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.

 Kroothawk wrote:

Imposter101 wrote:Well, you can buy the Dark Vengeance rule book from eBay for (generally) under £15. This is double that price. It's also only £10 under the BRB which has double the pages and is of the same standard and quality.

 Imposter101 wrote:
But the problem is, it's only £10 more for a book of the exact same quality, and almost double the pages.

£15 more, for more than double the pages (almost triple).

conker249 wrote:Im looking at this as they are selling this book for 50$ USD and it has 168 pages. The main book is 75$ USD and has 452 pages. Quite a difference for 15$.

25$.

I noticed that an hour after I posted I've been doing math homework all day and my brain was fried.

As a 40k gamer who still doesn't have a 6th edition rulebook, I suppose I fall into the small section of players this product was designed for (Unless you want more than one rule book). So now my choices for getting the rule books are - this book $83, the BRB $124 or DV $165. If it was around $50 sure I'd pick up a copy, but they're joking at $83. Guess I'll just have to wait for the next version (no doubt it will be a wallet-sized version or some such ****).

Still not as good as the DV mini rulebook. Ebay is your friend here.

Not a good pricing move by GW.

 azreal13 wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Yeah, except that there is a thing called price leadership, where in a market with a few or one dominant player, those companies set the prices and other companies follow suit.

Which is exactly what is happening in the wargaming market. Privateer Press charge what they do, in part, because they see what GW get away with, so why should they charge less?

So you are wrong.

Sorry.

Except I already debunked this counter-argument by pointing out the situation in model kits industry, where there is no single market leader, and prices aren't anywhere as low as you describe. "Leadership" you describe only brings GW (and PP et al) bigger profits compared to highly saturated model kit industry, that's all.

 cincydooley wrote:
They did $3MM in miniatures sales, and we all know Star Wars is hella popular.

Still allegedly more popular than Warhammer Fantasy in USA
On the other hand, they don't charge stellar prices as GW does, like 50$ for a single plastic sprue or a mini-rulebook.

Regardless of whatever pprofit or other buisness ideas float about, the minibook is overpriced because you pay 2/3 the price for 1/3 the contents. The smaller size balances with the convenience aspect. So really they are charging you double.

Backfire wrote:
Except I already debunked this counter-argument by pointing out the situation in model kits industry, where there is no single market leader, and prices aren't anywhere as low as you describe. "Leadership" you describe only brings GW (and PP et al) bigger profits compared to highly saturated model kit industry, that's all.

That's more of a rebuttal than a debunking, really, since your analogy is not without flaws. For one thing, GW's standard of moulding is still pretty primitive compared to that in the proper models industry. Just look at the fine detail, GW still uses gigantic troughs for panel lines and fist-sized rivets. For all their purported sophistication, they have not let go of the crutch that's got them this far.

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Actually Backfire, plastic kits are a hobby I'm quite into and you aren't entirely correct there.

Some of the current 'market leaders' of plastic kits (in terms of quality) - lets say Dragon, Trumpeter, Hasegawa to name a few - are constantly making new kits and pushing forward. Often these are small upgrades to existing moulds but in any case they have new production involved. The competition has also lead to a much higher quality - I put together a Dragon Stug Kit a while ago. 900-odd pieces, pressed brass and aluminium parts, tiny components that fit together perfectly, down to the fraction of an mm. It was a delight to build. Researching the kit online Dragon had contracted a couple of engineers, involved in the design process, who had travelled to Europe (I think the Czech republic) to study the original blue-prints of the tank, and study an existing surviving example of the tank as it was being dragged out of a swamp(!) - anyone building this plastic kit would know that it is as close of an approximation to the real thing as possible. Yet the price of this kit, despite a sales percentage that must be a tiny fraction of any GW kit and production costs many times higher, is less than a GW Landraider. As for quality there is no comparison.

The 'decades old' moulds do still exist, but stuff like that is the reason Airfix and others first went down the toilet, and now the industry as a whole has really moved past the whole 'cm wide gap between wing and fuselage' effect that plagued it before. Perhaps coincidentally, as we are discussing GW here, because Airfix in particular had become fat and lazy while enjoying a large market share and allowed such crappy products to remain on the market. In the words of the founder of Honda, "competition breeds excellence".

As has been said by other posters, the price of the Land Raider, of this book, is 'because they can'. Which is fair enough, but it's not an indication of quality (I would put GW somewhere near middle range Revell kits at 1/3 cost), or for this book which would cost £20 if it was made by Battlefront, Corvus Belli or any other wargaming company.

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

don't bother with azreal. Anyone who's so unerringly confident about something that he doesn't actually know, but is simply pulling speculation out of his arse, is not worth argueing with.

If he thinks you get sell a widget at £100 making £20 profit, and sell the same widget at £30 while still making a profit, then let the little dear think that way.

Just because somebody is wrong on the internet, doesn't mean it's worth your sanity or spare time dealing with them.

xruslanx wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

don't bother with azreal. Anyone who's so unerringly confident about something that he doesn't actually know, but is simply pulling speculation out of his arse, is not worth argueing with.

If he thinks you get sell a widget at £100 making £20 profit, and sell the same widget at £30 while still making a profit, then let the little dear think that way.

Just because somebody is wrong on the internet, doesn't mean it's worth your sanity or spare time dealing with them.

Good lord, you're a chippy little rabbit aren't you? I read some of your post history, to see if you were always like this or if I should give you the benefit of the doubt, and honestly, the attitude that comes over in most of your posts is one that generally leads to people not using this site for long, because they mysteriously find themselves unable to log in for some reason.

Even when I went to some trouble after you simply hurled insults at me to try and explain why you're simply not grasping the concept and why you are wrong. (Let's be fair, it isn't just me who has told you that you are) You still can't at least be civil.

Lets have one last try before I put you on ignore, as I really don't like to do that unless I feel there is no hope to try and at least understand the other point of view in these sort of situations.

We are talking percentages. Percentages don't change, regardless of the number involved. So, GW's net margin, once all their bills are paid, is 17% on average. That's free money, that is the money they declare they have earned to the tax man for taxation purposes (and you can bet, because of tricky accounting, is the most pessimistic number they could legally generate)

Now, I've taken this number from your posts, and contrary to your accusations, I didn't pull the 70% out of my arse, but simply can't remember where I read it to cite the source, but hey, you seem happy to insult me rather than discuss, so we'll let that go.

70% is their gross margin, that is the amount of money they make (apparently) when they sell a product at full RRP through their stores, which is the cost of the product before tax (VAT) and nothing else. It is from this 70% that the money to pay for wages, rent, Kirby's yacht etc comes from, and when all that is paid for you're left with your 17%, on average, but it will be higher in some things and lower on others.

Now, where you seem to be falling off the edge, is you somehow think that because they sell a box of five terminators for £30, then the 5 terminators in the DV box are somehow worth £30. They are not. This is a value you have ascribed to them, their actual cost to the company, as I tried to explain previously, is likely in the range of pennies, but at most £1-2.

Now, in all likelihood, because the amount of stuff in the box relative to say, a simple vehicle kit or similar, is more expensive, if you had said that they make less money from Dark Vengeance than from £60 worth of paint or kits, then I would have agreed happily.

However, you said they make a loss, and that isn't true. They are selling, ~£15 max of product for over £50 before tax, and unless you somehow wanted to argue they are using accountancy to somehow put a much higher burden on DV percentage wise of costs, which isn't impossible, albeit unlikely, then they are still making money. If they can't at least make something on a (conservatively estimated) 300% mark up, then they are really doing something wrong somewhere in the business.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not,

You don't just start up a company that competes with warhammer. There are things known as barriers to entry. Warhammer is a huge brand and is protected by its IP. GW has had decades to get where it is with a large following and player base, production facilties, distribution, shops, playing areas etc.

The 'equivalent' products is not going to be 40k enough to use in 40k for a large number of people, any new competitor has to come up with their own IP and build their own brand up. Unlike model makers, that big player base is a huge problem for potential competitors, How many people want to buy into a game and set of models that isn't being played by anyone? I can happily buy new 40k models/books knowing that there is a surplus of people to play against. Anyone can produce a model Stug and sell it to all those who buy Stugs currently. You can't do that with Space Marines, and you can't do it with something 'equivalent' yet different and expect to sell it much less be succesful. There is more competition in model kits - there is less of a barrier to entry, there's no game that needs a player base built up, and little IP that stops you jumping in, and when you do jump in you are very very directly competing against who ever else builds a Stug.

How many model Stugs do you think the dragon stug noted in the earlier thread sold or expect to sell? How many copies of DV do you think GW sold or expect to sell. I suspect that the model kit had a higher cost of production to get the quality and design and sells to far fewer people. The unit cost must be far higher than GW yet they presumably make a profit on it, Why on earth would you think that GW can't be making a profit on DV? What is in DV that makes it so expensive compared to a 900 piece high detailed model kit? If Drgaon make a profit on their Stug then just think how big the profit margin must be on the single GW kits which are probably a lot cheaper to make per unit.

Even if someone does start competing why do you think they must sell at a lower price? They might want to in order and try and capitalise on the price complaints leveled at GW, but unlike GW their unit costs are going to be higher for something that is equivalent, until they have the volumes that GW can sell, the costs of setting up the production are going be less diluted. With high costs to get into the industry at that level they probably can't afford to sacrifice margin on the product, selling at a lower price doesn't mean you sell much more, and it certainly doesn't mean you maximise profit. This is a niche hobby, and it is fairly price inelastic. It could take years of selling cheap to build up enough momentum to start to be noticed, not really investor friendly. The other companies who are already in the business are still minnows compared to GW, that may change over time, but it has and will take a long time, and then you will probably just see that new big fish with similar high prices as GW - companies exist to maximise profit.

 Kroothawk wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:
They did $3MM in miniatures sales, and we all know Star Wars is hella popular.

Still allegedly more popular than Warhammer Fantasy in USA
On the other hand, they don't charge stellar prices as GW does, like 50$ for a single plastic sprue or a mini-rulebook.

Yeah, allegedly according to the poll that doesn't take into account any GW direct sales. But that's neither here nor there......

@Pacific - The new $60 and $90 MSRP X-Wing ships that were announces at GenCon would like to speak with you.......

Yes but FFG have to pay for middle-aged women in Ghanzou to sit and paint their stuff. If GW ever release pre-paints, then a comparison will be possible..

 azreal13 wrote:

xruslanx wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

don't bother with azreal. Anyone who's so unerringly confident about something that he doesn't actually know, but is simply pulling speculation out of his arse, is not worth argueing with.

If he thinks you get sell a widget at £100 making £20 profit, and sell the same widget at £30 while still making a profit, then let the little dear think that way.

Just because somebody is wrong on the internet, doesn't mean it's worth your sanity or spare time dealing with them.

Good lord, you're a chippy little rabbit aren't you? I read some of your post history, to see if you were always like this or if I should give you the benefit of the doubt, and honestly, the attitude that comes over in most of your posts is one that generally leads to people not using this site for long, because they mysteriously find themselves unable to log in for some reason.

Even when I went to some trouble after you simply hurled insults at me to try and explain why you're simply not grasping the concept and why you are wrong. (Let's be fair, it isn't just me who has told you that you are) You still can't at least be civil.

Lets have one last try before I put you on ignore, as I really don't like to do that unless I feel there is no hope to try and at least understand the other point of view in these sort of situations.

We are talking percentages. Percentages don't change, regardless of the number involved. So, GW's net margin, once all their bills are paid, is 17% on average. That's free money, that is the money they declare they have earned to the tax man for taxation purposes (and you can bet, because of tricky accounting, is the most pessimistic number they could legally generate)

Now, I've taken this number from your posts, and contrary to your accusations, I didn't pull the 70% out of my arse, but simply can't remember where I read it to cite the source, but hey, you seem happy to insult me rather than discuss, so we'll let that go.

70% is their gross margin, that is the amount of money they make (apparently) when they sell a product at full RRP through their stores, which is the cost of the product before tax (VAT) and nothing else. It is from this 70% that the money to pay for wages, rent, Kirby's yacht etc comes from, and when all that is paid for you're left with your 17%, on average, but it will be higher in some things and lower on others.

Now, where you seem to be falling off the edge, is you somehow think that because they sell a box of five terminators for £30, then the 5 terminators in the DV box are somehow worth £30. They are not. This is a value you have ascribed to them, their actual cost to the company, as I tried to explain previously, is likely in the range of pennies, but at most £1-2.

Now, in all likelihood, because the amount of stuff in the box relative to say, a simple vehicle kit or similar, is more expensive, if you had said that they make less money from Dark Vengeance than from £60 worth of paint or kits, then I would have agreed happily.

However, you said they make a loss, and that isn't true. They are selling, ~£15 max of product for over £50 before tax, and unless you somehow wanted to argue they are using accountancy to somehow put a much higher burden on DV percentage wise of costs, which isn't impossible, albeit unlikely, then they are still making money. If they can't at least make something on a (conservatively estimated) 300% mark up, then they are really doing something wrong somewhere in the business.

i have worked in manufacturing (specifically services) for about four years and literally everything you have just said just sounds like a BSc in armchair ceo studies. Profit margins do not scale, and you don't even know what the word 'worth means, if a set of terminators sells for £30 then it is worth £30.

I'm putting you on ignore, i only hope you get banned from threads like this in future so that you and your cronies don't pollute them with 'wah gw prices are too high and finecost sucks' dressed up as rational argument. You might want to try a website called 4chan, you'd love it.

It's ever person on my ignore list...

xruslanx wrote:Edited by AgeOfEgos

xruslanx wrote:Edited by AgeOfEgos

xruslanx wrote:don't bother with azreal. Anyone who's so unerringly confident about something that he doesn't actually know, but is simply pulling speculation out of his arse, is not worth argueing with.

xruslanx wrote:I'm putting you on ignore, i only hope you get banned from threads like this in future so that you and your cronies don't pollute them with 'wah gw prices are too high and finecost sucks' dressed up as rational argument.

I am sick of this trolling. Hope you get what you deserve for it.

 Pacific wrote:

Backfire wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

All the DV box is, is some sprues, that, if we are generous, cost £2 each to make, a book at £5 (maybe) and a few other bits and pieces, put in a box, which again would cost very little for each one.

If this was true, there should be companies selling equivalent products for fraction of the cost GW does: there are not, so you are wrong.

Even in the model kit industry, which is much more competive, where the moulds can be decades old and any design costs have been sunk years ago, nobody sells big plastic kits for the prices you describe. So, you are wrong.

Actually Backfire, plastic kits are a hobby I'm quite into and you aren't entirely correct there.
<snip>

Yes, I am. The point was not that I claimed GW kits representing best value for money within the industry (they don't), but whether the GW could sell them order-of-magnitude cheaper, as claimed by azreal13: they can't. I'm well acquinted with model kit industry myself, thank you, and whilst it's true that the best manufacturers offer better deals quality/size vs price than GW does, they are not fraction of the cost. That Dragon StuG you cited might be cheaper than a Land Raider, but it's not 90% cheaper. Even the crappy old Airfix kits aren't sold that cheap. I am actually just building an Airfix Harrier GR.3 - ugh! That kit costed about 10 euros, equivalent GW kit would have costed maybe 26 euros. So signifantly cheaper, yes, but not order-of-magnitude cheaper, and its quality is really awful compared to even old GW kits. And if Airfix could sell that cheaper, they would, since unlike wargames industry, model kits industry is highly competive.

Another point, of course, is that most model kit makers have their production in China or other cheap labour countries. GW and PP produce their kits in UK and USA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deadshot wrote:
Regardless of whatever pprofit or other buisness ideas float about, the minibook is overpriced because you pay 2/3 the price for 1/3 the contents. The smaller size balances with the convenience aspect. So really they are charging you double.

That logic doesn't fly because 1) Big rulebook is a starter product and hence qualifies for loss leader 2) book printing cost does not scale with number of pages in linear fashion.

That said, I do think that the mini-rulebook is overpriced. However, it would be unrealistic to expect it to cost 1/3 of the main rulebook.

This is the last warning for everyone in this thread. If you are using the word "You" or "your" in follow up posts within this thread---it should be in the nature of "I understand your point however I respectfully disagree" or "You make some good points but I think you would find"---rather than "You are XYZ". Any further posts/forum members within this thread that even skirt the grey line between critical debate and becoming personal will receive a breather from Dakka to reign in their emotions. If you get ready to hit Submit and are unsure if you are being a bit personal in your response, I would suggest you let the post sit on your screen for awhile and think hard before clicking.

We are discussing toy soldiers on the internet. Imagine this person is a LGS acquaintance you are just having a friendly debate with in person--and adjust as needed. Thanks.

Ryan

Backfire wrote:

The point was not that I claimed GW kits representing best value for money within the industry (they don't), but whether the GW could sell them order-of-magnitude cheaper, as claimed by azreal13: they can't. I'm well acquinted with model kit industry myself, thank you, and whilst it's true that the best manufacturers offer better deals quality/size vs price than GW does, they are not fraction of the cost. That Dragon StuG you cited might be cheaper than a Land Raider, but it's not 90% cheaper. Even the crappy old Airfix kits aren't sold that cheap. I am actually just building an Airfix Harrier GR.3 - ugh! That kit costed about 10 euros, equivalent GW kit would have costed maybe 26 euros. So signifantly cheaper, yes, but not order-of-magnitude cheaper, and its quality is really awful compared to even old GW kits. And if Airfix could sell that cheaper, they would, since unlike wargames industry, model kits industry is highly competive.

Another point, of course, is that most model kit makers have their production in China or other cheap labour countries. GW and PP produce their kits in UK and USA.

Yes think the Dragon kit was about 10% cheaper than the Landraider, although I'm guessing production costs must be somewhat higher.

Yes some of the old Airfix kits are atrocious.. thankfully, many of them have been assigned to the dustbin of modelling history these days !

Of course not. 1/3 is the price expected if the page/cost ratio was perfect. Idealy it should be 1/3 for 1/3. But of course they want to mae a profit so an extra +/- 10% is acceptable, hell even 20% is ok in my book. As for the starter product idea, well all I have to say is that that type of thing won't ever happen. To GW, the DV is the starter prpduct, so we get a small amount of reasonability in that pricing, but anything else, including the mandatory rulebooks and codexes, is fair game to charge away.


Having said that, £30 is simply askibg too much. £20, or even maybe £25 to really push it, would be my personal limit.

xruslanx wrote:

I'm putting you on ignore, i only hope you get banned from threads like this in future so that you and your cronies don't pollute them with 'wah gw prices are too high and finecost sucks' dressed up as rational argument. You might want to try a website called 4chan, you'd love it.

Favour returned, I'm sure the community at large can see I've tried to maintain a sensible discussion in favour of fairly disproportionate vitriol being thrown in my direction. If I've been a little prickly in some of my responses, I hope it can be understood why.

Edited by AgeOfEgos

Here's to my Dakka experience now being a little bit more pleasant!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Backfire wrote:


Yes, I am. The point was not that I claimed GW kits representing best value for money within the industry (they don't), but whether the GW could sell them order-of-magnitude cheaper, as claimed by azreal13: they can't. I'm well acquinted with model kit industry myself, thank you, and whilst it's true that the best manufacturers offer better deals quality/size vs price than GW does, they are not fraction of the cost. That Dragon StuG you cited might be cheaper than a Land Raider, but it's not 90% cheaper. Even the crappy old Airfix kits aren't sold that cheap. I am actually just building an Airfix Harrier GR.3 - ugh! That kit costed about 10 euros, equivalent GW kit would have costed maybe 26 euros. So signifantly cheaper, yes, but not order-of-magnitude cheaper, and its quality is really awful compared to even old GW kits. And if Airfix could sell that cheaper, they would, since unlike wargames industry, model kits industry is highly competive.

Another point, of course, is that most model kit makers have their production in China or other cheap labour countries. GW and PP produce their kits in UK and USA.

I think you've misunderstood my argument.

I was trying to demonstrate that the production costs are only one component of what determines the final selling price, and that in the case of model kits, is relatively small.

I have never tried to claim that GW could sell anything an "order of magnitude" cheaper than they do. Which is in and of itself a meaningless statement anyway, as order of magnitude could mean anything. I accept it could be taken to mean a massive difference though, but I never argued that.

I accept I'm relatively ignorant of the wider scale model market, but isn't that essentially dominated by a handful of manufacturers in a similar way? Wouldn't price leadership also apply in that industry?

If I'm wrong, then fair enough, perhaps my theory is wrong, but a similar market with a slightly more competitive (ie more large players) environment would certainly explain the slightly lower price/higher quality situation without putting any holes in my argument that the production costs are relatively low and mark up relatively high. Bear in mind that any small players will simply follow established trends in any market, so while I appreciate there are many smaller players in both wargaming and scale modelling, we are really only concerning ourselves with companies that shift significant numbers of kits (and no, please don't ask me to define "significant" I don't have the knowledge or info to even speculate in this instance!)

I'm interested to hear your response, as if you're correct, I might have to be more charitable to GW and their pants on head prices!

Many companies sell rules cheaper because their games regardless of quality ( good stuff out there), cannot really compare in therms of popularity and as such the cheaper price is something extra to get people on board.

With that said if GW was really smart they could make the life of competition a lot harder... For example, how many of us would buy this book if lets say they included a free download version with the physical purchase?

I think if a item is cool enough I can walk the extra mile and pay for it, as it stands personally I dont find this one appealing. I would rather spend 30 quid on some plastic crack and get some new shiny models to play with.

Speaking of tape measures, that skull thing from GW gotta be the most horrible, pointless, ridiculous tape measure ever

As for the discussion about profits, call down guys just open some paint pots and relax.

 Ahtman wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
Wait a second. You guys are getting all bent out of shape because GW is selling a product you don't need to buy, aren't being forced to buy, and can get the same stuff in softcover for less?

No, what they are seeing is a not well thought out, overpriced book, and saying so. As is the right of every Imperial Citizen.

Spoiler:

Quietly awaiting a visit from the Inquisition

Yes, some people are stating that in a reasonable manner, while other are seeing it as some kind of personal attack on them by GW. Some people also make it sound as if GW is litterally stealing thier money, which they are not, as this new book is not at all a necessity when it comes to being able to play the game.

I'm becoming more and more convinced that GW is having issues retaining their customers. Every introductory product seems to be priced higher and higher so that new people getting in will give GW the most money possible before they quit. If the point of this product was to provide a set of rules to existing players so they'd update to 6th, update their armies, get the new codex, get the new units, then they'd not intentionally make it a hard copy with a high price tag. They'd print up more DV books and sell them for a bit more than they go for on eBay.

As it stands, this is another product to sell to new people to get the most money from them up front as possible. If they come into a GW store and play a demo game but don't want DV (say they're not interested in Chaos or Dark Angels) then the employee can put a codex and this rulebook in their hands, try to also get them to buy a unit or a battleforce or something and then some paints and get a nice good upfront sale to a new person.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pacific wrote:
Some of the current 'market leaders' of plastic kits (in terms of quality) - lets say Dragon, Trumpeter, Hasegawa to name a few - are constantly making new kits and pushing forward. Often these are small upgrades to existing moulds but in any case they have new production involved. The competition has also lead to a much higher quality - I put together a Dragon Stug Kit a while ago. 900-odd pieces, pressed brass and aluminium parts, tiny components that fit together perfectly, down to the fraction of an mm. It was a delight to build. [...] Yet the price of this kit, despite a sales percentage that must be a tiny fraction of any GW kit and production costs many times higher, is less than a GW Landraider. As for quality there is no comparison.

There's also extreme value on the cheap kit side of the market. For my 28mm sci-fi I've been grabbing the introductory type 1/48 scale tanks from people like Academy. You can get suitable vehicles for less than $25 after shipping. Or even $15 if you're willing to buy direct from the country of origin via eBay. Tamiya has some pretty good fast build kits in the $30 range as well.

Steve steveson wrote:And this, to me, says allot about what people want and why GW ignore them. The book seems a reasonable price to me for what it is. A high quality hard back book in trade hard back size. A similar size novel on low quality paper is £20-£25. This is on high quality gloss paper with high quality print. £30 seems like the correct price for what it is.

Whether it is the correct format is another matter. For me it is. I like hard back books, but then I can see why people were wanting soft back.

See, if the book was £20-£25, I'd consider it. That's the tipping-point for me for a book like this, especially something so thin and relatively small. Another thing you need to take into consideration is that the majority of the work for this book has already been done. The content for the rules section was already generated and it looks like they scaled the pages rather than re-doing them. There was the minimum amount of editing required to get it to fit the new format and to update the rules with the FAQ, before they could send it to print, and as such they didn't have to spend very much on wages to put it out. Most of the costs would go to production only rather than months of writing, editing and play-testing.

Why I think they scaled it:-

 LadyCassandra wrote:
...and to update the rules with the FAQ, before they could send it to print...

Wait a second. Where in the product description did it mention the FAQ being included?

 Breotan wrote:

 LadyCassandra wrote:
...and to update the rules with the FAQ, before they could send it to print...

Wait a second. Where in the product description did it mention the FAQ being included?

On the Black Library version it says "This edition contains the rules sections from the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook, up to date with all current erratas and FAQ’s.
(last updated - 2nd August 2013)"

That's for the digital edition, not the print version.

Hello everyone! Saw the topic, read through all 6 pages of 'discussions'. I now try to bring this topic back on track and answer some of the questions people have about this rulebook?

Q: $50 for a Hardback rulebook? Who would buy these over the softback?
A: There are at least 1500 peole who would buy the Mini Hardback, Those willing to drop $300 on the Limited Edition Apoc Set would find their Apoc rulebook to be the same size and thickness of this Mini 40K Hardback. There are also countless people who have different perception of money than naysayers on this forum.

Q: GW must be despreate to release this mini Hardback to make money.
A: I really don't think so. I believe GW found an extra revenue steam to sell their products at premiun prices for its premium buyers. GW knows there are at least a few thousand of these people. You can prove this by totaling up all the limited edition books that they sell (rulebook/codex/army book/suppliment) multiply by their prices. Given its all sold out. The profit is close of a million dollars.

Q: People have to be CRAZY to buy this book! everyone has one already! People who don't will get one on ebay!
A: Not entirely true. This product caters to the collector side of people (limited edition collectors) that value the book itself over its contents. Why do you think bookstores still sells Hardback editions of books? Also, Those who don't already have a rulebook/new players might buy this product simply because they don't know what's out there. A lot of us forum naysayers here. Do you think we got the best deal on our car? house? mortgage? salary? textbooks? wireless plans? Lack of information works great wonders to the business world.

Q: I'll never buy this! Screw GW!
A: I'm in the same boat as you. This product is not for me, and GW pricing is indeed pricy. But.... as long as you visit dakkadakka and the right GW product comes along, you will buy. I was in the camp of never buy from GW again for 6 months until yesterday I got around to painted by first deathkight and I realize that GW does indeed make a good product. and the time it took me to model and paint the damn terminator is acturally cheap compare to what I would spend on a day out. I guess when the right produce come I would indulge in GW again, just they need to do a damn good job to win my money with the current miniture competitions in the market right now.

In the end, its your money and your hobby, spend it however you wish! just make sure its money well spent.

I am an inveterate OCD bibiophile. I love books, particularly beautiful books. I have at least one large bookshelf in every room of my home. My children have large bookshelves in each of their rooms. My coffee tables and, indeed any flat surface in my home is littered with books. I don't even play with 40K rules (ITEN and Fubar 40K FTW); but I am the target market for these kind of books. Unfortunately I haven't bought a 40K rulebook since 4th, because the precious volume didn't even make it home before the pages started falling out. I don't mind paying premiums for books, but I expect durability. I don't know how the latest Britannica size BRBs wear as I can't bring myself to purchase something that will disintegrate. I have an AD&D DM guide from 1979. It is going on 35 years of use, survived trips around the world and many happy hours of page turning/gaming. That thing is still bulletproof.