also agree it sound a bit snobby, though this wasn't my intention. I totally agree your idear of many new people joining the hobby if the prices are lowered, and i agreed to this idea before. I just thought that MAYBE there was ONE good effect about the high cost. Im saying this because some of you seemed to have thought i wanted it to stay that way and that i liked the things as they were. Hell, no.

So here you go, I admit that i was talking rubbish, please forgive me.

ph34r wrote:More people being in the hobby doesn't make it worse, it makes it better. .

Not if it is those poor kids, that dress funny and don't have nice things like I do.

I like to hang out with people that take the finer things in life (like toy soldiers) seriously like I do...

Hey, c'mon he already admitted he was wrong.

I think it's understandable that things seem to be going a bit pear-shaped for GW fans and he clutched at straws trying to find a silver lining in all this.

MrMerlin wrote:Ok I think you have convinced me that I was a little wrong about my idea. I said that, while being ridiculusly high, GWs prices may have one good effekt, this effect being that the hobby is taken a bit more seriously. It might be right up to some degree, but not really. I read my op again and i also agree it sound a bit snobby, though this wasn't my intention. I totally agree your idear of many new people joining the hobby if the prices are lowered, and i agreed to this idea before. I just thought that MAYBE there was ONE good effect about the high cost. Im saying this because some of you seemed to have thought i wanted it to stay that way and that i liked the things as they were. Hell, no.

So here you go, I admit that i was talking rubbish, please forgive me.

This is the part of the movie where we all lift you on our shoulders and carry you out of the Games Workshop store (giving Mr. Wells and Mr. Kirby a swift kick in the crotch on our way out) as the happy music plays.

Rejoice!

From Blue Table Painting:

"Since Games Workshop is a public company you can access their yearly reports online. They give a pretty clear view of what their costs and profits are if you want to wade through it all. Here is their latest filing for the fiscal year ending May 2010:
http://investor.games-workshop.com/downloads/results/results2010/2009-10_FinalFullYearReport.pdf#page=23

From the Highlights, they made 125.6 million pounds in gross sales with a pre-tax profit of 16.1 million pounds. This gives a margin of 12.72%. Further down it lists taxes paid, etc. Their corporate tax rate was 6.5% which on page 25 was a bit over 1 million pounds.

The total profit was 15 million pounds so their margin was 11.8% so for every $100 they sell, they keep as profit $11.80. Then of course they need to give the share holders their dividends. On page 32 the dividends paid were 7.7 million pounds meaning the company added 7.3 million pounds to their balance sheet. They gave $6.03 out of every $100 to their shareholders and... drum roll...

After all is said and done for the fiscal year that ended in May of 2010, they kept $5.77 for every $100 they sold."

IN SHORT: 12% profit, 6% after the shareholder's bite.

Like most people, I hate GW's price hikes. I do believe there would be more annoying kids playing the game if they lowered their prices.

I'm not trying to defend them, just trying to go some way to explain it. The truth is, GW couldn't lower their prices, even by 20%, even if they wanted to. It's a very unstable way to run a business.

I don't let "Teh Poor" game on my yacht.

MightyGodzilla wrote:I don't let "Teh Poor" game on my yacht.

Filthy heathens! It is getting so that you can't even enjoy a dignified game of 40K and a glass of fine wine without some street urchin stinking up the place...

Has anyone seen my monocle and top hat?

Since when has wargaming become a high class golf club in Georgia?
In all seriousness the price hikes have not affected parents shelling out cash to snotty brats to "like them" so that the kid can buy armies and act like brats at gaming stores.

It's affected me because I can't afford to buy as much to continue my hobby and still maintain my responsibilities.

CT GAMER wrote:

MightyGodzilla wrote:I don't let "Teh Poor" game on my yacht.

Filthy heathens! It is getting so that you can't even enjoy a dignified game of 40K and a glass of fine wine without some street urchin stinking up the place...

Has anyone seen my monocle and top hat?

Looks leik yer still wearin ur monocle boss, it'z wired into yer 'ead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Serious financial report to talking like an ork, that's how I roll XD.

MrMerlin wrote:
So here you go, I admit that i was talking rubbish, please forgive me.

You have my respect sir!

I would like to make a counter-argument that high prices improve the player base. You see, there are two groups of people who cannot afford to pay high prices for toys. One are the little kids that a lot of people seem to think are the plague and need to be kept out of the game at all costs.

Another group are married adults with kids. You know, mature, grown-up people who have a lot of things to spend money on and therefore need to be more careful about what they spend on luxury items.

So you have a guy whose entertainment budget for the month may be, say $100. What is he going to spend it on? A $40 box of five dudesmen who will make up about 5% of the pointcost of an army? Or a $40 box of ten dudesmen who will make up about 20% of a roughly equivalent army for a different system?

Since you have dined on humble pie in public it would be churlish not to


just don't do it again!

Respect to the OP, its never easy to admit you were wrong, or to back down from an arguement / discussion.

I understand where you were coming from... just... yeah. Cudos to you for withdrawing the delivery of said view.

Big Mek Snudrukk wrote:IN SHORT: 12% profit, 6% after the shareholder's bite.

Like most people, I hate GW's price hikes. I do believe there would be more annoying kids playing the game if they lowered their prices.

I'm not trying to defend them, just trying to go some way to explain it. The truth is, GW couldn't lower their prices, even by 20%, even if they wanted to. It's a very unstable way to run a business.

They have created this situation for themselves by selling a small amount of expensive product, rather than a mass amount of a cheaper product. They have to make constant price increases because less people are buying stuff all the time. For all their steady profits over recent years sales are down and they are closing shops and the like to tighten up spending. But the higher prices are, the harder it is to sell stuff, the more they have to increase prices to maintain their old profits, and then less sales are made.

Currently this strategy is working, but eventually it won't because there's a limit on what people will spend. You can't charge £100 for a box of Marines and then only sell one a week. So somewhere they will hit the point where rising prices can't compensate for lower sales. And then they really will be in trouble, because they can't reverse this situation. A 10% price reduction won't make it all okay again, make people flood back to them and fill the coffers with profit. They'd need totally reorganise and slash prices to make a real difference and that just isn't going to happen, the whole way they are set up means they can't manufacture the stock cheaply or quick enough to do that and all the time they have to maintain this colossal number of shops in city centres.

They don't appear to have the profits in hand to invest big changes to the company so are stuck on the course they have set which seems one doomed to oblivion IMO, though it might be a good number of years yet. The suspicion is though, the Kirby and a few others don't care, because they have done quite well out of it in recent years. Don't forget Kirby personally owns a good proportion of the shares that that 7.7 million pounds paid out to...

http://theback40k.blogspot.com/2011/04/help-kirby-is-eating-our-hobby.html

According to that, 6%. So he just made £460,000 on those dividends the company paid out.

Yes, I agree, especially with the current economic climate, we're teetering on the knife edge between recovery and another recession, so prices will skyrocket again. GW will put their prices up, no one will buy and the whole company will collapse. They really need to change the way they're going, which is next to impossible.

Inclusion is better than exclusion, IMHO.

Big Mek Snudrukk wrote:Yes, I agree, especially with the current economic climate, we're teetering on the knife edge between recovery and another recession, so prices will skyrocket again. GW will put their prices up, no one will buy and the whole company will collapse. They really need to change the way they're going, which is next to impossible.

Even though they are badly run, the IP is good. They have a good brand, that's what will save them, because they do very well from licensing. They won't go to waste if they go to the wall, but if a big company bought them out they would probably change everything, GW would totally change but Warhammer would still exist. Hasbro might be interested, but will probably wait until the company is on its knees so they can buy it cheap like Wizards did with TSR.

I would imagine that a big reason that profit number is so low is because the operate a large number of retail stores that probably mostly lose money. Also they don't sell nearly as much of their product at retail since so many buy from a flgs that probably paid 50-60% retail. This of course is part of the decision to operate all those game stores in the first place. Think about all the flgs that go under and its amazing to think how costly a subsidy those stores must be to a corporate bottom line.

kronk wrote:Inclusion is better than exclusion, IMHO.

QFT

Man, maybe if Hasbro were to buy GW, we'd see Space Hulk on the shelves again...

The_Stormrider wrote: I would imagine that a big reason that profit number is so low is because the operate a large number of retail stores that probably mostly lose money. Also they don't sell nearly as much of their product at retail since so many buy from a flgs that probably paid 50-60% retail. This of course is part of the decision to operate all those game stores in the first place. Think about all the flgs that go under and its amazing to think how costly a subsidy those stores must be to a corporate bottom line.

I think that even though GW has been reporting 'cost savings' every year in their financials, they still have a lot of bloat, which strangely also acts as cushion. If GW were to really start to suffer financially, they could just close stores, thereby saving on all that overhead, staff salaries (such as they are in one man shops), etc.

Unfortunately, their pricing scheme has seen continued reductions in units sold every year, while maintaining the status quo. I'm at the point where I plan to just buy FW stuff, since its not that much more expensive than the Plastic and Finecast. Fortunately I am also married with a small kid and don't have to really budget for my hobbies.

I am, however, branching off into historicals and other games while continuing to pick up odds and ends from GW.

There are also enough companies that produce decent product that can draw some sci-fi fans - studio mcvey, the dust stuff (assuming it hangs around), maxmini, etc. The main thing that GW has going for it is the IP, as mentioned, and that keeps a lot of people around. There isnt anything like it (and I hated the constant timeline advancement in Battletech, that ruined the game for me).

I'm off to go complain on various model train forums about the $500 HO scale engines I saw advertised, even though I don't buy model trains anymore ;-)

lol
That is a seriously expensive pastime
Not so much choo choo trains as chew chew, as it chows down on the wallet!

I only made it to page 2..

Then saw the OP is only 16 ?

Its nice to have disposable income at that age.

Try spending $700-900 on an army one day when your married/house payment-improvements/car payment/Kids.

You are GW's Target audience. and it shows.

darkPrince010 wrote:Man, maybe if Hasbro were to buy GW, we'd see Space Hulk on the shelves again...

If Hasbro were making Warhammer we'd be seeing action figures and pre-painted models.