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So this is a bit complicated, but try and stay with me. In the tabletop universe, there are myriad games and systems for you to choose from. Among these are several different business models, and several different "attitudes" towards price points, what you pay for, what is free (if anything), etc.

Keeping all that in mind, let's assume you got to re-write the books on how things went, and you controlled what was and was not paid for. How would you, as the gaming community, most like to see your money spent, and what do you believe is a fair and reasonable amount to do so? Feel free to use any example you'd like, from any system.

It can be as simple a response as "I shouldn't have to pay more than $200 for a 1500 point Tau army" or "No monstrous creature should be more than $30" or "Packaged items should always give a discount" or "Discount when buying above "x" dollars", etc.

It can also be a more complicated response, along the lines of dictating how much individual items or types of items for entire model ranges should go for, how much rules\updates should be, modeling supplies, individual models, etc.

Make the assumptions that you are purchasing items you like and wish to have, as opposed to pricing things for the sake of pricing them. I.E, list the prices you think are fair for an item you wish to have AND would be willing to pay for it. If you cannot think of a price for a particular item that is both fair and affordable for you...well that's a different kind of issue

Package deals would be a start. Say i want to buy a carnifex, well how about an entire brood option that cuts off 5% maybe 10% off the price. That would allow the company to sell a box set of 3 carnifex's with reduced packaging saving them money, and increasing how much i spend at the time.

Well this is going to be an interesting thread.

 cincydooley wrote:
Well this is going to be an interesting thread.

What he said.....

I just felt like I hear a lot of "This is too much, I'm not paying that...", "I guess I'm priced out of this...", "I can't believe how much a single miniature costs...", etc.

And I'm not talking about GW specifically here, this is heard by me over the hobby as a whole. However, what I never seem to hear (beyond "IT SHUD BE CHEAPERZ RAWR!!!!") is a reasonable, and specific, outlook on what things should cost, instead of just what they shouldn't. So I'm very interested to read what others think on the subject!

/popcorn

I shouldn't have to pay for rules. Or, to phrase it in a less "butt-hurt arts major" way, I shouldn't have to pay $200 to simply buy into your game. I love to see the full rulebook free online, but I would settle for some quick-start rules for free and/or lumped in with the starter bundle. Then, I could sample your game at a small level before committing large amounts of money to it. I buy a model, I get the rules for it (If they aren't available already). I don't want to pay an extra $50 just to play with my models.

Rotary wrote:Package deals would be a start. Say i want to buy a carnifex, well how about an entire brood option that cuts off 5% maybe 10% off the price. That would allow the company to sell a box set of 3 carnifex's with reduced packaging saving them money, and increasing how much i spend at the time.

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:I shouldn't have to pay for rules. Or, to phrase it in a less "butt-hurt arts major" way, I shouldn't have to pay $200 to simply buy into your game. I love to see the full rulebook free online, but I would settle for some quick-start rules for free and/or lumped in with the starter bundle. Then, I could sample your game at a small level before committing large amounts of money to it. I buy a model, I get the rules for it (If they aren't available already). I don't want to pay an extra $50 just to play with my models.

Both of those are great ideas.

For my IG list, I want 6 new chimeras. If they would sold in 3 packs for a slight discount, I would be going after buying them a lot quicker than I am now.

Take the Apoc Formations available from FW. The Macharius armoured assault pack offers a 31 pound decrease in price, plus free shipping. That is about 48 dollars saving right now. That is another 48 dollars I can use to spend on other FW goodies, or GW goodies.

As for the second point, I think the main rules being free is a great idea also. However I don't think that will ever happen with GW, as they are big and aren't fighting to get their foot in the door. Lots of smaller games offer it now, and it is why I am willing to give them a look, maybe even a try.

Sales from time to time or bulk/group disounts and a box of unit x has all posible options in game use.

Crazy_Carnifex wrote:I shouldn't have to pay for rules. Or, to phrase it in a less "butt-hurt arts major" way, I shouldn't have to pay $200 to simply buy into your game. I love to see the full rulebook free online, but I would settle for some quick-start rules for free and/or lumped in with the starter bundle.

This.

Though I will say that we can't except GW to adopt this approach any time soon. People don't stick with 40k/WFB or LOTR long term. They tend to discover girls and beer and move on to other things. A rare few of us are lifers and even then, we may move on to other company's products. So GW needs to get as much money from each of us as they can before we quit. They need the starter products to be a higher price so the average spend per customer goes up faster than the rate of customer loss lowers things.

I stopped using the rules GW provides quite some time ago. I play lower model count games and have found my models feel far more valuable as a result.

 frozenwastes wrote:
. People don't stick with 40k/WFB or LOTR long term. .

That's a pretty curious statement.

Also, I completely disagree. The rules should absolutely cost money. They cost money to create and develop, so I see no reason why they should be free. If a company (Corvus Belli, Mantic) wants to offer them for free to try and entice more people in, then fine. But I see no reason they should be be free.

And singling out GW here is pretty Please don't try and bypass the language filter like this. Reds8n bogus. Privateer doesn't offer free rules. Nor does Warlord. Nor does Dropzone. Etc. Etc. Etc.

 cincydooley wrote:

 frozenwastes wrote:
. People don't stick with 40k/WFB or LOTR long term. .

That's a pretty curious statement.

Also, I completely disagree. The rules should absolutely cost money. They cost money to create and develop, so I see no reason why they should be free. If a company (Corvus Belli, Mantic) wants to offer them for free to try and entice more people in, then fine. But I see no reason they should be be free.

And singling out GW here is pretty Please don't try and bypass the language filter like this. Reds8n bogus. Privateer doesn't offer free rules. Nor does Warlord. Nor does Dropzone. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Blimey, this is the second time I've found myself agreeing with you in the space of a few weeks!

What I would add is that if a company views its rules as a means of selling models, they should be priced as such, to cover production costs or even at a small loss. What I think can be levelled at GW but not at the other companies you mention is they view rules as a source of revenue, rather than a means of attracting new players.

The DZC book, for instance, is about 400 pages, full colour, and I picked mine up for slightly over a tenner.

As for people not sticking with their games full time? I think there's an element of truth to that, but I think the truth is more long term gamers adopt other systems, but many will retain an interest in at least one army for a GW game (as a 25 year vet, that's the way I'm going at least)

Love the idea of this thread, here are my insights.

I wish to pay only for the models and bits I need. Not 3 in 1 kits and charge me extra for those bits I do not want/need.

I wish box kits can have up to the full size of a squad instead of minimun.

I think GW's army deal pricing is too expensive. $2.3k(CAD) for unpainted apoc table and $1.9k(CAD) for unpainted WHF army is too expensive in my view. Especially we can compare againt Mantic offerings of 2 sets of army deal for about $500(us) with equvilent model count as the $1.9k(CAD) GS WHF army.

I do believe in sales for wargaming, every other product has sales, why GW makes it an exclusion is beyond me.

I can't believe Black Library 'time limited edition' costs $69CAD, I wish these books can just go for the normal paperback price. with ebooks a few bucks cheaper.

Any wargaming army costs more then $500CAD (unpainted) I will start questioning about pricing. Unfortunitly, that's most GW offerings.

For clarification, I do think the GW rulebooks are more than I want to pay. I actually haven't purchased the Apoc book yet. My problem is that for the price of those books I can get a much much better (IMO) Imperial Armor book.

With that being said, I would happily pay for the rules only version they offer as an ebook at $32 bucks.

In fact, I think I've just discovered that my rules price threshold is about $40-$50.

You're on to something I think.

The only exception, personally, will be the HH FW book that features my favourite legion. But at least FW seem to try and make a premium product to at least partially justify the price.

That said, if they were nearer the £40 mark, I'd probably get them all.

 azreal13 wrote:
You're on to something I think.

The only exception, personally, will be the HH FW book that features my favourite legion. But at least FW seem to try and make a premium product to at least partially justify the price.

That said, if they were nearer the £40 mark, I'd probably get them all.

Yeah. They're still one of my splurges. The quality level on the FW books is just so consistently high.

I won't bother getting into a discussion about particular prices, since I have no idea about related costs for designing/making/packaging/storing/shipping products.

But some of the things I would like to see are:

- a loyalt rewards card type scheme
- a unique code to download a rules only pdf when an army/rule book is purchased
- Sales (when new models are released, their old counterparts are sold on sale)
- Consistent pricing model with comparable products (within their own company I mean)

 cincydooley wrote:

Also, I completely disagree. The rules should absolutely cost money. They cost money to create and develop, so I see no reason why they should be free. If a company (Corvus Belli, Mantic) wants to offer them for free to try and entice more people in, then fine. But I see no reason they should be be free.

The premise of this thread has nothing to do with "should" it's about personal preference for how content and miniatures are delivered. You may want to review the original post. It's about "what would you like?" and some people would like the rules to be subsidized by the miniature purchases.

And singling out GW here is pretty bogus. Privateer doesn't offer free rules. Nor does Warlord. Nor does Dropzone. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I got quick start rules in my box sets, can get them online as a PDF and each unit comes with cards with all the rules for that purchase. I ended up getting a Prime MKII rulebook for $30. I got Bolt Action from a local book store for $25. The Dropzone rules are £15. There certainly wasn't a $125+ barrier to getting started like there is with GW's games. GW deserves to be singled out for having a bad barrier to entry in terms of cost of rules.

I will defiantly be keeping a good eye on this and listen to what the community wants for pricing, though of course we have to keep things realistic !

 frozenwastes wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

Also, I completely disagree. The rules should absolutely cost money. They cost money to create and develop, so I see no reason why they should be free. If a company (Corvus Belli, Mantic) wants to offer them for free to try and entice more people in, then fine. But I see no reason they should be be free.

The premise of this thread has nothing to do with "should" it's about personal preference for how content and miniatures are delivered. You may want to review the original post. It's about "what would you like?" and some people would like the rules to be subsidized by the miniature purchases.

He's saying he thinks the rules should cost money? Where's the issue?

And singling out GW here is pretty bogus. Privateer doesn't offer free rules. Nor does Warlord. Nor does Dropzone. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I got quick start rules in my box sets, can get them online as a PDF and each unit comes with cards with all the rules for that purchase. I ended up getting a Prime MKII rulebook for $30. I got Bolt Action from a local book store for $25. The Dropzone rules are £15. There certainly wasn't a $125+ barrier to getting started like there is with GW's games. GW deserves to be singled out for having a bad barrier to entry in terms of cost of rules.

Kinda already made that point, but..meh.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm going to weigh in with something else.

Pricing should be related to the productions costs, and not to some arbitrary concept of "in game value"

Now, GW are the worst offenders I've come across for this, but as the largest player in the market, they set the trends that others follow.

Perhaps the most cynical was the large increase in price on the Storm Raven around the time 6th hit and introduced fliers. But their pricing on some of the single HQ models is excessive too. Around £8-10 for a single 30mm scale model is more than sufficient to allow for a good profit per unit, but I believe most GW models are now more in the £12-15 range?

I think the big rule books should have all of the hobby/gallery stuff removed and have an appropriate price reduction (1/3rd of the page count for 1/3rd of the price).

The reason being that if you're willing to spend £45 on a rule book you presumably already know enough about GW to not need the hobby section, and you certainly don't want to have to carry those extra pages to all of your games (I'd even go so far as to split the fluff into a separate book too, which is bundled with the rules but can stay on a shelf). If the price dropped to £30 it'd seem like a much better deal.

Not sure if this really counts as it is on the supplier's end, not the manufacture's end but Slave to Painting constantly have sales and offer free things. I got an email reminding me that they were offering 20% off on all orders over $80 last week so I jumped on and bought some stuff, when the box arrived it had a lollipop in it as well as coupons for 20% off if I spend over $75 this month or 15% off if I spend over $50.

That's how I like to spend my money

Obviously, I'd live everything to be cheaper, full stop. But that's not going to happen, so, being realistic:

Picking up on what Crazy_Carnifex said, I'd like there, especially in the case of GW, to be multiple starter sets, which contain the rules and two armies to get you going. These boxes are actually very good value but only if you're actually going to use at least half of the models in the box. If there was an Ork vs IG Box set in addition to Dark Vengeance, I'd be much happier.

They have the tooling for all their previous sets. There's no reason they couldn't fire up the machines and rerelease the nids from Battle for Macragge and the Orks from Assault on Black Reach and the marines from both if they wanted to.

What I want to see:

1) Low barriers to entry. Cheap starter sets that include everything you need to get started as quickly as possible, at a price that a new player isn't going to run screaming in terror from. Long-term prices are less of an issue if the game is worth it, but things like having to spend $500+ just to try 40k need to go away. Consider X-wing for example: ready to play right out of the box for under $50, and for $100 you can buy a two-player game with a couple extra ships for each person to choose. This makes it an easy decision to try the game and ensures plenty of new players. Compare this to the Hobbit game, which has an insanely overpriced starter set and zero players.

2) Free rules. See below for why.

3) Price proportional to quality. I'm willing to pay a lot for good models (I play DKoK!), but I expect them to be good models. The perfect example here is finecast: garbage product, highest prices. But even GW's plastic kits are guilty of this to a degree, when I look at things like the Nephilim I can't imagine being willing to buy it at half the price. Design and aesthetic quality count almost as much as production quality.

 cincydooley wrote:
Also, I completely disagree. The rules should absolutely cost money. They cost money to create and develop, so I see no reason why they should be free. If a company (Corvus Belli, Mantic) wants to offer them for free to try and entice more people in, then fine. But I see no reason they should be be free.

Rules, especially core rules, should be free for two reasons:

1) It removes a big barrier to entry for new players. Put yourself in the position of a potential new 40k player: you've got your $150 starter set, $50 worth of paints and other supplies, and now you need to spend $100+ on rulebooks. This is often the point where you put it all back and decide to spend your money on something else. Giving the rules away for free lets people try the game (potentially with proxy models) and discover that they like it before being scared away by the price tag.

2) It makes it easier to update the rules. If you're depending on selling rulebooks as part of your business plan it's a lot harder to keep everything updated. You can't just change rules and release them for free because you're interfering with your sales, you have to wait until you have a new book to sell. See FW for the perfect example, where rules are scattered all over the place and often out of date because rule updates are tied to the publishing schedule, and you get stuff like the new Apocalypse book containing a few non-Apocalypse units just because they needed updates. Compare this to MTG where all of the rules are available freely online and updates are made when updates are needed without having to worry about the sales impact. The result is that 40k's rules are a joke, while MTG's rules are clear, free of loopholes and ambiguity, and always up to date.

Here's my pie in the sky one:

All rules sets are available for free and are as complete and rigorously edited, indexed, sorted and presented as the Magic: The Gathering comprehensive rules document.

Never going to happen, but I can dream.

 Rotary wrote:
Package deals would be a start. Say i want to buy a carnifex, well how about an entire brood option that cuts off 5% maybe 10% off the price. That would allow the company to sell a box set of 3 carnifex's with reduced packaging saving them money, and increasing how much i spend at the time.

I think it's absolutely ridiculous how the Apocalypse Formations are not discounted. One would think that when buying a billion of the guys in one go, you would at least get a few free...

When I first saw it, I was thinking "there must be some deep economic reason for this that I don't understand, which tells us something about the production and sales process". Or, it's just GW

Interesting thread.

1) Broadly speaking, if I'm starting a new game, I'd like to be able to buy in for about £50. That should buy me a bare-bones core force, and a set of rules.

2) I consider around £5 for a single metal miniature to be a fair price that takes the sculptor's, castor's and rules-writer's time, effort and talent into account. I'd expect to get a discount on that for groups of models, and would think £30 for a group of ten metals about my personal limit; or £20 for five.

3) For multipart plastics or plastic resin, these prices drop. The perceived value for me is significantly less – perhaps unfairly so. Oddly, I'd consider £5 for a single plastic to be cheap, and would pay around £7.50 for one. However, I wouldn't feel comfortable paying more than £15 for a group of five larger or ten smaller models.

4) I'd look to spend around £25 – perhaps once every couple of months – for a meaningful expansion to an force; a new squad, a tank, a special new model or two.

5) I'd also like a company to offer some items at pocket-money prices. If I've got a fiver burning a hole in my pocket, I'd like to be able to buy a small model, token or item that adds to the experience (like a special dice, tape measure or token) if I pop into the shop.

6) At the top end, I wouldn't comfortably spend more than £50 in one go on a single model, regardless of what it is. To me, that's a lot of hobby money; better spent on more smaller models.

7) If a company offers bulk discounts or occasional sales, that's very attractive to me. I'll break my 'up to £50' rule and splurge what I consider a lot (up to £150) in one go. That'll be the case even for things I wouldn't otherwise buy. As an example, while I wouldn't buy a Wraithknight at RRP, if two were sold for £120, I'd probably buy them – in the hope I could recoup half the money by reselling the second.

+++
In terms of how this has affected my purchasing, I've been playing and collecting Citadel miniatures since the early 90s, and my hobby purchases tended to be random models I thought were cool, rather than with an organised army in mind. As I've got older, the amount I spend on my hobby has increased fairly steadily – I now probably spend an average of between £50–£100 a month on my hobby, when materials like paint, glue, tools etc. are taken into account.

I hadn't realised that I've found myself de facto priced out of GW recently – although I spend the same amount of money (adjusted for inflation) as I did, I now buy things second-hand or from sites like eBay. This wasn't a deliberate decision; I didn't have an angry moment or anything. I simply ended up comparing the price of buying new immediately to waiting and buying second-hand. My hobby abilities are such that I will happily spend more time stripping a bad paintjob or repairing a damaged model than pay the RRP for a new one.

However, I think that GW prices are okay; considering my thoughts at the top of my post. The starter set for 40k is pretty cheap; as I'd be likely to split the box. GW lose out on direct shop sales from me on items over £20 – which now means I don't buy my basic troops or tanks from them. I will still buy smaller things like Sentinels or Eldar artillery, as they seem fairly priced.

To cherry-pick a couple of other manufacturers/games and offer some fairly loose thoughts:
Hasslefree – great figures that I think are perfectly priced. Every so often I buy just one or two, despite having no rules with which to use them.

Privateer Press – They seem to have a nice buying curve; it's cheap to get involved (the starter set comes with a core force and rules), and I can get an expansion for a force for around £25. Rather than being a big tank, it'll be a single model; but that's (oddly) irrelevant to me – I just perceive it as a 'new thing' and don't compare.

My favourite game is Epic Armageddon. Now sadly out-of-print, this was perfect pricing for me. The rules and a basic force was exactly on the level I wanted, as were expansions.

McVey studios – another boutique studio from which I buy the occasional model. More expensive than Hasslefree, but still within my 'fair price point' for single figures – even though they have no gaming purpose.

In fact, thinking about it, having a set rules makes me more conservative about buying. If I have already invested in a game, I'll consider my purchases more carefully (though will still generally go for 'cool model!'); if not, I'll pay more as the model doesn't imply I need to spend more in the future.

+++
Will this change for me in the future? I have no idea. I have spent a lot of money on individual models for armies – much beyond what even boutique vendors would charge – but the value of those to me is that they are completely individual to me; my own art.

 Apologist wrote:


1) Broadly speaking, if I'm starting a new game, I'd like to be able to buy in for about £50. That should buy me a bare-bones core force, and a set of rules.

2) I consider around £5 for a single metal miniature to be a fair price that takes the sculptor's, castor's and rules-writer's time, effort and talent into account. I'd expect to get a discount on that for groups of models, and would think £30 for a group of ten metals about my personal limit; or £20 for five.

3) For multipart plastics or plastic resin, these prices drop. The perceived value for me is significantly less – perhaps unfairly so. Oddly, I'd consider £5 for a single plastic to be cheap, and would pay around £7.50 for one. However, I wouldn't feel comfortable paying more than £15 for a group of five larger or ten smaller models.

4) I'd look to spend around £25 – perhaps once every couple of months – for a meaningful expansion to an force; a new squad, a tank, a special new model or two.

5) I'd also like a company to offer some items at pocket-money prices. If I've got a fiver burning a hole in my pocket, I'd like to be able to buy a small model, token or item that adds to the experience (like a special dice, tape measure or token) if I pop into the shop.

6) At the top end, I wouldn't comfortably spend more than £50 in one go on a single model, regardless of what it is. To me, that's a lot of hobby money; better spent on more smaller models.

7) If a company offers bulk discounts or occasional sales, that's very attractive to me. I'll break my 'up to £50' rule and splurge what I consider a lot (up to £150) in one go. That'll be the case even for things I wouldn't otherwise buy. As an example, while I wouldn't buy a Wraithknight at RRP, if two were sold for £120, I'd probably buy them – in the hope I could recoup half the money by reselling the second.

Think you nailed most of my own thoughts here. In addition I would like slimmed-down, paperback rulebooks and codices for around the £12 mark. Fluff is nice but a lot of it is repetitious from one edition to the next, having a cheaper (legal) option for those just wanting to keep up with rules would be nice.
Of course, GW are so far speeding in the opposite direction of this train of thought.

jason1977 wrote:Sales from time to time or bulk/group disounts

I remember when QD used to come with coupons with 'buy 3 for the price of 2' or 'buy 1 get 1 half price' in them. I would love to see stores (I guess it's up to retailers these days), start doing deals like this again, like 'buy a starter box & a rulebook for system XYZ, get a blister worth max $ABC free!' or something. Guess this is a problem with economics more than actual companies though.

The other thing I like, which is starting to take off with the advent of the internet is a free 'rules only' pdf, just because it lets me try a game without sinking loads of money into 1 or more mandatory books that I may hate and never use again. As an example when I got into Bushido, I used the PDF rules on the site, when the actually rulebook came out, I actually bought it, because I liked the game and wanted to read the fluff and everything else.

Think you nailed most of my own thoughts here. In addition I would like slimmed-down, paperback rulebooks and codices for around the £12 mark. Fluff is nice but a lot of it is repetitious from one edition to the next, having a cheaper (legal) option for those just wanting to keep up with rules would be nice.
Of course, GW are so far speeding in the opposite direction of this train of thought.

In terms of rules, I like to have a nice big attractive rulebook that contains cool art, background and information. To me, the story is a huge part of why I invest in a game (over just having cool models), so I'm prepared to pay more. I like Privateer Press' approach, where you get a free pamphlet with a starter set, and a nice optional high-quality rulebook filled with art, painting tips and background.

GW's rulebooks are above the top end of what I'd happily spend, but the quality of the art and production values are great. They're an exception to the rule for me, as I'm so heavily invested in the gameworld that I'll buy pretty much any update up until the day I decide I don't want to play any more.

If GW offered the smaller rulebook separately for about £20 (exactly as they've done with the ebook version), that'd seem fair to me. I would still go for the art-packed one personally, but I understand that not everyone is that fussed.