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You are right about the book costs. The high cost of the rules and codexes is a fairly new thing, though.

Two years ago the 5th rulebook cost £30 and the codexes cost £12 to £18 depending on size. GW have basically doubled the cost in two years.

This much faster than it took them to double the cost of the models, and there was plenty of pissing and moaning about the rapid acceleration of model prices before 2012.

The difference between books and models is that you can play 40K using unofficial models and there are plenty of alternatives out there. You obviously can't play 40K without the 40K rules.

The danger is that the rules become so expensive that people drop the game entirely, or just use old editions, or massively pirate the books they want.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The danger is that the rules become so expensive that people drop the game entirely, or just use old editions, or massively pirate the books they want.

That's already happening. I think the major issue is that they went to hardcovers with glossy pages for seemingly no other reason than to raise the cost. You don't get any new content, in fact they might have reduced content (moving the basic painting section to DLC), but you're paying more for visuals alone because they went to a pricier/more luxury format.

I remember the slimmed down 3rd edition codexes that were like $15 a piece, and I loved them - slim but still have information in it, and cheap enough that I recall buying every single one that came out whether I played the army or not. Even the larger ones that were more (Chaos 3.5) was like $25 or maybe $30 I can't recall which, but the larger ones had the same content that we have today.

Now? It's $50 for one book, and that's not counting their utter ridiculousness of charging the same amount for a "supplement" with two pages of rules and 48 pages of garbage, and the dataslates.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
You are right about the book costs. The high cost of the rules and codexes is a fairly new thing, though.

Two years ago the 5th rulebook cost £30 and the codexes cost £12 to £18 depending on size. GW have basically doubled the cost in two years.

This much faster than it took them to double the cost of the models, and there was plenty of pissing and moaning about the rapid acceleration of model prices before 2012.

The difference between books and models is that you can play 40K using unofficial models and there are plenty of alternatives out there. You obviously can't play 40K without the 40K rules.

The danger is that the rules become so expensive that people drop the game entirely, or just use old editions, or massively pirate the books they want.

I have not yet bought the 7th edition book. I suppose I'm probably waiting for the rules-only edition, but my interest in playing has just gone down a lot. It's not that I disapprove of the new rules; some of them are good and some are bad (although it does seem to have a lot of purchase-encouragement built into the rules themselves).

I just look back at the two-year span that my collector's edition of 6th lasted and 7th sounds like a bad investment. I can afford it easily enough, but I don't want to pay that much for a book that will only last a little while. There are no guarantees that 7th will last four years or two, GW does not explain their motives for things. The idea that 7th is a response to the mess 6th became is just as valid as the idea that 7th exists only as a vehicle to rake in money.

If like me for instance you have substantial Tau and Tyranid armies, then you are looking at £60 for the 6th edition codexes which are likely to be invalidated in a year or two, before you even think about buying and new models like the Riptide.

It is a price level that does not encourage me to "upgrade" to a new edition.

 Accolade wrote:
The idea that 7th is a response to the mess 6th became is just as valid an idea as 7th exists only to make more money.

If 7th edition fixed the "mess 6th became" that might be reasonable. Instead it just made it worse.

WayneTheGame wrote:

 Accolade wrote:
The idea that 7th is a response to the mess 6th became is just as valid an idea as 7th exists only to make more money.

If 7th edition fixed the "mess 6th became" that might be reasonable. Instead it just made it worse.

Yeah, I've just seen this argument made in the past which is why I brought it up.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If like me for instance you have substantial Tau and Tyranid armies, then you are looking at £60 for the 6th edition codexes which are likely to be invalidated in a year or two, before you even think about buying and new models like the Riptide.

It is a price level that does not encourage me to "upgrade" to a new edition.

Exactly, and you end up buying a couple of books with mostly recycled fluff and art, coupled with rule tweaking and the odd new unit. There's just not much real value there.

7th and soon fantasy 9th in the same year that the stock tanked. Spells it out right there.

Plus I figure this is all that rumblings I was hearing about "paid FAQs" in that instead of changing little things in the rulebook to clean it up, they just feth everyone with another $100 rulebook and dump the catch up FAQ on black library.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Talizvar wrote:
GW is learning slowly, they try to sell to what the "market can bear".

The iTunes ID sharing is a great legal (grayish) means of reducing cost.

The downside is that each iPad had to use that apple ID to get content. If you try and use a different one it wipes the content. Way around that is you make an Apple ID your friends all know the password to. That's Apples policy, GW cant possibly enforce any action against it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
This much faster than it took them to double the cost of the models, and there was plenty of pissing and moaning about the rapid acceleration of model prices before 2012.

The model cost increase was rather... scary.
What raised the shock-and-awe to me is to double the cost and halve the number of models, that was just too much for terms like "brazen" or "evil-sons-of-goats"...

When a friend of mine found out I was going to finally field a full IG/AM army he dug into his collection and pulled out an unopened box of 20 troopers for half the cost of the 10 man box (price tag still on it) with the same sprue they are selling today (MUCH smaller flash, almost non-existent, some old models are GREAT!). Obviously some models have greater return on investment than others...

Back in the late 80s I bought several boxes of the original Beaky plastic marines that were £10 per box of 30 figures.

They were less detailed than the current version, but had more add-on bits and weapon options. They were less "poseable" but easier to pose because the lack of detail made them easier to cut up.

Today's Tactical Box is £25 for 10 figures.

Inflation rate of about 8% per year if it had been constant.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Back in the late 80s I bought several boxes of the original Beaky plastic marines that were £10 per box of 30 figures.

They were less detailed than the current version, but had more add-on bits and weapon options. They were less "poseable" but easier to pose because the lack of detail made them easier to cut up.

Today's Tactical Box is £25 for 10 figures.

Inflation rate of about 8% per year if it had been constant.

The longer GW is around and the more dominant it becomes, the more streamlined and efficient its production processes should be. So it should be cheaper for them to produce each individual unit. Most accounts of cost don't factor that in.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Back in the late 80s I bought several boxes of the original Beaky plastic marines that were £10 per box of 30 figures.

They were less detailed than the current version, but had more add-on bits and weapon options. They were less "poseable" but easier to pose because the lack of detail made them easier to cut up.

Today's Tactical Box is £25 for 10 figures.

Inflation rate of about 8% per year if it had been constant.

So basically the equivalent price, inclusive of inflation, should be £7.70 today (77 pence a figure instead of 33 pence back in late 80's). Instead you have a price of £2.5 figure - much, much, much higher than the rate of inflation.

Since 1988 to today, inflation has only average about 3% a year (some years less, some more).

 Mysterious Pants wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Back in the late 80s I bought several boxes of the original Beaky plastic marines that were £10 per box of 30 figures.

They were less detailed than the current version, but had more add-on bits and weapon options. They were less "poseable" but easier to pose because the lack of detail made them easier to cut up.

Today's Tactical Box is £25 for 10 figures.

Inflation rate of about 8% per year if it had been constant.

The longer GW is around and the more dominant it becomes, the more streamlined and efficient its production processes should be. So it should be cheaper for them to produce each individual unit. Most accounts of cost don't factor that in.

You're assuming a healthy, competitive market where standard commercial pressures demand ongoing efficiencies, allied with increasing economies of scale.

GW is, or at least historically has been, an encumbent with such market dominance it has essentially been free to be as lazy as it wanted, and there's been no "second place" to keep them lean or honest. A Catfish company if you will. There only motivation to decrease costs would have been to Increase margin, and why bother spending time and effort doing that when you can just jack up prices for the same, or possibly greater, effect?

No, it is only recently, where there are a number of viable alternatives for gamers to turn to, and therefore divert there money from GW, where they have been under anything like a normal amount of pressure to economise, because they've bumped up against, or got very close to, their price threshold, hence the rather artless thrashing about we are witnessing with regard to store closures/changes, closure of regional admin centres etc.. They know they should be doing something about costs, but nobody really seems to have a good plan as to what!

We know their average production cost is ~23% of RRP, I which isn't horrible, and would indicate that their manufacturing isn't terribly inefficient, it is the huge cost millstone of the retail chain that is one of GW's strongest assets and greatest liabilities.

5 pounds difference in price.

Yikes. That's a stark reminder of how borked GW prices are.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Inflation rate of about 8% per year if it had been constant.

Well.. it doesn't take an abacus to figure out we have had substantial inflation over the past decade. Much more than 3%. As I've mentioned in other threads, all inflation numbers are give hedonic adjustments which cause the inflation rate to be understated. They pretty much do this in every country as a way to reduce the real value of their unfunded debt obligations since so many different benefits and contracts are tied to that economic measure.

http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpihqaitem.htm

Kilkrazy wrote:Back in the late 80s I bought several boxes of the original Beaky plastic marines that were £10 per box of 30 figures.

They were less detailed than the current version, but had more add-on bits and weapon options. They were less "poseable" but easier to pose because the lack of detail made them easier to cut up.

Today's Tactical Box is £25 for 10 figures.

Inflation rate of about 8% per year if it had been constant.

Brent crude was $18.75 per barrel at the end of 1989, it's $110 per barrel last week. 23% per annum.

Inflation on products, particularly ones that primarily have petroleum as their main constituent will not necessarily track general inflation.

I couldn't afford RTB01 Space Marines until I'd saved for a good 6 months in '88. £9.99 is allot when you're on £1 per week.

loki old fart wrote:
5 pounds difference in price.

I like that they're holding hands! :6

Ok Derek, now tie that back into something about GW and we're getting somewhere.

As usual, while the factual content of your posts is, I'm sure, spot in, the relevance is a little spotty.

The actual rate of inflation is debatable, that GW's prices have, in many cases, vastly outpaced even the highest estimates, less so. It really isn't important to the discussion at hand what that rate is.

Give it a rest.

Your continued commentary on all things Derek both wears thin and is starting to read like infatuation. I think the lady doth protest too much.

Just trying to keep the thread on track, if nobody does it, it'll all be about how we should be buying gold instead of toy soldiers within a page.

Also, if you're finding my posts repetitive, either put me on ignore, or consider the reasons why I have to repost very similar stuff.

 azreal13 wrote:
Just trying to keep the thread on track, if nobody does it, it'll all be about how we should be buying gold instead of toy soldiers within a page.

Also, if you're finding my posts repetitive, either put me on ignore, or consider the reasons why I have to repost very similar stuff.

Maybe we should, the cost might be about the same.

Well, a small home crucible, some basic home casting equipment...

Coat of paint and nobody would ever suspect.....

Derek,

We get it. GW is not going to disappear anytime soon.

It will, however, go the way of the dodo bird eventually.

Unsustainable business model = raise prices and cut costs.

Eventually no one will buy your products because they cannot afford them and you cannot cut anymore costs because you have nothing left to cut.

 azreal13 wrote:
Well, a small home crucible, some basic home casting equipment...

Coat of paint and nobody would ever suspect.....

I can see it now, gamers scouring car boot sales and rubbish dumps for old computer parts and anything with gold. Just to recycle them into warhammer figures, and get their gaming fix.

 loki old fart wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
Well, a small home crucible, some basic home casting equipment...

Coat of paint and nobody would ever suspect.....

I can see it now, gamers scouring car boot sales and rubbish dumps for old computer parts and anything with gold. Just to recycle them into warhammer figures, and get their gaming fix.

*Shrug* I am pretty sure that some of those Finecast models cost the consumer more than their weight in silver....

Heck... during the first Bones Kickstarter Reaper had some of their silver Cav masters up as pledge levels.... (And they went quick, too.)

The Auld Grump

Let us compare the cost of GW plastic figures with another company's.

GW original Beaky 1989 = £10 / 30 = 33p each.

GW modern non-Beaky 2014 = £25 / 10 = £2.50 each.

Perry Bros modern ACW 2014 = £20 / 36 = 55p each.

To be fair (oh god am i saying this?) to GW. We don't know their tooling and amount of raw materials going into the sprue.

I can assume in house tooling makes it cheaper but then again GW also tends to throw extra bits in just for the sake of raising the price.

But Perry miniatures have lots of extras as well. I'm looking at WOTR box set leftover sprues and there's still a lot of leftovers. This box costs 20GBP for 12 cavalry models.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Back in the late 80s I bought several boxes of the original Beaky plastic marines that were £10 per box of 30 figures.
.

I had the space ork box, so awesome!



I remember being bitterly disappointed when the 2nd edition boxed sets came out. 2 pieces, same sculpt .






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 heartserenade wrote:
But Perry miniatures have lots of extras as well. I'm looking at WOTR box set leftover sprues and there's still a lot of leftovers. This box costs 20GBP for 12 cavalry models.

Shush you, I have one thing that will make what you said not matter.
GAMES WORKSHOP! BEST MINIATURES ON THE PLANET.
something , something, stock market.

Not gold. Not plastic. Soon, Games Workshop miniatures will be forged entirely from narrative - a 5-man box costing £70, containing the highest-quality imaginary soldiers in the world. Why have miniatures? Why paint, assemble or convert when you can simply imagine your army?

Spend £200 on a 20-page rulebook with such riveting content as "The Emperor or something" and "Space Marines?", with extensive, concisely-written rules for describing your army to your opponent and then randomly determining the winner by seeing who rolls highest on 600d6 (all purchased from Games Workshop of course, the manufacturer of the finest narratives in the world).

Have an exalt from me. Champagne comedy that is!
I may have a new sig soon.