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.

Was reading through some old White Dwarfs and thought I would see how the GW prices stack up relative to inflation between then and now.

I used this http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html to calculate what the price should be if they followed inflation.

I looked at a White Dwarf from 2001. Tau had just come out.

Hammerhead Gunship price 2001 - £20.00
Price if in line with inflation - £28.03
Actual price now - £35.00

So, £7, or 25% more than it 'should' be.

Aun'Shi, Tau Ethereal

Price 2001 - £6.00
Price if in line with inflation £8.41
Actual price now - £10.25

so, £1.84, or 22% more than it 'should' be.

Chaos Landraider

Price 2001 - £30
Price if in line with inflation - £42.04
Actual price now £46

So, £3.96, or 9% more than it should be.

Obviously this is an imperfect science as I suppose lots of other variables need to be taken into account [maybe plastic prices?], and I only looked at 3 units, but clearly GWs prices are well above inflation. However the level varies wildly depending on the unit.

Edit - just did kroot hounds, who come in at a whopping 167% above the level of inflation.

For me the biggest issue is the cost of just the rules going up. Going from soft to hard cover was a price hike that I don't think many people wanted. Books are more durable and look nice, but are harder to transport. Especially when you're bringing half the books that GW wants you to bring.

I actually looked up to see how many books I could fit into a normal game, without getting into FW. Kind of nuts when you consider it.

The usual counter argument I see to this is from people who point out that "all" you really need is the rulebook and your Codex (e.g. you don't "need" Escalation or Stronghold assault to play), and everything else is optional so they trot out the old saw "If you don't like the price, don't buy/use it"

Can't say I agree.

WayneTheGame wrote:
The usual counter argument I see to this is from people who point out that "all" you really need is the rulebook and your Codex (e.g. you don't "need" Escalation or Stronghold assault to play), and everything else is optional so they trot out the old saw "If you don't like the price, don't buy/use it"

Can't say I agree.

Yeah, that argument is basically "Well, if you buy less it doesn't cost as much!"

The more expensive codexes bother me. I used to buy codexes of armies that I was sort of interested in, just so I could look over the rules and fluff (I have most of the 5e codexes), and that's what eventually led me to make a plunge into IG (and in turn giving GW hundreds of more dollars in profits). With the cost of the hardbound codexes and supplements, it's more than 3 times as expensive as it used to be just to mount that initial effort to explore a new army, and that is preventing me from branching out right now. Of all the dumb business rules GW makes, the expensive rules are one of the worse, because it throws even more friction in the way of new players and players who want to start another army.

In the last 10 years prices have doubled, as a comparison car's have only risen 30% in price over the same time frame.

At the same time you've gone from small 30 man armies to needing 60+ guys and all the tanks and fliers to boot.

They are quickly pricing themselves out of the market, which is why other cheaper games are fast becoming more popular.

When I started playing 40k around 8 years ago a codex cost about $25-30. Now it costs around $50-60. When I think of the tyranid dex, in 4th edition I only had to buy the one dex for the army for a variety of builds and flavour. Now with 3 dataslates I have to not only pay double for a lesser quality product (talking about rules/flavour/creativity), if I want to add that variety, flavour and effectiveness in the game I have to pay for 3 additional dataslates (some requiring absurd numbers of models (5 lictors?! - really!!) - so the price to me has gone way past double for the rules for my army.

On top of that as was indicated, models have also continuously gone up in price and armies have increased in size. Have incomes doubled for most people? Not even close as the economy has had numerous hiccups.

So yes, I think for a lot of people GW is unnecessarily pricing themselves out of many people's reach.

I remember my FLGS had the codex wrapped in plastic too when they put them on the shelves. I thought I remember other people complaining online about it too, but it was a long time ago. My store ripped the plastic off all the books within a week when people refused to pay $50 for a book when they had no idea of what was inside it.

If you take a long enough time window, GW doesn't look that bad against inflation. This is also generally true, as in, the longer the time window, the better it looks. When people compare the price of 40k to the price of certain other things just since the financial crisis, it makes things looked skewed.

And it's what you compare it to that's important as well. If you compare it to CPIs, then you will ALWAYS get the wrong answer, as CPIs are the official metric by which governments lie to their people about the negative effects of their monetary policy. It turns out that when you compare 40k to the price of food, rents and energy (instead of a metric that specifically excludes those), it's not so bad.

But even after that, yes, 40k is relatively more expensive, but that's not terribly surprising either as the quality of their product has gone way, way up over time. Instead of low-detail, badly cast metal minis with rules written on toilet paper, they have 3D designed, high-detail, well made plastic models that are quite a bit bigger than they used to be, and they come with full color hardback glossy paper rulebooks. Of course you're going to pay more as quality goes up.

But threads like this are never for nuance. To the endless bile pump that I'm sure this thread will become, I'd note that "Anything is worth what its purchaser will pay". The correct price for GW products is always more or less what the price of GW products currently is. Never confuse desire with demand. It's what purchasers do pay, not what non-purchasers want, purchasers who aren't actually paying wish, or any amount of moral imperative or self-righteous outrage.

And no, GW isn't on the road to ruin or near bankruptcy. Having a single crummy quarter in financials is never a sign of that (no more than a single good quarter (which they've had recently) means that they're poised to take over BP in market cap).

The main prices I find excessive nowadays are what Australia has to pay for models, and the dire avengers.

The game has risen much higher than inflation. I don't care what all the defenders say, I have been with the game for nearly 20 years. Their prices are ludicrous. Of all the people I know that play the game, I am the ONLY one who has not been priced completely away from it- and that's just because I am more interested in painting than gaming with the latest rules, so I am perfectly fine using the plethora of material I have for 4th edition to play games. If I want to use a new vehicle, I can just use the VDR rules, which will likely get me something more balanced for the points, frankly.

With no community in my area to keep up with, I can have just as much fun with my friends at home playing with 4th edition codexes that cost me 15-20 dollars when they were new, and models that cost me half as much as now.

No amount of white knighting can defend things like Dire Avengers.

 Ailaros wrote:


But even after that, yes, 40k is relatively more expensive, but that's not terribly surprising either as the quality of their product has gone way, way up over time. Instead of low-detail, badly cast metal minis with rules written on toilet paper, they have 3D designed, high-detail, well made plastic models that are quite a bit bigger than they used to be, and they come with full color hardback glossy paper rulebooks. Of course you're going to pay more as quality goes up.

Aun Shui is exactly the same model it was in 2001. The Kroot Hounds are using the same moulds, but are now in a cheaper material [finecast]. I may well be wrong, but I also believe the Hammerhead is the same kit it always was. I purposely didn't compare something like a codex as I agree, the quality has increased.

Hammerheads and Skyrays used to be different kits. Skyrays just contained an extra sprue, but cost a bit less than the Hammerhead kit without the sprue. They started selling only they Skyray/hammerhead kit with a minor hike from what I remember.

One model that bothers me is Broadsides. It's $50 for a T4 W2 model.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
For me the biggest issue is the cost of just the rules going up. Going from soft to hard cover was a price hike that I don't think many people wanted. Books are more durable and look nice, but are harder to transport. Especially when you're bringing half the books that GW wants you to bring.

I actually looked up to see how many books I could fit into a normal game, without getting into FW. Kind of nuts when you consider it.

My thoughts exactly. I understand the reasons behind GW's recent publishing frenzy, but I can't say the same of their switch to "luxury" hardcover books. Book production is outsourced to China, I believe, so the difference in costs between b/w softcover and color hardcover is probably negligible to them, but it puts quite a tax on players, particularly new ones.

Prices are insane. I stopped collecting LotR because they gave a 33% price decrease, BUT only gave 1/2 of what you bought so basically another 12% or so INCREASE, then add the price INCREASE, so yeah I got basically priced out of LotR since I planned to buy everything. Now I just buy nothing for LotR.

As for 40K, got the itch back to play, but only buy very little.

I guess GW policy must work for them. Sell little amount at expensive prices instead of selling a lot at cheaper prices. Since GW has been doing this for over 10 years or more, they must be happy with the money coming in.

I would doubt GW are happy with the way things have been going. Up until recently their share price has done ok, on balance, but their revenue has been essentially flat for a number of years (up until Jan, when it fell noticeably for the first time, and consequently nailed their share price too.)

This, despite price increases and cost cutting, suggests a shrinking number of people buying or people buying less than ever.

While selling an exclusive product at a high price to a small customer base is a valid strategy, it is better suited to things like watches and jewellery, performance cars, high fashion etc, not to a group who's enjoyment, and purchase, of your product could well be conditional on the consumer being able to find another consumer willing to make the same sort of financial and time commitment as you.

Trying to create an elite customer base for a wargame is massively self-defeating, and frankly GW don't have the quality of product to compete in the boutique, collectible, high end market (and I wish someone would tell them.) if they continue to try, then the Warhammer playing population will become prone to the same pressures as any other limited population in nature, and all it could take is one setback to make it disappear entirely.

EDIT

A great thermometer of how expensive Warhammer has gotten would be to do the same comparison with Ragnar Blackmane - to my knowledge the oldest sculpt still in sale, from the very last days of Rogue Trader.

Well, can't talk about model prices (for all I know, the manufacturing process could be pretty pricey), but I can say that the rule books are over priced.

They may be full of pretty pictures and have a hard cover, but that still doesn't change the fact they tend to have less content than from 10 years ago. Hell, about 10% appears to be dedicated to miniature showcase, or "look at how pretty our models are! Now buy them. We'll even write a single line for each one so you know which model is which!"
Compare this to back then, where instead of 10-20 pages of that, you have painting and modelling guides.

No, I'm not bitter...ok, maybe a little.

It isn't possible to specifically comment on the costs of specific manufacturing processes, but using GW's own reported figures, their average cost (including development) is about 22p in the £1, before sales taxes etc.

I know some people like the durability of the hardcovers, but I hate the fact that putting something in hardcover is like hitting the "easy" button for making something more expensive, and "elite".

Sorry GW, I would rather spend more money to buy the ministures that you used to be the best at, rather than the rules in the most expensive format possible.

If third party sellers can afford to knock 20% off and still make enough profit to function that gives some idea of how much of the rrp is pure profit.

Defenders always bang on about mold prices etc , but gw leaves themselves plenty of profit on each unit sold.

But it's clear they are making their products more expensive than people can afford and if they don't revise their pricing policy they'll be down to 5 mill profit for the year and share holders will start bailing out of a sinking ship.

hobojebus wrote:
In the last 10 years prices have doubled, as a comparison car's have only risen 30% in price over the same time frame.

At the same time you've gone from small 30 man armies to needing 60+ guys and all the tanks and fliers to boot.

They are quickly pricing themselves out of the market, which is why other cheaper games are fast becoming more popular.

Well, I noticed a move to WarmaHordes in our gaming group. Apoc games are still popular but the number of weekly 40k or Fantasy pickup games has largely decreased.

The biggest issue is the price increase. The store owner said that there are hardly new players this time but some former players restarting the game. Not a good sight.

 wuestenfux wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
In the last 10 years prices have doubled, as a comparison car's have only risen 30% in price over the same time frame.

At the same time you've gone from small 30 man armies to needing 60+ guys and all the tanks and fliers to boot.

They are quickly pricing themselves out of the market, which is why other cheaper games are fast becoming more popular.

Well, I noticed a move to WarmaHordes in our gaming group. Apoc games are still popular but the number of weekly 40k or Fantasy pickup games has largely decreased.

The biggest issue is the price increase. The store owner said that there are hardly new players this time but some former players restarting the game. Not a good sight.

GW does not advertise and for years has relied on older players recruiting for them, but since 2005 they've shifted focus away from us older players believing little kids will spend more money than adults with jobs.

As a result us vet's have got no motivation to promote 40k or warhammer, i certainly dont advise anyone to start the hobby because of the cost.

GW has alienated their player base and is rapidly becoming a game most cant justify spending cash on, either they turn around fast or hope to get bought out.

wuestenfux wrote:Well, I noticed a move to WarmaHordes in our gaming group. The biggest issue is the price increase. The store owner said that there are hardly new players this time but some former players restarting the game. Not a good sight.

So, the funny part is that the warmahordes starter kit and dark vengeance both cost exactly the same price.

I think the problem here lies more with the players. In 40k, you can play it as a skirmish game or as a huge mega battle, while with warmahordes, you can only play it skirmish. In the case of 40k, there are a lot of players that will insist on playing 1850 or 2000+ point games, and so unless you have a large army, you might not be able to get games in. But that's players setting the bar arbitrarily high.

New players can get into 40k cheaply with a few minis so long as people are willing to play skirmish games with them.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
Yeah, that argument is basically "Well, if you buy less it doesn't cost as much!"

Strange how that's a bad argument for GW but an acceptable one for PP, Corvus Belli, Wyrd... none of them are any cheaper per figure.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 DanielBeaver wrote:
Yeah, that argument is basically "Well, if you buy less it doesn't cost as much!"

Strange how that's a bad argument for GW but an acceptable one for PP, Corvus Belli, Wyrd... none of them are any cheaper per figure.

Well for PP the games are an awful lot smaller. You rarely see more than thirty models in a Warmahordes game. WH40K is offset by the actual size of some of the games.

It definitely is. Ive got my army and costs for updating it when a new codex releases are one or two new kits and a codex. At least im not willing to spend more than that. I will have 1 book, 1 big thingy and 1 unit of 5-10 miniatures which will cost me around 150€.


In the meantime im painting my ~200 miniatures ~1500pts kings of war army that was less than 200€ (which in our club can easily be played as a ~1800-2000pts WFB Army (at least if i wanted to play that mess of a game).

 Ailaros wrote:

I think the problem here lies more with the players. In 40k, you can play it as a skirmish game or as a huge mega battle, while with warmahordes, you can only play it skirmish. In the case of 40k, there are a lot of players that will insist on playing 1850 or 2000+ point games, and so unless you have a large army, you might not be able to get games in. But that's players setting the bar arbitrarily high.

Someone's never heard about warmachines unbound format.

All I know is that I now have more disposable income as ever and I refuse to pay GW prices (even with discounts) because the value is just not there anymore. There are several other companies offering figures with compariable style, detail, etc for 20% less.

Yea... I remember when a box of Tactical Marines was under $20, and a rulebook was not $75 and Codexes didn't cost $50. Main reason I have been reluctant to get back into having multiple armies again. The prices of the models have driven out almost all 40K players in my state.

In the case of 40k, there are a lot of players that will insist on playing 1850 or 2000+ point games, and so unless you have a large army, you might not be able to get games in. But that's players setting the bar arbitrarily high.

That's also a result of aggressive marketing on behalf of GW. You don't often hear of them supporting the idea of <2000pt games, and that's after cutting the points values of the majority of the game by 50% since 2nd edition. They don't see any profit in players doing anything less than Apocolypse-level games, and they want every army to have multiple large models.

500-1000pt games are very fun to play, but you won't see GW ever supporting that idea.

 Jayden63 wrote:
All I know is that I now have more disposable income as ever and I refuse to pay GW prices (even with discounts) because the value is just not there anymore. There are several other companies offering figures with compariable style, detail, etc for 20% less.

That's ironically true. When I played 40k last I was in high school with no income other than a nice savings and I would buy a ton of Fantasy and 40k stuff, like bits for several armies. Now I'm a working professional with disposable income, and the prices are just at that point where I question even wasting the money on it.