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Herzlos wrote:

Backfire wrote:
No, it's you who doesn't get it but let me explain. Cost changes which a company experiences do not necessarily (in fact, almost never) follow "general trend of inflation" as cost of wages, materials etc do not each slavishly follow the CPI which, I repeat, is an average.

Indeed they don't, but I can't fathom anything cost increases to a business of GW's type and scale that'd result in the kind of price rises we're seeing.

It's not increased manufacturing costs, because they've been going down steadily (and rapidly with finecast).
It's not increased staffing costs; because they've reduced staffing levels significantly and wage inflation hasn't been significant.
It's not increased business costs; because business tax rates haven't changed much.
It's not increased design costs; because they are tied to staffing costs, computerized design much be cheaper at that scale, and the publication quality has dropped noticably of late.
It's not increased licensing costs; because they own all of their IP, so they don't pay anyone any royalties.

Actually IIRC GW has stated that Finecast minis are more expensive to produce that metal ones, even though material is cheaper. Agree with most other things, though material and transportation costs have increased quite a bit iover recent few years, much faster than "average inflation", mostly as a result of oil crisis. Though it's obviously impossible to say how big slice those represent of overall GW cost structure. We do know that couple of years ago their personnel gave up their annual pay rise. What do you mean by "publication quality has dropped"? Quite the contrary if anything, except perhaps in artistic department, but I doubt that's a cost saving...

And they do have licensing (LotR), and it's quite possible the fees have increased. Though again, that is just one small slice of the pie.

Stranger83 wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Backfire wrote:
No, it's you who doesn't get it but let me explain. Cost changes which a company experiences do not necessarily (in fact, almost never) follow "general trend of inflation" as cost of wages, materials etc do not each slavishly follow the CPI which, I repeat, is an average.

Indeed they don't, but I can't fathom anything cost increases to a business of GW's type and scale that'd result in the kind of price rises we're seeing.

It's not increased manufacturing costs, because they've been going down steadily (and rapidly with finecast).
It's not increased staffing costs; because they've reduced staffing levels significantly and wage inflation hasn't been significant.
It's not increased business costs; because business tax rates haven't changed much.
It's not increased design costs; because they are tied to staffing costs, computerized design much be cheaper at that scale, and the publication quality has dropped noticably of late.
It's not increased licensing costs; because they own all of their IP, so they don't pay anyone any royalties.

The only reason I can think for price increases has nothing to do with the cost to the company to produce them, but purely due to reduced sales volumes (so the development costs per unit may have increased by a couple of pennies) and a need to keep profit level.

Whilst I agree mostly with I believe you are trying to say I will add this this:

It's not increased manufacturing costs, because they've been going down steadily (and rapidly with finecast). Except the cost of Plastic (I presume since it's a derivative of oil - unless that has changed which I've asked above but nobody has said I'm wrong) has gone up above inflation
It's not increased staffing costs; because they've reduced staffing levels significantly and wage inflation hasn't been significant. Yes, I think you are right here
It's not increased business costs; because business tax rates haven't changed much. Maybe not, but (at least in my area) things like rent and building rates for commerical property has skyrocketed (which I don;t understand considering the number of empty properties, but it's still true)
It's not increased design costs; because they are tied to staffing costs, computerized design much be cheaper at that scale, and the publication quality has dropped noticably of late. In your opinion, and the general opinion of the people on this board. Some people much prefer the new designs. Also, we don't know that GW has switched to digital sculpting - anyone who has worked at a large company will know that they adapt to new technology very slowly (how many people still use XP on their work machine?)
It's not increased licensing costs; because they own all of their IP, so they don't pay anyone any royalties. Except for the LotR stuff

I'll concede that rent and rates have probably gone up a lot, the same with electricity.

For the manufacturing costs; yes the cost of plastic may have risen beyond inflation, but it's gone from negligible to negligible. The cost of plastic moulding technology has been dropping drastically over the last 10 years.

When I said the publication quality has dropped, I mean the editing of the books, they new ones are riddled with typos and poor wording which I don't remember from before. The sculpts and art are still great, but the proofreading seems nonexistant.

Licensing, yes I didn't include The Hobbit, because I'd assumed that Hobbit licensing couldn't affect the price of WH/40K.

I can't believe resin is more expensive that metal, it's more stable and a cheaper material but with a higher labour cost, but I was under the impression the basis for the move was that resin was cheaper?

Herzlos wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

Herzlos wrote:

Backfire wrote:
No, it's you who doesn't get it but let me explain. Cost changes which a company experiences do not necessarily (in fact, almost never) follow "general trend of inflation" as cost of wages, materials etc do not each slavishly follow the CPI which, I repeat, is an average.

Indeed they don't, but I can't fathom anything cost increases to a business of GW's type and scale that'd result in the kind of price rises we're seeing.

It's not increased manufacturing costs, because they've been going down steadily (and rapidly with finecast).
It's not increased staffing costs; because they've reduced staffing levels significantly and wage inflation hasn't been significant.
It's not increased business costs; because business tax rates haven't changed much.
It's not increased design costs; because they are tied to staffing costs, computerized design much be cheaper at that scale, and the publication quality has dropped noticably of late.
It's not increased licensing costs; because they own all of their IP, so they don't pay anyone any royalties.

The only reason I can think for price increases has nothing to do with the cost to the company to produce them, but purely due to reduced sales volumes (so the development costs per unit may have increased by a couple of pennies) and a need to keep profit level.

Whilst I agree mostly with I believe you are trying to say I will add this this:

It's not increased manufacturing costs, because they've been going down steadily (and rapidly with finecast). Except the cost of Plastic (I presume since it's a derivative of oil - unless that has changed which I've asked above but nobody has said I'm wrong) has gone up above inflation
It's not increased staffing costs; because they've reduced staffing levels significantly and wage inflation hasn't been significant. Yes, I think you are right here
It's not increased business costs; because business tax rates haven't changed much. Maybe not, but (at least in my area) things like rent and building rates for commerical property has skyrocketed (which I don;t understand considering the number of empty properties, but it's still true)
It's not increased design costs; because they are tied to staffing costs, computerized design much be cheaper at that scale, and the publication quality has dropped noticably of late. In your opinion, and the general opinion of the people on this board. Some people much prefer the new designs. Also, we don't know that GW has switched to digital sculpting - anyone who has worked at a large company will know that they adapt to new technology very slowly (how many people still use XP on their work machine?)
It's not increased licensing costs; because they own all of their IP, so they don't pay anyone any royalties. Except for the LotR stuff

I'll concede that rent and rates have probably gone up a lot, the same with electricity.

For the manufacturing costs; yes the cost of plastic may have risen beyond inflation, but it's gone from negligible to negligible. The cost of plastic moulding technology has been dropping drastically over the last 10 years.

When I said the publication quality has dropped, I mean the editing of the books, they new ones are riddled with typos and poor wording which I don't remember from before.

I agree with all of that, I do think that GW are putting up prices more than their increase in costs+existing profit margin, I just wanted to point out that it probably isn't quite as simple as it appeared in your initial post.

The price of oil has a negligible effect on the cost of producing plastic miniatures.
And GW does use digital sculpting. They've shown some of their models in previews before. The one that most immediately comes to mind is the Blood Angels Dreadnought model.
And the cost of all GW products consistently goes up at an obscene rate, not just the LOTR stuff.

But even LOTR isn't overly expensive for a non-Hobbit army. It costs something like $300 for a full army in which you'll never need anything for it ever again except paint- rulebook, army book, models etc. It's still a lot, but not compared to starting 40k.

 ExNoctemNacimur wrote:
But even LOTR isn't overly expensive for a non-Hobbit army. It costs something like $300 for a full army in which you'll never need anything for it ever again except paint- rulebook, army book, models etc. It's still a lot, but not compared to starting 40k.

How much for the books though? Thats another hefty investment with the current pricing.

 Fafnir wrote:
The price of oil has a negligible effect on the cost of producing plastic miniatures.

Does it? Oil shocks of the '70s and '80s directly contributed to collapse of then very popular model kit hobby. Companies like Airfix went under when they had to hike their prices to respond enormous rise in cost of plastics and oil.

 Fafnir wrote:
The price of oil has a negligible effect on the cost of producing plastic miniatures.

Out of interest do you have any numbers on this? I would have thought (and my understanding of the science of this is limited at best) that the cost of oil would be directly related to the cost of the plastic? So if the cost of oil goes up over inflation then the cost of plastic would too. I'd be interested to know more of how it works.

 Fafnir wrote:
And GW does use digital sculpting. They've shown some of their models in previews before. The one that most immediately comes to mind is the Blood Angels Dreadnought model.

Ah, ok, this I didn't know. It makes an interesting argument for those who say digital is a better quality to traditional if they then think GW sculpts have gone down in quality now that they have switched to digital - but thats off topic so I won't take it further.

The cost of the raw plastic is nothing compared to the retail of the mini though, so a doubling in plastic cost won't have much effect on the manufacturing cost (the per unit cost of plastic is something in the regions of cents/figure, and the bulk of the manufacture cost is in the tooling).

Because if it was, we'd see the same sort of price hikes across all companies selling injection moulded plastic figures, and offhand I can't think of any other company who has had a price rise lately, let alone one as steep as GW plastics.

Stranger83 wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
The price of oil has a negligible effect on the cost of producing plastic miniatures.

Out of interest do you have any numbers on this? I would have thought (and my understanding of the science of this is limited at best) that the cost of oil would be directly related to the cost of the plastic? So if the cost of oil goes up over inflation then the cost of plastic would too. I'd be interested to know more of how it works.

As noted above, the cost of the plastic used to actually produce a miniature is almost nothing compared to what GW takes in for the sale of it.

 Fafnir wrote:
And GW does use digital sculpting. They've shown some of their models in previews before. The one that most immediately comes to mind is the Blood Angels Dreadnought model.

Ah, ok, this I didn't know. It makes an interesting argument for those who say digital is a better quality to traditional if they then think GW sculpts have gone down in quality now that they have switched to digital - but thats off topic so I won't take it further.

It's more a matter of the skills of the artist and how they apply them to a specific medium, really. Although physical sculpture and digital sculpture have very similar fundamentals (at the end of the day, you're working with the same concepts and theories), they both have very different 'feels' and constraints. While digital modelling has essentially no limitations as to what you can do, it lacks the tactile feedback of an actual physical medium, and although it has no limitations while modelling it, you have to make sure whatever you model translates over to a physical medium with physical limitations when it's finished. In addition, while digital modelling tends to be faster and more mutable (ctrl+z is the greatest thing in the universe), it requires a completely different set of technical skills, and an understanding that relies purely on visual understanding.

Ultimately, digital sculpting allows you to go further and do more than you can within physical bounds, but the artist will always do better with the medium they have a better understanding of and are more comfortable with.

Backfire wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
The price of oil has a negligible effect on the cost of producing plastic miniatures.

Does it? Oil shocks of the '70s and '80s directly contributed to collapse of then very popular model kit hobby. Companies like Airfix went under when they had to hike their prices to respond enormous rise in cost of plastics and oil.

Having worked in amongst that industry, I can say assuredly that it was very much more than price rises that were responsible - the rise in popularity of other forms of entertainment (video games mostly) and also a complete lack of development and forward movement on the part of the plastic kit producers (who had become extremely fat and lazy on the spoils of their former success) was mostly to blame.

In fact, it's interesting that you bring that up as there are some disturbing parallels between how both industries have developed - it points to their vulnerabilities if they stagnate and fail to remain competitive in terms of coaxing money from teenagers and their parents.

Herzlos wrote:
The cost of the raw plastic is nothing compared to the retail of the mini though, so a doubling in plastic cost won't have much effect on the manufacturing cost (the per unit cost of plastic is something in the regions of cents/figure, and the bulk of the manufacture cost is in the tooling).

Because if it was, we'd see the same sort of price hikes across all companies selling injection moulded plastic figures, and offhand I can't think of any other company who has had a price rise lately, let alone one as steep as GW plastics.

Fair enough, as I said I really don't know enough about the process to say one way or the other. I just presumed that there was a more direct link because (generally) when something switches to plastic from metal/resin in drops nearly half in price (maybe not so much with GW - but certainly other companies) - so I figured that was due to the cost of the thing it was made of being so much cheaper, but (and apologies if I've misunderstood) your saying the cost of the raw materials isn't that big of an impact and the real cost is design/production fees and profit.

I've actually invested in a casting kit for personal use last week, honestly its a bit of a learning curve but it saves you a lot of money on small bits that shouldn't cost insane prices such as plasma guns.

Backfire wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
The price of oil has a negligible effect on the cost of producing plastic miniatures.

Does it? Oil shocks of the '70s and '80s directly contributed to collapse of then very popular model kit hobby. Companies like Airfix went under when they had to hike their prices to respond enormous rise in cost of plastics and oil.

I would also dispute this claim. Other related hobbies, such as wooden model kits, also declined during the 70s and 80s. The latter, not being made of plastic, did not have such a price rise. I see the decline as a lack of interest in the product, rather than cost. Further, action figures boomed in the late 70s and 80s and they were made of plastic.

Stranger83 wrote:

Herzlos wrote:
The cost of the raw plastic is nothing compared to the retail of the mini though, so a doubling in plastic cost won't have much effect on the manufacturing cost (the per unit cost of plastic is something in the regions of cents/figure, and the bulk of the manufacture cost is in the tooling).

Because if it was, we'd see the same sort of price hikes across all companies selling injection moulded plastic figures, and offhand I can't think of any other company who has had a price rise lately, let alone one as steep as GW plastics.

Fair enough, as I said I really don't know enough about the process to say one way or the other. I just presumed that there was a more direct link because (generally) when something switches to plastic from metal/resin in drops nearly half in price (maybe not so much with GW - but certainly other companies) - so I figured that was due to the cost of the thing it was made of being so much cheaper, but (and apologies if I've misunderstood) your saying the cost of the raw materials isn't that big of an impact and the real cost is design/production fees and profit.

Well, kind of. Plastic is, simply, the cheapest material to actually produce in. Resin is fairly cheap. Metal miniatures are actually fairly heavily affected by the cost of their materials.

On the other hand, plastic miniatures require extremely expensive metal molds to be cast in. This gives plastic miniatures a high cost to start up production of. In order to make a return on plastic models, you need to sell a fairly high volume. That said, once you've covered the cost of the mold and machines required to produce it, you spend almost nothing on production. It's for this reason that you never see special characters cast in plastic, since it's difficult to sell them in a volume that would justify plastic production.

Resin miniatures, despite the cheap casting material, are actually very expensive to actually cast, since they have to be cast by hand, and need much more diligent quality control to ensure that there's no bubbles or blemishes *cough*finecast*cough*. Furthermore, resin molds tend to wear out over use, and must be replaced. This requires not only the replacement cost of the mold, but re-emphasizes the importance of quality control to know when to replace a mold. So despite the cheap components, and relatively cheap molds, it's a much more involving process, which tends to make it much more expensive than plastic.

I'm not entirely sure about metal, but I think it is an automated process. Similar to resin, the molds themselves are relatively cheap. That said, the material costs are far more than what you'd see for plastic or resin.

GW's finecast is a mix between plastic and resin, and it uses the same molds and a similar process as their metal models. The primary reason for this switch from metal to finecast was to save money spent on the cost of raw materials for metals, without having to incur the costs required for actual resin casting. I don't know much of anything outside of that, but that doesn't really matter anyway, since finecast is garbage to begin with.

Fafnir wrote:Resin miniatures, despite the cheap casting material, are actually very expensive to actually cast, since they have to be cast by hand, and need much more diligent quality control to ensure that there's no bubbles or blemishes *cough*finecast*cough*. Furthermore, resin molds tend to wear out over use, and must be replaced. This requires not only the replacement cost of the mold, but re-emphasizes the importance of quality control to know when to replace a mold. So despite the cheap components, and relatively cheap molds, it's a much more involving process, which tends to make it much more expensive than plastic.

Thinking about this, and what other cost-cutting measures remain to GW after already slashing store staff and development costs to a minimum, brings up some worrying possibilities for anyone currently employed in that capacity in Lenton.

It seems an awful thing to say, especially one of the things I have really admired about GW is that they have managed to keep much of their production in the developed world, specifically here in the UK. But the profit margins need to be maintained and, especially with the low QC standards of Finecast making me think that they are already stretched pretty thin and working their tits off - excuse the parlance - but where else is there for them to go to reduce costs?

Stranger83 wrote:
Again, get more stuff doesn't mean more "extras" I mean that £10 will get you more GW men than £10 will get you from PP, Corvus Belli or Wayd.

I don't see how this stance is defensable.

Let's break this down into its most basic form, with heavily rounded numbers for simplicity. We'll assume: Hobby is 1/3 Build, 1/3 Paint and 1/3 Play.

Let's assume for sake of arguement that GW models cost $4ea.
PP / Corvus Belli / Wyrd models cost $8 ea.

You need 50 models to play a GW game: $200
You need 25 models to play a PP game: $200
You need 10 models to play Infinity / Malifaux: $80

At $80 investment, you get full benefit from 1/3 build, 1/3 paint, 1/3 play for Infinity, Malifaux. Until you get to $200, you only benefit from the 1/3 build and 1/3 paint for 40k and Warmahordes, getting only 66% HOBBY VALUE. Worse if you don't paint!

Considering that in my experience the Hobby breakdown seems closer to 35% Build, 15% Paint and 50% Play... until you reach that threshold where you can play standard sized pick-up games, the system is providing poor hobby value regardless of how many men they put in the box.

From a pure modelling standpoint, GW provides dubious value as well,as there's many non-wargaming kits out there as well and the customer is no longer limited in purchasing scope.

 keezus wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:
Again, get more stuff doesn't mean more "extras" I mean that £10 will get you more GW men than £10 will get you from PP, Corvus Belli or Wayd.

I don't see how this stance is defensable.

Let's break this down into its most basic form, with heavily rounded numbers for simplicity. We'll assume: Hobby is 1/3 Build, 1/3 Paint and 1/3 Play.

Let's assume for sake of arguement that GW models cost $4ea.
PP / Corvus Belli / Wyrd models cost $8 ea.

You need 50 models to play a GW game: $200
You need 25 models to play a PP game: $200
You need 10 models to play Infinity / Malifaux: $80

At $80 investment, you get full benefit from 1/3 build, 1/3 paint, 1/3 play for Infinity, Malifaux. Until you get to $200, you only benefit from the 1/3 build and 1/3 paint for 40k and Warmahordes, getting only 66% HOBBY VALUE. Worse if you don't paint!

Considering that in my experience the Hobby breakdown seems closer to 35% Build, 15% Paint and 50% Play... until you reach that threshold where you can play standard sized pick-up games, the system is providing poor hobby value regardless of how many men they put in the box.

From a pure modelling standpoint, GW provides dubious value as well,as there's many non-wargaming kits out there as well and the customer is no longer limited in purchasing scope.

Well, I’ve never argued that GW aren’t the most expensive game so I’ll give we agree on that point.

The quality and value of GW models could also be brought into question, I know that Finecast is very poor (people tell me that now it is actually ok but my own experience from when it was “new” are so bad I’ve not felt the need to buy it again) and you might not like the way the sculpture designes are going – but all of that has nothing to do with cost, and again, the thread is are GW pricing out of the hobby – not are GW overpriced. The two are different issues.

I’m also not sure what you are basing your maths on – you show that you can get 10 infinaty models for $80 and are comparing that to 50 GW models, which doesn’t seem fair to me.

Lets break it down another way with each of the 3 areas being separate then adding them all together (and I’ve not done this before so I’ll post the results exactly as I make them and stand by whatever they are)

GAMING
Not really sure what I need for this as not played Infinaty or PP (I’d like to actually, it’s just getting some opponants) but lets work on the numbers you’ve given, which I presume are based on army size? (I’ll be using UK prices as thats what I have easy access to)

50 GW models – lets assume £20 for a pack of 10 (box sets of 10 are usually cheaper but characters are more so it’s a reasonable average) + 2 tanks at £40 each (I've purposely gone for the most expensive tanks so that people cannot complain I'm choosing GW cheap stuff) – cost of an army £180
25 PP press models – I struggle here not knowing what is needed, but I’m often told you can pick up an army for $200 which equates to – Cost of an army £125
10 Infanity – as a general rule from what I’ve seen they are £5, and since that fits quite well with your $80 for 10 lets call it that – cost of an army £50

Now, to be fair I’ll class painting and modelling as 1 and the same, as 99% of people I’ve spoken to count it the same – indeed you yourself make it 50% play and 50% modeling (To give it a name I’ve called it Cost of hobby , I’m not trying to say the game isn’t part of the hobby, just giving it a name). Remember we are looking at how much we get to "hobby" with here so we need the same number of models.

So I get 50 models to assemble and paint from GW for – cost of hobby £180
To get 50 models from PP press is £120x2 – Cost of hobby £240
To get 50 models for infinity is £80x5 – Cost of hobby £400


So adding the gaming costs to the hobby costs the dividing by 2 we get

Cost of GW £180+£180 = £360/2 = £180
Cost of PP = £240 +£120 = £360/2 = £180
Cost of Infinity = £80+£400 = £480/2 = £240

So actually, PP from a hobby persepective is the same as GW, Infinity are more expensive however.

Also your comment “my experience the Hobby breakdown seems closer to 35% Build, 15% Paint and 50% Play” highlights it exactaly, it depends on what your own experience is, I know some people who only paint and assemble so to them GW is cheaper, then I know others who are happy to play with half assembled and undercoated models – to them the others are cheaper.. Thats why I queried what the bounds of “the hobby” were before I started posting.

EDIT there is also the case of the 2 tanks that I havn't included an equavalent for from PP and infinity (because as far as I'm aware they don't make them) so I actually GW are 2 tanks up over PP in the hobby side. But for the sake of comparing same with same I'e kept them out, I added them into the "game" cost as you really do need the tanks to play a game. In fairness you could say that GW costs are £180+£100 since the tanks are not in "Hobby cost" but I didn;t do it like that at first, so I'll leave it as I posted.

The cost with the CSM was as much as I'll ever pay for models. The new Dark Angels are taking the piss. Five of the new Dark Angels terminators are £35. Five. Five plastic men. Five.

Combine this with blatant price-hiking such as each future codex being hardback & therefore more ££ and I think I'm going to be shopping on ebay from now on.

Backfire wrote:

agustin wrote:

Backfire wrote:

No I'm not. You keep repeating same mistake, assigning some meaning to "general inflation rate" which is quite irrelevant from perspective of single company which works in niche business.

So many government programs are based on CPI. So many union wage contracts. So many insurance contracts. Inflation adjusted municipal debt instruments and on and on and on. And mysteriously, average incomes across multiple nations all seem to follow CPI in their general change year over year. And when real wages fall, then again, you can use CPI as a measurement to identify it as an exceptional case and look for the factors causing it.

CPI matters to individual companies because it really does represent the change in a basket of goods and the change in purchasing power of currency. The same reason financial planning uses it to determine real returns.

In short, it works. It's relevant because it works. Pure pragmatism. Your academic objections about medians and what really is average falls by the wayside in the face of it actually functioning.

Take it up with an economist, because I don't care about your pet issues with CPI. I'm sorry you can't see why other people might use the most reliable indicator of price change across many industries.

There's your problem - "across many industries". It's irrelevant for SINGLE industry.

I can easily cite products which have seen similar or bigger price increases than GW products over same timespan.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Aerethan wrote:

 Harriticus wrote:
I like all the scientific analysis of if GW's products are overpriced or not going on in this thread.

You really just need to think to yourself, is this fairly priced? That alone answers the question.

$75 for 4 models, most of which are single piece. That is laughable. It almost begs to be recast based on the simplicity of the sculpts and their inflated prices. China would sell them for about $6ea.

Umm, excuse me but why is that any more laughable than other GW pricing? Seems pretty much in line with it. Small IC's for Fantasy or 40k armies cost $20 apiece already. Granted they're more expensive than existing LotR figures, though also new sculpts.

As mentioned, if you think GW Hobbit stuff is expensive, check out Lego licensed Hobbit stuff.

I like the part where you ignored my next post about how $75 for 4 models isn't the ludicrous part. It's $75 for THOSE 4 models. They are 25mm single piece monopose and rather static models. They are the kind of sculpts I'd expect to find in a toy aisle at Wal Mart for $15/set.

And most LEGO sets are equally priced across the board based off of a few factors, one of which is the number of mini figs included. But do we really want to start comparing GW with LEGO? You know all those lego pieces from 30 years ago? 100% still useful. Never a single issue with scale, never a single issue with compatibility. My kingdom for GW to be as wonderful as LEGO.

Also, LEGO kit price rises in the last 10 years are significantly less than GW's, on top of the quality of product rising. We can go there if you want, but it won't go well for GW.

You know, all the issues related to cost increases being tied to increases in expenses (whether labor, materials, transportation or otherwise) is pretty easy to address. If you look through the financial filings - you can find the expenses. This covers all the manufacturing, all the payroll, all the shipping and fulfillment costs - everything.

Back in 2009 the group expenses were £84,325,000 in the 2012 report, group expenses were listed at £81,975,000. Expenses have gone down - not up. Still, prices go up.

Still, the prices for models and other GW products are going up faster than inflation - many of them are going up much, much faster than inflation.

 Aerethan wrote:
And most LEGO sets are equally priced across the board based off of a few factors, one of which is the number of mini figs included. But do we really want to start comparing GW with LEGO? You know all those lego pieces from 30 years ago? 100% still useful. Never a single issue with scale, never a single issue with compatibility. My kingdom for GW to be as wonderful as LEGO..

Comparing LEGO to GW is like comparing a gold nugget to a turd.

LEGO products have value in both the model they sold as well as the pieces that make it up. Once a person is bored with the model, they can break it down and build something completely different. Some people buy LEGO kits based both on what the model is as well as the parts which are in it.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
You know, all the issues related to cost increases being tied to increases in expenses (whether labor, materials, transportation or otherwise) is pretty easy to address. If you look through the financial filings - you can find the expenses. This covers all the manufacturing, all the payroll, all the shipping and fulfillment costs - everything.

Back in 2009 the group expenses were £84,325,000 in the 2012 report, group expenses were listed at £81,975,000. Expenses have gone down - not up. Still, prices go up.

Still, the prices for models and other GW products are going up faster than inflation - many of them are going up much, much faster than inflation.

Mostly true, but you do have to factor in that they have had falling sales - falling sales = less manufacturing = less overall cost of raw materials and other manuafactoring costs (e.g. electricity, or wages if they let some staff go). The fact that their expenses as a whole have gone down doesn't neccesarilly mean that the cost manuafacturing cost per uunit produced has. I'm not saying that this accounts for everything here - I've already stated that I beleive GW put up prices over their cost increases, just pointing out it's not quite as black and white as the figures make it look.

Backfire wrote:

There's your problem - "across many industries". It's irrelevant for SINGLE industry.

Think about the purchasing power of the customers for once. They work across many industries.

Duh.

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 Sean_OBrien wrote:

Back in 2009 the group expenses were £84,325,000 in the 2012 report, group expenses were listed at £81,975,000. Expenses have gone down - not up. Still, prices go up.

Still, the prices for models and other GW products are going up faster than inflation - many of them are going up much, much faster than inflation.

This.

If you only increase prices to match your increasing expenses or to match the rate of inflation, you aren't actually increasing your prices to any level that will bring in more revenue per item sold in real terms.

GW is in a position where their customer base isn't really growing (one could make a compelling case it is shrinking) and while they have slashed expenses rather efficiently, their revenue remains a bit stagnant. So they increase prices to get the real revenue up. Higher prices might mean some people quit or buy less. So that means their sales volume drops and even with the price increases they'll have stagnant revenue again soon enough. So they do it again the next year. It's what they've been doing for 7 or 8 years now.

So to answer the question in the thread title: Yes, but not everyone at once. Each price increase will price out more and more people and reduce sales volume. GW is counting on those who remain and new recruits to buy enough at the new higher prices to keep their revenue from shrinking, and maybe get a modest growth in revenue.

There is an argument that as enough people in a local gaming community get priced out, that area will lose its critical mass. You'll no longer be able to find opponents reliably, there won't be buzz and excitement at local clubs/stores about the new releases, and sales will drop dramatically in that area. If this happens to enough areas, then and only then would you see a single price increase finally be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

I think we have a ways to go until we hit that point. I think UK, EU and US prices can reach parity with Forge World's prices before that happens. And I think that's where GW is going with their pricing policy.


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Stranger83 wrote:
Mostly true, but you do have to factor in that they have had falling sales - falling sales = less manufacturing = less overall cost of raw materials and other manuafactoring costs (e.g. electricity, or wages if they let some staff go).

Why are they having falling sales?


...

agustin wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:
Mostly true, but you do have to factor in that they have had falling sales - falling sales = less manufacturing = less overall cost of raw materials and other manuafactoring costs (e.g. electricity, or wages if they let some staff go).

Why are they having falling sales?


...

Because they are selling less stuff. I'm not sure what your asking here. I know that GW price rises mean that some people stop buying them, and at the same time changing personal circumstances will also have an effect (e.g. if your wage has been frozen and food costs go up you'll have less to spend of plastic men) but I wasn;t arguing this point. All I was saying is that is your prodcing 10% fewer things, and your cost of producing things hasn't equally fallen 10% then they cost of producing each thing has actually gone up.

What I don't understand is why GW doesn't take a hit for a year or two while the world re-gains its footing during these dire straits instead of raising prices and stuff. Mackers did it - they were selling 99 cent meals during 2008 and 2009!

Stranger83 wrote:

Because they are selling less stuff. I'm not sure what your asking here. I know that GW price rises mean that some people stop buying them, and at the same time changing personal circumstances will also have an effect (e.g. if your wage has been frozen and food costs go up you'll have less to spend of plastic men) but I wasn;t arguing this point. All I was saying is that is your prodcing 10% fewer things, and your cost of producing things hasn't equally fallen 10% then they cost of producing each thing has actually gone up.

Fair enough.

So GW prices are such that they are driving some people away? Even if their individual plastic model cost is lower than some alternatives?

Stranger83 wrote:
[

carmachu wrote:


Actually no, the game ISNT only a small part. Its what most people actually DO with the miniatures. If I wanted minis for my D&D game, GW isnt the first place I go to for, reaper, iron winds have a much better selection. Even if its just for painting and sticking on a shelf hosts of other company have better minis to do that with. For space opera games? Other manufactures have jsut as good or better, for small scall RPGing

The "hobby" is a mythical part of gaming that GW lays out, only problem is they only want to include themselves. If their going to claim hobby there is a much much bigger world out there.

Ah, but here is the rub of it are the minis you buy for D&D cheaper - on a mini per mini basis than GW? (And that will all depend on where you buy it from - but GW are not the mst expensive on a model per model basis). Now the game is a part of the hobby, I'm not saying it isn't - but this isn't "Has GW priced you out of wargaming?" It's Has GW Priced people out of the hobby?" And as such, as it was defined to me, I feel that that means we should also look at how much stuff you get to do everything that isn;t gaming with for the money.

.

The minis most people buy for D&D are cheaper Very few people buy their D&D minis from the "big 3". Reaper is by far the largest player in that market, and across the board their prices are cheaper per miniature than compable (for size and material) GW miniatures by 30-50 percent.

Also, as you were informed earlier, the Ral Partha minis that Caramachu mentions are also cheaper.

Stranger83 wrote:
[
As I've already said, if all you want is a cheap wargame why not pick Risk? My guess is because you want something that means you can pick, build, paint and convert, and GW will give you more models to do all that with for your £10 than any other "big 3" company.
.

That's a silly question. People who want a wargame (which usually is taken to be a minaitures wargame) don't pick risk because it doesn't have miniatures and terrain.

You can't compare GW only to the big 3 and then bring RISK into the equation. That intellectually dishonest.

The fact is there are many wargames outside the big 3 that you can play for cheap. My club played an entire summer of "Song of Blades and Heroes". Each of our warbands probably cost about as much as a GW codex or less. And I know for a fact that all or nearly all the figures (one player used his old GW stuff) were drastically less expensive than GW.

Stranger 83,
You've backed yourself into a corner where the only way you can win your argument that the best place to spend your £10 is GW is to ONLY compare GW price-per-miniature to two of the most expensive miniature makers out there. And those are games who don't require nearly as many miniatures as GW games.

You've formed an argument based on discounting the dozens of other miniature wargaming options whose price per-figure AND price per army are drastically cheaper than any of the "Big 3". And you've discounted them soley because they don't fit into your point of view.

Give it up man. You've LOST!

agustin wrote:

Stranger83 wrote:

Because they are selling less stuff. I'm not sure what your asking here. I know that GW price rises mean that some people stop buying them, and at the same time changing personal circumstances will also have an effect (e.g. if your wage has been frozen and food costs go up you'll have less to spend of plastic men) but I wasn;t arguing this point. All I was saying is that is your prodcing 10% fewer things, and your cost of producing things hasn't equally fallen 10% then they cost of producing each thing has actually gone up.

Fair enough.

So GW prices are such that they are driving some people away? Even if their individual plastic model cost is lower than some alternatives?

Yes, and I presume that the people who are diven away from GW for the price are also driven away from the more expensive ones too.

Stranger83 wrote:
I’m also not sure what you are basing your maths on – you show that you can get 10 infinaty models for $80 and are comparing that to 50 GW models, which doesn’t seem fair to me.

I think you are overly fixated on model/$ in a vacuum.

In my original example, you've completly ignored my argument that the number of models needed to enable standard play with other players needs to be relevant. If 40k (for example) needs on average, 50 models to hit 1500 points, and Infinity needs 10 models, it means that the Infinity player is getting full use (i.e. play) out of his/her models after $80 investment where as at that point the 40k player might have 2 troops and an HQ at that point, and twice the models of the Infinity player, but if they intend to play standard sized games - the 40k player needs to continue buying models. This is of course by game design.

Using your example of 50 models in each system:

50 models ~ 1500 points in 40k
- Standard game size: 1500-1850
- Play style(s) afforded by 1 1500 point army - one (This is by game design, as 40k units rely heavily on their own statistics to carry the day, and unit actions are limited by the targeting rules.)

50 models ~ 75 points in Warmahordes
- Standard game size: 35-50 points
- Play style(s) afforded by 1x 50 point model + 25 points in hot-swappable components - 10+ (This is by game design, as WM/H units rely heavily on unit to unit interactions and swapping out a unit creates different synergies)

50 models ~ ??? points in Infinity
- Play styles afforded by 50 models!!! is enormous as Infinity relies on MODEL TO MODEL interations and having 50 hot-swappable pieces creates hundreds of possible play styles!

Ergo - In your example, the other systems cost more money to get to the 50 point mark, but offer greater "HOBBY' value as they provide greater tactical options in game-play. This is again, by concious design by the various game system designers.