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 azreal13 wrote:
You're fixing on the subject matter (which I'll admit I chose because of its faint whiff of ridiculousness)

When you're talking about books, the subject matter and the context are everything. That's why you can buy trashy romantic thrillers for 50p a go but the next Stephen King will set you back a tenner. You're right, it's ridiculous to pretend the disney princess annual 2013 is "almost identical" to this book. Because of the page count, colour, and hard back? Really? You're proud of that thing you said, are you?

Kindly explain why it costs substantially less to manufacture than anything GW produce and you win. I will concede GW will be ordering smaller runs in all likelihood, but to the order of 10x the cost? Doubt it.

So your point is that cost to manufacture should be the sole determinant of price when it comes to these products? That's a tough sell.

...see what I did there

alphaecho wrote:

 fishy bob wrote:
I'd like to get the opinion of someone who's actually had their army put in this book. Anyone on Dakka?

Diabolical Al who created the thread thinks a friend's army might be in it. I'm interested as to whether there was any communication.

I had a word. GW asked in advance, which was very decent IMO. Obviously he is well chuffed to be featured

to be fair though the product is lazy and overpriced it must be pretty cool to have your work featured in this way and if they asked first then thats great

 DiabolicAl wrote:

alphaecho wrote:

 fishy bob wrote:
I'd like to get the opinion of someone who's actually had their army put in this book. Anyone on Dakka?

Diabolical Al who created the thread thinks a friend's army might be in it. I'm interested as to whether there was any communication.

I had a word. GW asked in advance, which was very decent IMO. Obviously he is well chuffed to be featured

to be fair though the product is lazy and overpriced it must be pretty cool to have your work featured in this way and if they asked first then thats great

Yes, exactly. Which brings us back to this.

 Bull0 wrote:
Nobody's going to force you to buy it!

I don't see the issue. I'm not at all hesitant to criticize GW (heck, it's part of my sig!) but I don't see an issue with a compilation army picture book. I'd personally *NEVER* buy it as I don't see any need for it or even want for it at $20 let alone the price mentioned but if people want to buy it then they can. The only time I'd have a problem with that kind of release would be if it negatively affected the regular releases and significantly delayed useful book releases. With the breakneck speed codex books have been coming out, that's obviously not currently an issue.

 Bull0 wrote:
So your point is that cost to manufacture should be the sole determinant of price when it comes to these products? That's a tough sell.

...see what I did there

Not really.

My point was to illustrate exactly how overpriced this gak is, by comparing a broadly analogous item and its equivalent selling price. All the final RRP really says is that either GW think their customers are stupid enough to pay it, or worse yet, they really are.

 azreal13 wrote:

 Bull0 wrote:
So your point is that cost to manufacture should be the sole determinant of price when it comes to these products? That's a tough sell.

...see what I did there

Not really.

My point was to illustrate exactly how overpriced this gak is, by comparing a broadly analogous item and its equivalent selling price. All the final RRP really says is that either GW think their customers are stupid enough to pay it, or worse yet, they really are.

Cool, so this is the point where I say "Explain to me how the final manufacturing cost should be the sole determinant in final retail price, and you win", right? That's how the game is played? You know, since the physicality of the object is the only thing they have in common and all.

The fact that the disney princess annual 2013 is cheap does nothing to illustrate how overpriced this book is, since they're completely different products. I could show you all kinds of books that are more expensive, and, since I'd pick hardback, full-colour books, the fact that they cost more makes the armies of renown book a bargain. But I wouldn't do that, because it would be totally moronic and doesn't make any fething sense whatsoever. Geddit?

If you don't get this, I really don't know what to say.

Go on, set me another one of your little challenges, I like those, they say more than a counter-argument ever could. Maybe I need to find you two identical snowflakes or you win

For once I don't see the outrage in this. It's just a book with pretty pictures, you can see such things at bookstores and many people buy books that contain no rules for 40k :p

GW wants to sell a book with pictures? Go for it.. buy it or dont, do you buy every book every company prints? So what if they're using other peoples armies to promote it.. you sent in your pictures to white dwarf to be NOTICED not make money.

Odds are WD makes more money than this book will so its not much different.

I actually SUPPORT these kind of books as I had no problems spending money on the skaven heraldry book, since it was interesting. I DO have problems with the 40k supplements as most people buy them for the extra rules, which is crazy expensive for the amount of rules you get.

I don't like that aspect of GW books, but fluff books that contain no rules? Sounds fine to me.

All we're arguing about now is that it's expensive, which is ridiculous because a) we all agree it's expensive anyway and b) GW's products are always expensive, so who gives a gak?

No, you've blatantly missed the point (which is so unlike you)

GW are charging £30 for this because they think they can, because some people are dumb enough to pay that tag for it to pay off presumably. It isn't because their book is inherently more valuable, it is because people (like yourself apparently) ascribe more value to it for some spurious reason which allows them to.

How is a full colour hard back book not comparable to another full colour hardback book? I just don't see how you're making the distinction? I'm sure there will be variations in manufacturing costs which would have an impact in final RRP, with regard to page count, format, size of print run etc, but the final determinant of price is, as you say, or at least clumsily allude to, what the market will take.

I guess some of my irritation should be directed at the muppets who will actually pay for this, because they are rewarding the production of a lazy object with an inflated price tag in the only way GW will care about, but then that would be like blaming the abused rather than the abuser I guess!




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bull0 wrote:
All we're arguing about now is that it's expensive, which is ridiculous because a) we all agree it's expensive anyway and b) GW's products are always expensive, so who gives a gak?

Agreed, my original post was just to illustrate exactly how expensive it really was, but then you started throwing insults about and we ended up here.

I guess if your issue is you don't see where I'm making the distinction I can refer you to my earlier post in which I said content and context are everything when it comes to books and log off

Guess you missed that one ("how unlike you")

*edit* Looking for times I insulted you... can't find any. Do enlighten me. And I didn't miss your point at all - your point was that since the disney book is less than £3, that makes the GW book even more overpriced. I said that was garbage, since the two products don't really compare at all. I didn't miss your point, I disagreed with it. World of difference.

*edit* check it out, hardback books sorted by price high to low. That makes the armies of renown book cheap. Tell me all about how this isn't really stupid:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_st?bbn=266239&qid=1383067619&rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_n_binding_browse-bin%3A492563011&sort=-price

Guys, chill out....

Seems like an alright idea, sell a book with pretty pictures of minis, someone's bound to buy it.

 PurpleSquig wrote:
Guys, chill out....

 Bull0 wrote:
I guess if your issue is you don't see where I'm making the distinction I can refer you to my earlier post in which I said content and context are everything when it comes to books and log off

Guess you missed that one ("how unlike you")

*edit* Looking for times I insulted you... can't find any. Do enlighten me. And I didn't miss your point at all - your point was that since the disney book is less than £3, that makes the GW book even more overpriced. I said that was garbage, since the two products don't really compare at all. I didn't miss your point, I disagreed with it. World of difference.

*edit* check it out, hardback books sorted by price high to low. That makes the armies of renown book cheap. Tell me all about how this isn't really stupid:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_st?bbn=266239&qid=1383067619&rh=n%3A266239%2Cp_n_binding_browse-bin%3A492563011&sort=-price

No, you can't find the post where you called me a troll, because a mod deleted it. What a splendid attempt at misdirection.

I'm still unclear as to how you feel comparing a full colour, hardback book to another full colour, hardback book, is "garbage?" Other than the consumer ascribing a higher value to one over the other, for entirely personal and tenuous reasons, one isn't inherently more valuable than the other. Just like my signed copy of Legend by David Gemmell isn't worth inherently more now he's died, it is still just a tatty paperback I bought second hand, but if I wanted, I could absolutely sell it for more money now than when he was alive, because other people have ascribed greater value to it.

There will be books that require a greater amount of investment in time and resources to produce in the first place, and they can justify a higher price. But "content" here is moot, as, once again, my kids book probably required greater effort to generate the content for as a discrete item than this book, and "context" is a bit of a red herring when my assertion is that hardback books are artificially overvalued (both by GW in this case and the consumers who buy them) and "context" is totally irrelevant when determining how much the book will cost to manufacture.

I'm not trying to misdirect you, I forgot about calling your post a troll post and don't consider it an insult (note you said insults plural, where are the others? Is accusing me of "misdirection" also an insult? Are your little challenges not also misdirection? What a minefield this is).

And yes, I'm calling comparing one hardback book to another on price grounds garbage precisely because the value of a book is a subjective judgement of the content, the author, the context, the market, etc. I still maintain that it's garbage; it's self-evidently garbage. You're valueing books like they're crude oil or something, it's totally absurd.

There's nothing absurd about highlighting that an item's intrinsic value can be massively outpaced by its ascribed value, I suspect you've spent a lot of money on books and having this pointed out to you just makes you uncomfortable!

"This book is way overpriced! This disney princesses book is only three quid, and it's also colour, hardback, and has the same number of pages!"

"It's clearly not that simple though and honestly I think that's pretty silly"

"Oh, it isn't silly at all, actually I was making the point that they're charging more for it than it's worth as kindling and man-hours because people are prepared to pay more than that"

OK, cool. Good point, Professor. We can stop talking now.

 azreal13 wrote:
I guess some of my irritation should be directed at the muppets who will actually pay for this, because they are rewarding the production of a lazy object with an inflated price tag in the only way GW will care about, but then that would be like blaming the abused rather than the abuser I guess!

Well, if I buy it it'll be because the book is filled with beautiful armies. The production might or might not be "lazy" on GW's part, but certainly not "lazy" on the part of the people who actually produced the armies.

I still love this hobby because of the ideas, inspiration and passion that people who participate in it continue to breathe into it. I love what people do with the possibilities. That's why I'm here on Dakka, actually.

Telling me I'm a "muppet" if I buy it.... whatever.

 Bull0 wrote:
"This book is way overpriced! This disney princesses book is only three quid, and it's also colour, hardback, and has the same number of pages!"

"It's clearly not that simple though and honestly I think that's pretty silly"

"Oh, it isn't silly at all, actually I was making the point that they're charging more for it than it's worth as kindling and man-hours because people are prepared to pay more than that"

OK, cool. Good point, Professor. We can stop talking now.

Oh, I wish that could be true, but I'm afraid while you continue your pseudo-intellectual "I'm not a white knight, I just happen to get involved in any discussion on the more..Workshop....ish end of the spectrum because I want to bring balance to the force" bullgak, I am going to feel obliged to argue the opposite.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 tinfoil wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
I guess some of my irritation should be directed at the muppets who will actually pay for this, because they are rewarding the production of a lazy object with an inflated price tag in the only way GW will care about, but then that would be like blaming the abused rather than the abuser I guess!

Well, if I buy it it'll be because the book is filled with beautiful armies. The production might or might not be "lazy" on GW's part, but certainly not "lazy" on the part of the people who actually produced the armies.

I still love this hobby because of the ideas, inspiration and passion that people who participate in it continue to breathe into it. I love what people do with the possibilities. That's why I'm here on Dakka, actually.

Telling me I'm a "muppet" if I buy it.... whatever.

Well, buying a book of images that have in the main already been featured in print, when there is a whole world of pretty pictures out there for free, or when the same money could go a long way to buying a whole years worth of those very same things alongside a bunch of other stuff isn't the most sophisticated buying decision I could think of, no.

You say you love the hobby, yet buying the book will support the company who have done more to stifle creativity in favour of doing things in the most financially beneficial (to them) manner than any other.

The fact that there are people still producing fantastic minis and armies is in spite of GW, not because of them.

 azreal13 wrote:
...I am going to feel obliged to argue the opposite.

Actually, it's apparent that you are arguing just for the sake of arguing. You're also so partisan in your anti-GW rantings that you calling anyone a white knight has very little meaning beyond name calling.

I pretty much only play GW games and X-Wing, and board and card games. That's why I only really talk about "articles on the GW end of the spectrum". Since registering here I've followed a couple of other things with some interest but I'm only just getting my feet wet really - it's a big world and it's pretty exciting. Until I know more I wouldn't want to go running my mouth off about games I don't know.

I've even said several times in this thread that I think this book is too expensive. So if I'm a "white knight", I'm gak at it.

What does this have to do with what we were talking about, again? Oh right, nothing.

 Breotan wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
...I am going to feel obliged to argue the opposite.

Actually, it's apparent that you are arguing just for the sake of arguing. You're also so partisan in your anti-GW rantings that you calling anyone a white knight has very little meaning beyond name calling.

In the contrary, I'm quite happy to praise GW for anything good they do, in fact, check the Codex: Inquisition thread, I think that's a cool idea, and I've said so, this very day!

The reason this "argument" has dragged on is because I made a flippant comparison between GW's book prices and kids books of surprisingly similar production values selling for a tenth of a price.

Bull0 then accused me of being a troll/trolling, and while those posts have now gone to the big moderator bin in the sky, the fallout of that is what you see before you.

I think the fallout of "Disney princess book for £3 lol" is what you see before you, but it's horses for courses.

 Bull0 wrote:
I think the fallout of "Disney princess book for £3 lol" is what you see before you, but it's horses for courses.

Cool story bro.

Good comeback.

 Bull0 wrote:
Good comeback.

Well I've got to try and stem the tide somehow, clearly trying to engage in reasoned discussion is beyond you at this point.

Since we're totally off-topic now and just dealing with you unleashing personal attacks against me I'm probably going to do the sensible thing and walk away, actually. Toodles

I'll go one better, and actually request a mod lock this.

You accuse me of trolling, call me "Professor" in an overtly sarcastic manner, and I am the one attacking you?

Well, if that's the case, you invaded Poland.