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Citation needed on every claim you just made about GW's pricing. Do you actually have any proof that they can go lower or are you just making assumptions without knowing what the actual costs look like?

Damn Micro-transactions... there's a reason I don't play video games, now it's creeping into my miniature game.
They make a new codex, keep out a lot of stuff so they can make another one to sell me later, it was alright in 3rd ed when everything was far, far cheaper but...Jesus 50 dollars for a book?!
It's a book! It's not a classic novel, it's a codex that will be useless in a few years...
Mental.
Only army I am interested in is Harlequins and I am not even sure they'll be a proper army or not (because if not I am not playing again).

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Citation needed on every claim you just made about GW's pricing. Do you actually have any proof that they can go lower or are you just making assumptions without knowing what the actual costs look like?

Very quick research and comparisons show that yes, they could, and that much of their cost is in valuing the rules themselves...or just that they think of themselves as a super luxury, high end product.

I couldn't find a detailed industry analysis of what a publisher pays for a hardcover book in massive runs, but I found several smaller companies geared towards self-publishing. I found this one: here, that shows for a large run (1000 copies) of a ~100 page book in hardcover but black and white text would be ~$10 per unit. You'll notice that the prices drop off considerably the larger the run; it'd be fair to assume the large scale GW prints at that the cost they pay is significantly lower.

So on $50USD codex, they're paying less than $10 (I'd assume in $5 range for the amount they publish) in material costs. The rest of the costs are from the design studio (well, and the rest of company, every product they sell will have to cover some amount of the overhead), which seems like a lot.

However, we have other companies offering similar products; same page count, hard cover, colour, has fluff, rules, and other fun tidbits. Take this, the source book for a third of all the models in the game. Its 144 pages, has rules for a full third of the factions and their models, has fluff, art, pictures, rules, and other handy bits. Its a full half the cost of an equivalent GW codex. I can't think of a reason why Spartan Games can afford to sell a similar product for half the cost of GW's product, unless of course GW is significantly overcharging because they can.

Similarly, for the cost of a GW codex ($50-60), you can get four times the content from RPG books, like most of FFG's roleplaying games. These books are also similar; hard cover, full colour, contain rules and fluff, art, and other useful bits for their respective games. The difference, however, is that the RPG books have way more everything for the same cost.

Finally, let's take a walk down memory lane to a mere 5 years ago. Codices then were softcover, and only had small colour section for miniatures pictures, but were less than half the price being asked. I'm no economy-ologist, but I can assure inflation is not the reason why. I'm also positive, that moving to a hardcover and colour format did not account for a ~$30 cost increase per book published.

All of that can only lead you to the conclusion that GW could in fact stand to lower their prices. Without knowing a detailed cost analysis of their specific books, I'd wager that cutting the price in half would still net them some profit. That specific detail is purely pulled out of my ass, but I'm 99.9% positive they could drop their prices significantly and not lose money on them.

Tau and Eldar both need to be brought into line with the other 7th edition codices before you can say "Everyone has a 7th edition codex". All the recent proper 7th codices took a lot of balancing hits, which eldar and tau desperately need as at the moment they are just too good.

And I'm an eldar player saying this.

I dont know much about chaos, but it does seem like the CSM need it too, but in the opposite direction. Aren't they meant to be the next codex anyway though?

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Citation needed on every claim you just made about GW's pricing. Do you actually have any proof that they can go lower or are you just making assumptions without knowing what the actual costs look like?

Their cost of sales (what it costs to develop and manufacture their products) is about a quarter of the RRP before tax.

So yes, there's plenty of headroom, not to mention that if they started acting in a manner that didn't piss so many people off the increase in volume could well off set any reduction in prices with interest.

At the end of the day you don't have actual evidence of how they're costing things is what you're saying, just assumptions. So I'm employing Hanlon's Razor.

Oh good. Here I was hoping for some intelligent discourse, but instead I'm waved away because you don't like it.

*Edit* There's also what Azrael said, which is, you know, actual evidence.

But feel free to ignore it anyways, like my post, because reasons.

I'd like to see a DA and CSM update next. Most of the other 6th edition codices seem to be doing well enough that they could wait on an update. That or maybe an AM update.

CSM have some nice stuff, but DA have almost no formations and need allies to do well.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Citation needed on every claim you just made about GW's pricing. Do you actually have any proof that they can go lower or are you just making assumptions without knowing what the actual costs look like?

Their cost of sales (what it costs to develop and manufacture their products) is about a quarter of the RRP before tax.

So yes, there's plenty of headroom, not to mention that if they started acting in a manner that didn't piss so many people off the increase in volume could well off set any reduction in prices with interest.

Where did you get that magic number? Cost of sales varies by product and company. I'd like to see a source

 Shadelkan wrote:
With the release of the Necron Codex, every Warhammer 40k army now has an up-to-date codex. While certain armies still do not have a physical codex (See: Sisters of Battle), they are all still up to 7th ed standards and terminologies. We all knew this would happen, and we're now here.

What are your thoughts on the current state of affairs of Warhammer 40k, in terms of power levels, meta, and fluff? What about the Warhammer 40k hobby in general? Do you think GW will start releasing codices again during this edition? Any questions you'd that you'd like to have the answers?

Umm.. No, not every codex is up to date. Yes, all except sisters now have a hard back, however fully half the codexes are still 6th edition.

GW has never been in a situation where all the codexes were "up to date".

So, what I'd like to see are daemons reworked so that the psychic crap works better in the current edition. I'd also like CSM fixed so they are workable without needing an expensive FW book.

 jreilly89 wrote:
I'd like to see a DA and CSM update next. Most of the other 6th edition codices seem to be doing well enough that they could wait on an update. That or maybe an AM update.

CSM have some nice stuff, but DA have almost no formations and need allies to do well.

I am of the same opinion about DA and CSM.

ClockworkZion wrote:
And do we REALLY need to turn every discussion into one about prices?

ClockworkZion wrote:
I mean I get that it's expensive but I had to drop over $650 on 3 textbooks for this semester. I'll use them a total of almost 4 months. So in comparison 40k looks CHEAP when it comes to the books.

You kind of started it by not just informing him of the cheaper alternative and throwing in a comparison to things outside of GW.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
In my opinion data slates do not excuse a poor codex. My main army is Tyranids and if I wanted to play a super competitive list I could, but I would have to spend hundreds on extra DLC on top of my codex in order to do so and that is upsetting to me. I think the new wave of GW is going to be all about ripping out everything that makes the codex interesting and shoving one line of rules into a $15 DLC that took them about two hours to slap together.

Most of the new codexs are fairly well balanced with a few exceptions and become more balanced the more money you pay, this is a bad game design for the customer and serves only to make GW more money. In my opinion the balance is as bad as it has ever been in terms of using what models most people have been collecting for many years. In order for Tyranids to be competitive you need to buy a fortunes worth of Flyrants from the new kit that was released. I can't play with the army I have owned form 3rd anymore because more and more units are becoming obsolete in favor of newer kits.

Hundreds? It's like $32.99 for the combined three Dataslates, all the new units have their rules online through the BL for free, and Leviathan is $66 USD if you buy it in print, and less if you get a digital copy. So total it's $98.99 for all the stuff, assuming you even get everything seeing that the Skyblight formation is in the Leviathan book negating the need for the dataslates unless you REALLY want those as well for the other formations.

So yeah, not "hundreds".

I mean I get that it's expensive but I had to drop over $650 on 3 textbooks for this semester. I'll use them a total of almost 4 months. So in comparison 40k looks CHEAP when it comes to the books.

So yeah, sorry in my mind I was including the cost of codex and rule book. It is $45 for all three dataslates, $15 a piece, $66 for Leviathan, $50 for the codex, $58 for the rules.

Still $45 for the pathetic dataslates is unreasonable. I know you are going to turn around and say we don't know what it cost to produce but let me tell you, if they have to charge $15 to turn a profit on those little things then they need to take a long look at their business model. Even if you just need to buy Leviathan and the dataslates you are still paying $100 just to make your army competitive and you are still only using a handful of units in a codex that is bloated with units.

The main problem is that like many other codices you are being forced into running a small handful of units requiring you to buy them in bulk in order to compete. Primes, Genestealers, Warriors, Haruspex, Lictors, Maleceptors, Pyrovores, Harpy, Raveners, Shrikes, Tyrgons, etc. All still awful at even a friendly level because this game has such a swing from bad to good that you can not play what you want and have a good game.

If you were just starting to play 40k and decided that you wanted to play at a semi-competitive level then the game is in a decent position, as long as you are willing to only buy units that are going to work at that level of play. If you are a vet then your entire collection may be useless and require you to buy an entire new army in order to stay up with the power creep.

The state of affairs in 40K is that it's never been as balanced as it is today.

ToF statistics tell us that skewed armies made of Imperial Knights get 62% win rate (down from 66%), surely the meta will swallow that up though.

And then we have Eldar at 56%, Tau at 54% and OldCron at 52%, with Daemons and Space Marines not far behind.


That's for the state of the game, pretty much the best it has ever been.



For the release schedule, I would expect a new CSM codex soon-ish that will move the CSM to be in line with the 7th ed releases like Space Wolves, and then a continuous release cycle that will see the current Tau and Eldar codexes replaced before twelve months.

As well as a 40K v8 in late 2016.

With regard to cost of products, didn't one of their recent half-year sales preambles say that they were averaging ~70% profit on each of their items?

I definitely remember got this on a forum, where someone was basically translating the sales stuff from 'Accountancy' to 'English'.

ClockworkZion wrote:At the end of the day you don't have actual evidence of how they're costing things is what you're saying, just assumptions. So I'm employing Hanlon's Razor.

jreilly89 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Citation needed on every claim you just made about GW's pricing. Do you actually have any proof that they can go lower or are you just making assumptions without knowing what the actual costs look like?

Their cost of sales (what it costs to develop and manufacture their products) is about a quarter of the RRP before tax.

So yes, there's plenty of headroom, not to mention that if they started acting in a manner that didn't piss so many people off the increase in volume could well off set any reduction in prices with interest.

Where did you get that magic number? Cost of sales varies by product and company. I'd like to see a source

Yeesh!

I got the numbers from their actual financial report!

I arrived at the "magic number" by factoring their "cost of sales" by their "sales revenue" to arrive at what we "experts" call "an average."

If you're getting the impression I'm irritated it's because I'm tired of people responding to stuff that is a matter of black and white fact with hand waving and skepticism because they can't be arsed to spend 5 minutes educating themselves to the reality of the situation and somehow think their method of licking their finger and sticking it in the air has any actual merit.

If you're going to dispute facts, have some of your bloody own to contradict them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:
With regard to cost of products, didn't one of their recent half-year sales preambles say that they were averaging ~70% profit on each of their items?

I definitely remember got this on a forum, where someone was basically translating the sales stuff from 'Accountancy' to 'English'.

You're correct.

The End Of Year report had their average cost of sales at ~23-24% of revenue, that's slipped nearer 27% in the most recent interim report.

 Azreal13 wrote:

I arrived at the "magic number" by factoring their "cost of sales" by their "sales revenue" to arrive at what we "experts" call "an average."

I'd be damn impressed if their financial reports had all of the costs related to 40K gathered under "cost of sales".

Where's that document ?

EDIT: I've checked it and you did not understand it properly.
The document says that operating profit is at 6.2M for 55M sales.
Your mistake was to discount the operating expenses, listed at 33M.

If we are to take GW's financial statement without any salt, they're operating at a little more than 11% profit.

One might want to argue that the miniatures business without the books, the marketing and the numerous other costs is more profitable, but that's how a company works, you have one part of the business that makes money, and another part that costs money.
Producing miniatures without rules would be ridiculous, producing only high profit miniatures would result in 40K: Dawn of the Space Marines, now with 200% more Space Marines, and not investing in the future would probably ruin all profits within twenty years.


Also, who the feth is Hanlon, it's supposed to be Occam's Razor. Did that Hanlon guy steal it ?

Here's a thing: If GW had stuck to the traditional 4-5 years between editions, rather than rushing out 7th only 23 months after 6th, we would now be in a position in which every codex was, in fact, up to date 100% with the current edition of the rules. as it is, we technically have over half the books 'in need' of updating (in their eyes at least).

This suggests to me that GW never want to reach that point where everything is 'up to date'. If they did, then it would be trivially easy for the community to stay 'stop', leave the game as it is with everything 'current'. Then, we wouldn't be in the mindset of 'needing to' drop £30 every 3-4 years for the sake of some wording changes and points adjustments that could fit on an A5 sheet of paper, and GW would be raking in even less money. With the cycle as it is, though, they can ensure people feel compelled to grossly overpay for the 'newest' rules (even though the current ones are perfectly functional).

 Azreal13 wrote:

ClockworkZion wrote:At the end of the day you don't have actual evidence of how they're costing things is what you're saying, just assumptions. So I'm employing Hanlon's Razor.

jreilly89 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Citation needed on every claim you just made about GW's pricing. Do you actually have any proof that they can go lower or are you just making assumptions without knowing what the actual costs look like?

Their cost of sales (what it costs to develop and manufacture their products) is about a quarter of the RRP before tax.

So yes, there's plenty of headroom, not to mention that if they started acting in a manner that didn't piss so many people off the increase in volume could well off set any reduction in prices with interest.

Where did you get that magic number? Cost of sales varies by product and company. I'd like to see a source

Yeesh!

I got the numbers from their actual financial report!

I arrived at the "magic number" by factoring their "cost of sales" by their "sales revenue" to arrive at what we "experts" call "an average."

If you're getting the impression I'm irritated it's because I'm tired of people responding to stuff that is a matter of black and white fact with hand waving and skepticism because they can't be arsed to spend 5 minutes educating themselves to the reality of the situation and somehow think their method of licking their finger and sticking it in the air has any actual merit.

If you're going to dispute facts, have some of your bloody own to contradict them.

Burden of proof is on the accusor. God forbid I ask for your sources. Also, averaging cost of sales factors in non-codex items and promotions/advertising.

For the record, I agree they could cut prices, but you seem to have settled in your own derived answer. Also, nice tone from such an "expert".

 Paradigm wrote:
Here's a thing: If GW had stuck to the traditional 4-5 years between editions, rather than rushing out 7th only 23 months after 6th, we would now be in a position in which every codex was, in fact, up to date 100% with the current edition of the rules. as it is, we technically have over half the books 'in need' of updating (in their eyes at least).

This suggests to me that GW never want to reach that point where everything is 'up to date'. If they did, then it would be trivially easy for the community to stay 'stop', leave the game as it is with everything 'current'. Then, we wouldn't be in the mindset of 'needing to' drop £30 every 3-4 years for the sake of some wording changes and points adjustments that could fit on an A5 sheet of paper, and GW would be raking in even less money. With the cycle as it is, though, they can ensure people feel compelled to grossly overpay for the 'newest' rules (even though the current ones are perfectly functional).

Well, it might help if they tried to make new editions and codices better than previous ones, as opposed to just 'different' (or, in several cases, worse).

clively wrote:

 Shadelkan wrote:
With the release of the Necron Codex, every Warhammer 40k army now has an up-to-date codex. While certain armies still do not have a physical codex (See: Sisters of Battle), they are all still up to 7th ed standards and terminologies. We all knew this would happen, and we're now here.

What are your thoughts on the current state of affairs of Warhammer 40k, in terms of power levels, meta, and fluff? What about the Warhammer 40k hobby in general? Do you think GW will start releasing codices again during this edition? Any questions you'd that you'd like to have the answers?

Umm.. No, not every codex is up to date. Yes, all except sisters now have a hard back, however fully half the codexes are still 6th edition.

GW has never been in a situation where all the codexes were "up to date".

So, what I'd like to see are daemons reworked so that the psychic crap works better in the current edition. I'd also like CSM fixed so they are workable without needing an expensive FW book.

I fully agree with the 6th ed codices being slightly out of line in terms of the 7th ed codices. Ignoring power levels, they are all identical in terms of terminology, rules references, and compatibility within each other. No 6th ed codex requires a complete rewrite, but most of them require a rebalance.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Burden of proof is on the accusor. God forbid I ask for your sources. Also, averaging cost of sales factors in non-codex items and promotions/advertising.

For the record, I agree they could cut prices, but you seem to have settled in your own derived answer. Also, nice tone from such an "expert".

Like most people I have on ignore, there's a good reason for this one.

Here's why his analysis is plain wrong:

I'd be damn impressed if their financial reports had all of the costs related to 40K gathered under "cost of sales".

Where's that document ?

EDIT: I've checked it and you did not understand it properly.
The document says that operating profit is at 6.2M for 55M sales.
Your mistake was to discount the operating expenses, listed at 33M.

If we are to take GW's financial statement without any salt, they're operating at a little more than 11% profit.

One might want to argue that the miniatures business without the books, the marketing and the numerous other costs is more profitable, but that's how a company works, you have one part of the business that makes money, and another part that costs money.
Producing miniatures without rules would be ridiculous, producing only high profit miniatures would result in 40K: Dawn of the Space Marines, now with 200% more Space Marines, and not investing in the future would probably ruin all profits within twenty years.

I expect new codexes before we see any revisions to any book currently in hard cover.

I also expect to see necrons do better in tournaments for the next few months, not because they are broken good ,but because they are new and shiny, attracting more interest in fielding them, and the tournament meta taking a few months to adjust to them.

morgoth wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Burden of proof is on the accusor. God forbid I ask for your sources. Also, averaging cost of sales factors in non-codex items and promotions/advertising.

For the record, I agree they could cut prices, but you seem to have settled in your own derived answer. Also, nice tone from such an "expert".

Like most people I have on ignore, there's a good reason for this one.

Here's why his analysis is plain wrong:

I'd be damn impressed if their financial reports had all of the costs related to 40K gathered under "cost of sales".

Where's that document ?

EDIT: I've checked it and you did not understand it properly.
The document says that operating profit is at 6.2M for 55M sales.
Your mistake was to discount the operating expenses, listed at 33M.

If we are to take GW's financial statement without any salt, they're operating at a little more than 11% profit.

One might want to argue that the miniatures business without the books, the marketing and the numerous other costs is more profitable, but that's how a company works, you have one part of the business that makes money, and another part that costs money.
Producing miniatures without rules would be ridiculous, producing only high profit miniatures would result in 40K: Dawn of the Space Marines, now with 200% more Space Marines, and not investing in the future would probably ruin all profits within twenty years.

That makes more sense. He said something like 23% profit and that is just ludicrous, given GWs supposed state.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Citation needed on every claim you just made about GW's pricing. Do you actually have any proof that they can go lower or are you just making assumptions without knowing what the actual costs look like?

Their cost of sales (what it costs to develop and manufacture their products) is about a quarter of the RRP before tax.

So yes, there's plenty of headroom, not to mention that if they started acting in a manner that didn't piss so many people off the increase in volume could well off set any reduction in prices with interest.

That's not an unreasonable ratio though. Financially that's actually fairly sound and allows them enough overhead to make new product lines without needing a loan.

Also remember COGS doesn't reflect how much money is flowing out of the business expense wise. So just because it's 1/4 price doesn't mean anything on it's own.

 adamsouza wrote:
I expect new codexes before we see any revisions to any book currently in hard cover.

I also expect to see necrons do better in tournaments for the next few months, not because they are broken good ,but because they are new and shiny, attracting more interest in fielding them, and the tournament meta taking a few months to adjust to them.

What new codices? Any new units will probably get Data Slates and SoB the only ones I know of who need a hardcover codex. Revisions seem like the next step.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:
Citation needed on every claim you just made about GW's pricing. Do you actually have any proof that they can go lower or are you just making assumptions without knowing what the actual costs look like?

Their cost of sales (what it costs to develop and manufacture their products) is about a quarter of the RRP before tax.

So yes, there's plenty of headroom, not to mention that if they started acting in a manner that didn't piss so many people off the increase in volume could well off set any reduction in prices with interest.

That's not an unreasonable ratio though. Financially that's actually fairly sound and allows them enough overhead to make new product lines without needing a loan.

Also remember COGS doesn't reflect how much money is flowing out of the business expense wise. So just because it's 1/4 price doesn't mean anything on it's own.

It's an irrelevant ratio at best.

GW's sales mostly happen at reseller discounts from 35% to 55% (or more ?) and not RRP.

Morgoth - you have no idea what you're talking about.

You're not even looking at the right part of the report.

Just for the record, I hold qualifications in business and management, I've held senior management positions in multimillion pound companies and I've been a director of my own company. While I'm not an accountant, and would freely admit there's elements of financial reports I'm less able to analyse than others, I know enough.

The report can be found here

http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/2014-15-Press-statement-final.pdf

 SilverDevilfish wrote:

ClockworkZion wrote:
And do we REALLY need to turn every discussion into one about prices?

ClockworkZion wrote:
I mean I get that it's expensive but I had to drop over $650 on 3 textbooks for this semester. I'll use them a total of almost 4 months. So in comparison 40k looks CHEAP when it comes to the books.

You kind of started it by not just informing him of the cheaper alternative and throwing in a comparison to things outside of GW.

No I didn't. It started with the claim that it cost hundreds to have all the rules for Nids. And then I gave a personal reason why I don't find it unreasonable.

morgoth wrote:


GW's sales mostly happen at reseller discounts from 35% to 55% (or more ?) and not RRP.

Also, retail and mail order combined generated 50% more income than sales to the wholesale channel - so you're wrong on that too.

vipoid wrote:
Well, it might help if they tried to make new editions and codices better than previous ones, as opposed to just 'different' (or, in several cases, worse).

Honestly, this mindset is a huge part of the issue (and note I'm not directing this as you, it's just a general statement). The expectation that each ediion be more powerful and constant gnashing of teeth when it isn't only perpetuate the cycle of feeling the 'need for a new codex'. Look at all the books post-Eldar; people have complained they can't take on the most obviously unbalanced build in the game (Serpent Spam) and therefore must be terrible, before realising that, on the whole they are pretty well balanced against everything else. Remove Triptide and Serpent Spam, and a couple of Demon builds, and the game is pretty damn close to balanced. The new books shouldn't be able to take on Serpent Spam, as that is a product of huge imbalance, and having every book able to fight it only makes the issue worse.

This is what has me worried about the new Crons, actually. Until last week, as I said, there were only a few outlying issues with balance, which would be very easy to account for. Now, though, with the huge 'praise' for the power of the Necrons book, I can't help but fear we are back to that cycle once again.