Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Games Workshop prices have gone from expensive to completely ridiculous. Where I live, two years ago, I decided to start an eldar army. Dire Avengerscost 55 dollars AU for 10, codex eldar cost 41 dollars. Now having come back to "wargamming" after a hiatus of a year. I find that you now get 5 direavengers for 55 dollars and the new codex cost 83 dollars. 200% more! The only explanation is excessive greed.

Plus they pull all the paint advice from their website and no longer include painting guides in there starter sets, so you can go fork out for "How to paint citadel miniatures". (Not that I really need any of that stuff, just annoys me).

ATM I'm really looking at flames of war as people say the game is good, and the newer miniatures, like those that come with open fire, look nice. It's a lot cheaper then GW and they offer alot of painting and gaming advice for free.

I simply must not live in one of these areas of declining player bases. Our Local GW has 18 people signed up for an In store Fantasy Slow grow league. And yes, I said in store.

Yeah its exspensive but idk i feel i get my moneys worth, even more so in the past years of price increase ive started painting so much more. the time i spend assembling converting and painting each model i barely have a few units finished after years of collecting. I mainly play with my wife and best friend so its all just for fun. I have considered other games but i find you mainly live to your means, ill just spend the money i save on someother crap, god forbid i go back to spending on unmentionables.

 cincydooley wrote:
I simply must not live in one of these areas of declining player bases.

Me either. Which is really annoying.

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:
I've been a staunch GW supporter for a long time, but...

Yeah. The prices are finally getting too high even for me. I also agree with a lot of accusations that they've fallen out of touch with their player base and are generally behaving like bullies.

I don't hate GW. They've got a right to pursue a profit via whatever means they deem most effective. But, my spending on 40k has decreased this year, as I just can't justify shelling out these kinds of prices any more.

The fact that they didn't do an annual price increase does suggest that they finally reached the push-back point with their prices. So we'll see how things shape up.

All it points to is that with each codex release they increase the cost of comparably sized kits...they haven't stopped raising prices, they've just gotten more sneaky about it.

I have the disposable income for warhammer, but i haven't spent any money on it in months because it's just too expensive for what you get.

 Riquende wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
I simply must not live in one of these areas of declining player bases.

Me either. Which is really annoying.

To be fair, you live in England near the heart of the beast.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

kronk wrote:

 PsychoticStorm wrote:

You mean that the entire wargames genre is not for somebody if they feel GW is not worth it?

Show me where I said to quit the hobby completely.

My response is directed completely at someone that doesn't feel GW meets their needs for the price, since that was the original poster's complaint or observation.

Applying that to all table top gaming is your mistake, not mine.

kronk wrote:If you don't feel that you're getting a good "return" on your investment with GW miniatures, then I encourage you to stop. Like any hobby, 40k takes time to build and paint your army and terrain, time to find a game and play with friends or strangers, and money to buy the paint and miniatures and terrain and so on.

If you rarely play, and you don't enjoy painting, and you have sticker shock over some/most/all of the models, then it's probably not the hobby for you.

Find something else. There are plenty of hobbies in the sea. Fishing, surfing, wearing dark sunglasses while you walk along clothing optional beaches, etc...

I am quite positive the hobby is miniature wargames and not GW or WH40k, suggesting somebody to stop and leave the hobby, then referring to other non miniature related activities, you are directly suggesting the reader to quite the miniatures wargame hobby and start something else.

You could phrase it otherwise, suggesting other miniature wargame related companies, but no, you chose to have quit the hobby and suggest non miniature related activities.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 cincydooley wrote:
Okay. I'm done arguing semantics and how we define best. Cheers.

its not semantics, its a point of view, if you do not like it, fine.

See, your problem is arguing with a white, er, red knight like CD. I've read enough of his posts to see he's a GW fanboi through and through, and there is no changing his mind. I'm like you: I find X-Wing to be far better, both in locations sold, gameplay, and people's interest. I have friends who won't touch 40k, but clamor for X-Wing. GW is a dying company in my old neck of the woods, and X-Wing is growing expansively. It will overtake 40k monetarily in the near future. Some people just won't see it, because they are convinced they can't ever be wrong.

See, your problem is that you either missed or ignored all the previous posts in this thread where I pointed out some of the problems GW has and the fact that I've spent considerably less on GW in the past two years.

And of "all the posts [of mine]" that you read you must have also missed or ignored all of the ones waxing poetic about other game systems.

But you know, ignorant blanket statements and lazily calling people "fanbois" is fun and easy.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

2: GW's revenues have undoubtedly flattened. But they're still easily outperforming the leisure sector.

Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. In a rapidly growing market, stagnation (at best - rising prioces, slashing costs, increasing alternate revenue streams, and flat revenue is a pretty good indication of declining unit sales in what matters: table-top miniature wargaming) is a serious problem, and absolutely equates to a sharp decline in market share. If the pie gets bigger, but your piece doesn't get bigger, your share of the pie is smaller.

weeble1000 wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

2: GW's revenues have undoubtedly flattened. But they're still easily outperforming the leisure sector.

Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. .

Great news!

Where are the stats?

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

2: GW's revenues have undoubtedly flattened. But they're still easily outperforming the leisure sector.

Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. .

Great news!

Where are the stats?

The massive increase in the number of wargames and wargame companies in that last few years would indicate that. You know there are no cohesive stats on this as there is not enough public companies to warrant interest in this matter for statistical analysis. The unorganized nature of FLGS's and the large number of small miniature companies makes it even harder to obtain accurate information.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

2: GW's revenues have undoubtedly flattened. But they're still easily outperforming the leisure sector.

Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. .

Great news!

Where are the stats?

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25373.html

Not strong enough stats to bet the farm on, but good enough to indicate a disparity in growth between GW and the niche as a whole.

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:

Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:

2: GW's revenues have undoubtedly flattened. But they're still easily outperforming the leisure sector.

Even if GW is outperforming the "leisure" sector, it isn't outperforming growth in the table-top miniatures wargaming market, which is growing like gangbusters, at least in the US. .

Great news!

Where are the stats?

There you go.

cincydooley wrote:I simply must not live in one of these areas of declining player bases. Our Local GW has 18 people signed up for an In store Fantasy Slow grow league. And yes, I said in store.

That's fantastic. If the approach continues to work, then the manager won't hit a sales dry spell and either be replaced or encouraged by the higher ups to clear the vets and not allow gaming in the store anymore. Either way, I'd highly recommend swapping contact info with the other players so that if the store suddenly changes to no in-store gaming, you can form a club or something.

I just found out yesterday that the last non-GW store in the area that carries their stuff has switched over to special order and pre-order only. They'll bring in what people pre-order and place a GW order when the special orders hit their minimum order values, but are not stocking any product beyond what they have (and when people shirk on their special/pre-orders). A friend of mine also goes to their weekly 40k night and there were 2 other people and the rest of the tables were being used by MTG players doing a draft. The owner started an organized MTG event on the same day because no one was coming for 40k.

Anyone gaming at a local GW store should definitely exchange contact info because policies can change with little notice and if you have a local store that runs a 40k night, show up and do your buying then and there or it'll get replaced with something else.

weeble1000 wrote:If the pie gets bigger, but your piece doesn't get bigger, your share of the pie is smaller.

But this can be easily dismissed by a demand for evidence that is unreasonably high. And then hand waved away with a "you don't have exact numbers for every other company so it must be that GW is doing great!" Just like how closing the Memphis production centre was spun into being "great news." And I'm sure when GW Canada was closed and the Canadian market was handed over to Memphis some years back, that was "great news" as well. After all, if you have to close a national division, it can never be because sales aren't good enough to justify it. And Memphis' production winded down because sales are great!

 frozenwastes wrote:

cincydooley wrote:I simply must not live in one of these areas of declining player bases. Our Local GW has 18 people signed up for an In store Fantasy Slow grow league. And yes, I said in store.

That's fantastic. If the approach continues to work, then the manager won't hit a sales dry spell and either be replaced or encouraged by the higher ups to clear the vets and not allow gaming in the store anymore. Either way, I'd highly recommend swapping contact info with the other players so that if the store suddenly changes to no in-store gaming, you can form a club or something.

!

Yeah, I don't have any real interest In that simply because I already play at another non-GW store closer to my home. My understanding is that there are a ton of "newish" players that only play at the GW (or at least I presume as I've never seen them at the 3 other LGSs I frequent). Honestly, I'm just beginning to think that Cincinnati is just a booming Area for GW where it's very clear other areas in the US aren't.

Like I said, we have 3 LGS and a GW, all of which have regular 40k/Fantasy leagues and relatively large player bases. There are some Warmahordes leagues at two of the LGS as well, and there are regular X-Wing events at 2 of the LGSs. But as for other smaller TTGs like Infinity or Malifaux or DZC, they're primarily played at one LGS and typically by me and a few other dudes that are miniature whores and try out a little of everything.

Again, it's pretty clear that Cincy MUST be an outlier when the market is drying up everywhere else.

There are lots of places across America were 40k is still going very, very strong. 10+ years ago though, it was everywhere. And all across Canada as well. It was so prevalent that getting into other games was a total gamble that they'd not catch on and go bankrupt. Since then, you have all sorts of competition both explode onto the scene and, more importantly, stick around.

 frozenwastes wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:If the pie gets bigger, but your piece doesn't get bigger, your share of the pie is smaller.

But this can be easily dismissed by a demand for evidence that is unreasonably high. And then hand waved away with a "you don't have exact numbers for every other company so it must be that GW is doing great!" Just like how closing the Memphis production centre was spun into being "great news." And I'm sure when GW Canada was closed and the Canadian market was handed over to Memphis some years back, that was "great news" as well. After all, if you have to close a national division, it can never be because sales aren't good enough to justify it. And Memphis' production winded down because sales are great!

I do not want to nitpick or make you think I am trying to simply "hand wave this away".

Memphis was supposedly not a huge production center, despite having been set up as one. They supposedly had molds for 'popular items' whatever that means.
Closing it was not a good thing by any stretch of the imagination, but I would not pretend that Memphis was responsible for the product that you bought in Canada or I bought here in the US.

If the US and UK had too pay AU prices, they would be out of business. Simple as that

 ThouShallNotHeal wrote:
If the US and UK had too pay AU prices, they would be out of business. Simple as that

You say that, but, while I find their prices hard to stomach a lot of the time, I think you're wrong. While many, many people would snort derisively and go elsewhere, I think enough people would continue to buy that they would keep ticking over at least.

For example, I was chatting to one of the junior players at our club (younger than 20) and mentioned how ridiculous I found the prices. His attitude was he was spending 'spare' money on his models, so it really didn't matter. My attempts to explain how if prices were more reasonable he could get more for his money, or spend some of his 'spare' money on other things as he wouldn't need to spend it all on models to get what he wanted, simply failed to register.

As open mouthed and disbelieving as this exchange left me, I really don't think his attitude was all that unusual, and as long as there are little Johnnys spending their parents money, or teens living at home with jobs and no overhead, there will still be a hardcore of fans who will continue to buy.

You're right, I missworded what I meant. I meant that over time more and more people would drift away (As the likelyhood of a price rise in the future is a reasonable assumption)

 ThouShallNotHeal wrote:
You're right, I missworded what I meant. I meant that over time more and more people would drift away (As the likelyhood of a price rise in the future is a reasonable assumption)

Yes. The Australian pricing in relation to the exchange is ridiculous. Everyone agrees on this.

I believe we are beyond the point of questioning if GW is waning or waxing (closing stores, hobbit movies didn't bump like LotR, ...).

Another data point, here in the DC (war gaming is strong partly due to the DoD being everywhere here) Warmachine wasn't that big of a deal 5 years ago and now it is easily #2 and in some case #1 in the FLGS.

I've seen the trend and I think there are a lot of people like the OP. And, frankly I'm worried. 10 years ago, I used to be able to walk into one of the 10 stores in my area and see almost everybody playing 40k. This simply isn't the case anymore.

I'd hate to have my 40k minis be in the same freq of play class as say my AT-43 stuff, which is basement game group and brought out for a lark or a walk down memory lane.

People here talk about stock price and earnings and the like which is great and fine (I'm guessing there are less than 100 CEOs of 10's of million $ companies that post here). The fact is, the "other" games didn't have much of a viable presence years ago and they do now.

If that trend continues, it may come to pass that your 40k minis will get played once a year or so.

I want them to go bust, so they can get bought and things can have a chance to get better.

I'm selling up now because I don't particularly like 6th edition after a year of it. When I'm going off to watch Indiana Jones on TV during my opponents turn, how much fun am I having?

I'm thinking of going back to painting things I like only this time I'll sell them on, which on balance will keep my spend low overall per model whilst improving my painting skills, which is why I started 40K. Prices certainly don't favour building an army.

And then perhaps as that slowly starts happening they'll realize it's either change the pricing or go out of business (Not trying too bash GW here)

No.. As Howard Treesong once said, the ultimate objective is just to have a handful of tactical marine boxes selling for $5 million each

Yeah, Just the box . The sprues are an optional extra.

I guess I am just a sucker, they get loads of my money and its still only a small chunk of the amounts my friends spend on their past times such as golf and boozing.
I can see why people would be put off these prices and I always assumed that they would get far more business if they just dropped the prices even just a tad.

At the risk of sounding like a stuck record, its not about prices, there are many hobbies that require a greater amount of money on a regular basis, its about value.

I have no desire to see prices dropped especially, perhaps on one or two kits that are blatantly priced for effectiveness rather than cost to manufacture (cough fliers cough) but I think just over twenty quid for a Tactical Squad isn't unreasonable. What I find massively unreasonable is situations like that which happened with the Dire Avengers, or previously existed with Wraithguard, where you have to buy multiple, high cost, models in order to field a unit.

I have a unit of 5 Rackham Tigers Of Dirz, which have been OOP for quite some time, which I use as counts-as Slaaneshi Fiends, these 5 cost less to acquire than a minimum size unit of 3 would cost from GW, and almost half what a unit of 5 would cost.

It's this sort of pants in head pricing, which bears no relation to production cost, and appears to be based entirely on a philosophy of "I wonder if we can get away with this much!" that I find so distasteful and off putting.

20 quid is 62 aud o_e..

Wow. Nice find if you were able to get the Tigers for cheaper! Those are great models. Tigers 1 & 2 retailed for 19.99 I believe but routinely fetch like, $40 on the market now. I think Tiger 3 is a bit more common.