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.

Deadnight wrote:

 Talys wrote:

I wish the faction that I'm spending at least $5,000 on right now (Blood Angels -- and the final tally will probably be twice that) didn't suck so badly

This alone is proof you live in a completely different world to the rest of us talys. At least $5,000? Thst you sre so casual and so 'easy' with such sums just blows my mind, and suggests you are maybe a little bit out of touch with the concerns and realities of the average gamer. Christ man, to most people, putting 500 dollars or even pounds towards the hobby is a massive investment and often, can't get done because of other commitments.

I don't begrudge you your position in life, but I've often thought that your own perception was heavily skewed by your own situation.

I think thats a bit harsh, there are plenty of people out there spending thousands on this type of stuff, plenty of people earn a nice wage and have little to no outgoings and the number of millionaires out there is increasing all the time.

You only have to go to games day and these forge world events to see people spending more than some peoples cars cost on bags of resin and plastic.

Lanrak wrote:

On any servey on any forum I have seen...
...And lots of posts over the last few years...

I think the scope in which you're viewing the hobby might be a bit small. Dakka (and other forums) like to pretend they're such a mega-huge influence and metric for the hobby. There is an entire world of people out there who have never even heard of Dakka or care to browse the forums.

Anecdotal, but in my local gaming group I believe only myself and 2 others regularly go on the forums out of roughly 15 players.

You can see what happens in this thread when the circlejerking starts, people dog piling the lone dissident posters. I don't really agree or think either side is wrong here, just that this small pond of internet posters should not be the only source for gauging the Warhammer community.

How many thousands of people have signed that petition on change.org telling GW to get their act together at time of writing? 10k, 15k?

Say what you like about forums, but that has to represent a notable percentage, especially if you make the assumption that for every person who signed it, there will be others who would have but weren't aware of it.

Nobody dog piles, the Mods would step in if it were to be that sort of orchestrated behaviour (a bit of good natured teasing aside, and, for the avoidance of doubt, anything I post is intended this way, it seems to be a British thing where you'll call your best friend worse names than your worst enemy, not everyone seems to get this.) If there's one person offering an opinion and 10 others arguing against it, it's because they disagree with that opinion. That's what I like about Dakka, people are allowed to say what they think, as long as they're not douches doing it.

You are right that a relative minority actively post on forums, in my experience at least, but far more read, and regardless of this, nobody's playing GW games at my club right now.

Speaking of a minority of Wargamers being on forums, a minority can be a representative sample size. Most of us can only ever witness anecdotal events regarding Wargaming, but on Dakka, we can speak to hundreds of players from across the world.
As long as we can trust that we're not routinely lying to eachother (why would we), we can get a more global view.

I don't think everyone is basing their comments entirely on Internet Groupthink. Each person's opinion is greatly informed by their local meta situation. I hesitate to bring up local metas, because they are at best anecdotal evidence, and vary from area to area...

In Canada, there's this tiny village called Toronto. During 3rd/4th Edition... there used to be tons of pickup games available at the FLGS and the area was well served by a half dozen GW stores, with a gigantic bunker. If you went unannounced to a store on 40k night for a game... there was a fething WAITING LIST to get a game as the tables would be all full. Even on off days, the tables would usually be full. Today, there is a mini-bunker and two 1 man stores in off the beaten path places. The FLGS presence has been reduced to sporadic gaming at most FLGS with almost all the action located in the homes of players or at one FLGS which acts as the 40k hub of the area. The bunker tables are usually empty, and the few customers are clustered around the build/paint station. If you go unannounced to a FLGS for a pick-up... (if they still have a 40k night), there is a fething WAITING LIST to see IF AN OPPONENT WILL SHOW UP.

As I said... anecdotal, YMMV etc. so its hardly representative of the health of GW.... but it's my local reality, and it informs my opinion of GW's current direction more than any internet forum.

kthxbye.

@Selym (cause Keezus ninja'd me)

Do you change your avatar every day?

How am I supposed to keep track of who you are?

You're all just avatars me. At this point, I imagine Az sitting at his computer frustratingly trying to type with adamantium talons and cursing that he's broken his 7th keyboard this week. I don't how Talys manages to type with terminator gauntlets. Maybe a giant keyboard? A servitor he dictates to? I dunno.

I hear ya Azreal, and totally understand where your coming from on humor. I'm way nastier to friends than strangers on the best day, but that's how I've always figured I knew we we're good friends, ya know?

To be honest I signed the Change.org petition, and just saw the email update recently about the new surge in signatures. I'll defend GW in a more Devils Advocate sense, but have no false pretense that there is much that should be changed.

And lurkers do make up a large viewing base to any website, though a minority or small sample size is typically the opposite of what you want when gathering statistics. The type of person to play 40K and never look at an internet forum is a very different type of person that wants to stay connected to the game online. That's the chunk of community I think Dakka and other forums misses out on. Just something I try to keep in mind.

 Blacksails wrote:
@Selym (cause Keezus ninja'd me)

Do you change your avatar every day?

How am I supposed to keep track of who you are?

You're all just avatars me. At this point, I imagine Az sitting at his computer frustratingly trying to type with adamantium talons and cursing that he's broken his 7th keyboard this week. I don't how Talys manages to type with terminator gauntlets. Maybe a giant keyboard? A servitor he dictates to? I dunno.

I keep thinking that everyone speaks like their avatar, which means you are the only silent one

I keep changing my avatar due to the Avatars In A Room thread. My track record of survivability is... poor at best. Had two characters dedicated to being guardsmen, and by the end of it I was Col. Nigel Thornberry cluelessly trying to patch up Guardsman #140 who had been savaged by an Alien. I'm currently a Scottish Viking.

@Blacksails - it's the psychic hood I am telepathically connected to the web.

The much bigger problem is painting. I need a techmarine to constantly tweak my gloves!

 Blacksails wrote:
@Selym (cause Keezus ninja'd me)

Do you change your avatar every day?

How am I supposed to keep track of who you are?

You're all just avatars me. At this point, I imagine Az sitting at his computer frustratingly trying to type with adamantium talons and cursing that he's broken his 7th keyboard this week. I don't how Talys manages to type with terminator gauntlets. Maybe a giant keyboard? A servitor he dictates to? I dunno.

This would probably be closer to the truth for my avatar than Wolvie..

Deadnight wrote:
That said, thus alone is proof you live in a completely different world to the rest of us talys.

Yesterday he called £100 to get free shipping on FW an 'impulse buy', hence "Don't care. Got mine!".

If you really think that arguing with a person is a waste of time because of fundamentally different underlying assumptions, the best thing is probably to stop arguing with them.

There is the view that allowing statements to go unchallenged might lead people to adopt them, but you can counter a statement without arguing.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
That said, thus alone is proof you live in a completely different world to the rest of us talys.

Yesterday he called £100 to get free shipping on FW an 'impulse buy', hence "Don't care. Got mine!".

Maybe Bizzaro-world currency is really strong right now and he's cashing in on the discrepancy in GW's pricing before they realise?

 Talys wrote:

I constantly read here that scale is an issue because it's a barrier to entry due to (a) cost and (b) time involved in buinding 70 - 100 or more models... for a start.

I don't think the problem is the scale directly. People like company sized games. The problem is more than GW doesn't really know what it wants to be - It's priced as a low model count game, has detail like a low model count game (individual wargear) yet has stuff you'd only see is a mass battle game (aircraft, titans, superheavies). As such it's too finely detailed for a mass battle game, getting bogged down in minutaue, but doesn't quite have the depth for a skirmish game.

The pricing really doesn't help.

What would help is to split it into 3 games, all equally supported - Kill Team for genuine skirmish (it's currently a digital only thing?), included in the starter set, with extra skirmishy rules, then a company sized game with a bit of abstraction, and then Apocalypse with a bit more abstraction but allowing all sorts of crazy things.

I get the feeling at the moment they want us to be playing Epic in 28mm, fielding everything we can afford, rather than having a fun and challenging game.

@clamclaw.
If you can find a post any where on the internet where some one says .
''I bought 40k /WHFB(A,O,S,) because the rules are better than any other game out there, and the minatures and back ground are not a concern of mine.''

Or people saying'' I WANT to pay more money for the same GW product every year and I want rules to be poorly written, and have laughable levels of editing and proof reading''.

Then total them up and see how many posts have the opposing view.

''I like the art, sculpts and background of 40k /WHFB, they inspire me to buy and be creative with GW products.I am not too bothered about the rules quality, we can muddle through well enough.''

''GW have priced me out of their product range (hobby).''
''I am done with GW they still have not fixed the rules issues'.'

Look on as many different web sites as you like,not just the usual ones.. .

I think you will find the majority of complaints are with the poor quality of the rules ,are detracting value from the great minatures.
And very few people complaining about how the crappy minatures are detracting value from the great rules.

@Az.
Yes I was saying that the look and sound of 40k/WHFB(AOS) gets people inspired to start buying GW products.
And its the quality of the game play delivered by the rules that keep players interested long term.

As short sighted management at GW plc thought the churn and burn of new customers would sustain them, they basically told long term game players to mend it yourself or bugger off.

Now GW plc have realized that the game players have just buggered off.So GW pretend they only wanted to sell to ''collectors'' and ''story tellers''.

And the people who just wanted the rules to let them turn up and play a game , were some how 'too demanding' and not worth bothering with.

Which is good as all the other companies are bothering with these customers instead of GW plc.

And so GW plc has to tell their super fans how special they are, so they at least keep giving them more money for the same products every year.

Herzlos wrote:

 Talys wrote:

I constantly read here that scale is an issue because it's a barrier to entry due to (a) cost and (b) time involved in buinding 70 - 100 or more models... for a start.

I don't think the problem is the scale directly. People like company sized games. The problem is more than GW doesn't really know what it wants to be - It's priced as a low model count game, has detail like a low model count game (individual wargear) yet has stuff you'd only see is a mass battle game (aircraft, titans, superheavies). As such it's too finely detailed for a mass battle game, getting bogged down in minutaue, but doesn't quite have the depth for a skirmish game.

The pricing really doesn't help.

What would help is to split it into 3 games, all equally supported - Kill Team for genuine skirmish (it's currently a digital only thing?), included in the starter set, with extra skirmishy rules, then a company sized game with a bit of abstraction, and then Apocalypse with a bit more abstraction but allowing all sorts of crazy things.

I get the feeling at the moment they want us to be playing Epic in 28mm, fielding everything we can afford, rather than having a fun and challenging game.

Agree with Herzlos. The game is a mess of scales that makes no sense. For the size of battle aircraft should only have been introduced as buying a blast marker of some type to represent an aircraft attack (no models). Flyers do not fit well with the small units where individual models wargear is selected. Superheavies should have stayed in APOC.

 Rayvon wrote:

I think thats a bit harsh, there are plenty of people out there spending thousands on this type of stuff, plenty of people earn a nice wage and have little to no outgoings and the number of millionaires out there is increasing all the time.
.

Lol. It's harsh, but it's true.The number of millionaires is still dwarved by the number of people earning minimum wage, and scraping by on £15,000 a year. 75% of the uk earns less than 30k, and a lot of them sit on 20k or less. Those outgoings cost too mate. I have govt taxes, electricity, gas,council taxes, my car, my new mortgage, insurance, and several other responsibilities that I have to look after. Plenty others have kids. My point stands.

Let's be clear. I have 'a nice wage'. And spending $5,000 dollars on an army is still absurd and frankly, undoable for both me, and the vast majority of other people. If thsts the kind of thing that is 'normal' in your world, (a) you are extremely fortunate, and (b) have no appreciation for what the day to day realities for a lot of people are. £100 for shipping as an impulse buy, as was stated? Thsts our food and diesel bills for a week. I know where my priorities simply have to be. 'Things are fine, Gw is great. I like it and can afford it all, therefore no problem'. Uh huh, now for the rest of the masses...

Those same millionaires etc are often Also as guilty of being oblivious to the problems the rest of us have to deal with, struggling with crumbs, as it were.

 Rayvon wrote:

You only have to go to games day and these forge world events to see people spending more than some peoples cars cost on bags of resin and plastic.

Uh huh, and when thry have to deal with the things that the rest of us have to deal with, when thry have to compromise their luxury hobby with what amounts to the day to day grind,then thry can talk. Until that point, their reality is a completely different bubble. Fair play, I wish I could do it. I know plenty of other people thst would like to be able to pop down the cost of a car on resin and other toys. Thing is for most people, thsts a dream. I'd rather put down the cost of thst car against my mortgage. Or fix the bloody boiler. Or repair the car. And for someone to insist that everything is ok becaus thryre currently living the dream, it's more than a bit condasdcending.

2. AoS is a huge risk. Do you know how much it costs to make all those miniatures? It's not just Sigmarites; there are a ton of books and investments into Other factions too. Ripping off WMH would have been low-risk.

I think the catching on of the brand in general is what's the risk, not what it costs to make any of the materials. GW is inflated so high over what it costs to make the minis and books it's not even funny. Lots of companies (some of which are quite smaller than GW) make product that would take similar capital to get produced for lower prices, both in minis and hardcover books.

If GW produced the Dreamforge Eisenkern, it sure as hell wouldn't be 20 figures for less than 5 terminators or Stormcast. Their nearest comparison is half the price for the same amount of figures.

People complain about stupidly expensive X-Wing products, but for the price that people are gladly paying for 5 Stormcast, that's the MSRP of the Ghost w/ Shuttle (large amounts of injection molded plastic), both prepainted at the cost that must incur, and with all the card materials involved, too...if all those included materials' manufacturing drives the MSRP to $50US, then the price of the Stormcast can only be attributed to years of grooming us for ever-more boutique prices.

I find Talys makes logical arguments. Other people seem to want to assassinate his character to delegitimize what he's saying.

I agree with alot of what he says, but that aside I find that lots of the majority of GW-defenders come from a higher monetary viewpoint than the "rest of us" and it colors their opinions of how GW is not being crazy at all over the years.

My wife and I will probably make close to 50k this year, and with a house and a child, some of the vocal minority's viewpoint on "normal" GW spending would be completely crazy to us. I was crazy happy to get to Gencon, so I could buy all my latest GW ideas from the Toledo "bits guy", at prices like 1.50 per plastic Skaven Stormvermin .

I'm not a high earner, and GW's prices certainly put me off buying more. But for many businesses, targeting higher earners is the best route.

I ran a small rock business, and it was a far more profitable venture to find one guy who'll spend big than 10 guys who can't even double your break even point.

When it comes to GW trying to foster a player base for their product, I can see why targeting higher earners would not be the best route. I don't know their numbers on the inside, so I can't make much further of a judgement.

Even lower earners have hundreds or thousands a year for their interests. The truth is a lot of low earners (and people in general) are poor budgeters. You could find hundreds/thousands of pure entertainment expenses in almost everyone's budget, except perhaps minimum wage workers/truly poor.

What is considered normal GW spending? A grand a year?

Deadnight wrote:

 Rayvon wrote:

I think thats a bit harsh, there are plenty of people out there spending thousands on this type of stuff, plenty of people earn a nice wage and have little to no outgoings and the number of millionaires out there is increasing all the time.
.

Lol. It's harsh, but it's true.The number of millionaires is still dwarved by the number of people earning minimum wage, and scraping by on £15,000 a year. 75% of the uk earns less than 30k, and a lot of them sit on 20k or less. Those outgoings cost too mate. I have govt taxes, electricity, gas,council taxes, my car, my new mortgage, insurance, and several other responsibilities that I have to look after. Plenty others have kids. My point stands.

Let's be clear. I have 'a nice wage'. And spending $5,000 dollars on an army is still absurd and frankly, undoable for both me, and the vast majority of other people. If thsts the kind of thing that is 'normal' in your world, (a) you are extremely fortunate, and (b) have no appreciation for what the day to day realities for a lot of people are. £100 for shipping as an impulse buy, as was stated? Thsts our food and diesel bills for a week. I know where my priorities simply have to be. 'Things are fine, Gw is great. I like it and can afford it all, therefore no problem'. Uh huh, now for the rest of the masses...

Those same millionaires etc are often Also as guilty of being oblivious to the problems the rest of us have to deal with, struggling with crumbs, as it were.

 Rayvon wrote:

You only have to go to games day and these forge world events to see people spending more than some peoples cars cost on bags of resin and plastic.

Uh huh, and when thry have to deal with the things that the rest of us have to deal with, when thry have to compromise their luxury hobby with what amounts to the day to day grind,then thry can talk. Until that point, their reality is a completely different bubble. Fair play, I wish I could do it. I know plenty of other people thst would like to be able to pop down the cost of a car on resin and other toys. Thing is for most people, thsts a dream. I'd rather put down the cost of thst car against my mortgage. Or fix the bloody boiler. Or repair the car. And for someone to insist that everything is ok becaus thryre currently living the dream, it's more than a bit condasdcending.

Fair enough, i wish I had 5k to spend on little plastic men.

I'm just not a fan of people who are in the unique situations (not anyone in particular- I'm not picking at anyone specific) where they can drop large loads of capitol whenever they want shrugging and saying "I just don't understand what you are all griping about". Exactly, they don't.

I used to love to splurge a 100 dollars a month, pretty reliably, on GW products, but then I started seeing a pretty drastically fast drop in what that 100 would give me- not compared to any other particular company, but against GW's own stuff because I love the GW universes. It might be an exaggeration, but I'd say it's about 40% of what it would have been 10 years ago.

For example, I won't buy Finecast, because even if it wasn't the consistency of fossilized shaving cream, I saw it reliably increase the price of what I used to buy in metal by 100%, sometimes more. Not over time, but immediately on those same exact models being recast in the new material. I can;t see how I can understand people who would defend a company who would do something increase prices on something by 100% overnight, in a medium that was supposed to solve the problem of volatility in the metal markets losing them so much profit on the metals.

Then plastic saw the same jumps and I just couldn't believe it.

I'm no stranger to dropping £50 in a go, when I feel like it, but it's starting to leave a bad taste in my mouth, even when I got a discount on rrp.

But what's the argument? If a company sells to higher earners, so be it. Walmart sells to a different crowd than (inset higher end shop). If a company is very profitable selling luxury goods, who cares what people who can't afford them think?

10 years ago, I don't have stats at hand, but assuming 2-3% annual inflation, means $100 then is about $125 now. GW prices have, in my opinion, certainly outpaced inflation, but money not going as far is not relegated to the GW world.

If you're guessing an exaggerated 40% loss of purchasing power with your $100, that's not that far off of the 25% inflation rate.

No, a 60% loss in purchasing power was my estimate, probably a little short, as many GW things have gone up 100% over the last ten years. Or if not, the amount dropped by 50% but price remained, which is the same thing.

On topic, I think that makes GW pretty darned intelligent, because they still see a rabid fan base despite it.

they are complete A-Holes who seem to despise a good portion of their fanbase, but they are intelligent ones,

Right, my mistake. I agree though that prices have outpaced inflation. I like the Stormcast but I can't bring myself (yet) to buy a $45 character or $60 unit of 5 man-sized models (CAD).

If the argument is that lower prices would foster a larger player base and ultimately more sales, I understand that and it's possible. Hard to call without knowing the books on the inside. But if selling higher-priced goods works for a company, then that's all there is to say.

I don't know if lower prices would help as much as simply lowering the entry cost for getting into the game, ie. writing rules that are functional and balanced when doing games with a small number of models. Unfortunately GW would never allow this without charging an exorbitant price per model even in comparison to their "normal" prices.

burningstuff wrote:
But what's the argument? If a company sells to higher earners, so be it. Walmart sells to a different crowd than (inset higher end shop). If a company is very profitable selling luxury goods, who cares what people who can't afford them think?

10 years ago, I don't have stats at hand, but assuming 2-3% annual inflation, means $100 then is about $125 now. GW prices have, in my opinion, certainly outpaced inflation, but money not going as far is not relegated to the GW world.

If you're guessing an exaggerated 40% loss of purchasing power with your $100, that's not that far off of the 25% inflation rate.

Well first of all, I don't know if you could call GW 'very profitable' when profits are dropping year after year, but that aside if you want to sell luxury goods to high earners, you have to actually produce high quality luxury goods. I mean GW is luxury goods in as much as you don't need it to survive, but it certainly doesn't make products of a high enough quality for the way they price them like boutique models. I mean the models are good, I don't like most of them aesthetically these days but quality wise they're good, but there's others that are equally as good if not better that offer much greater value for money. And past the models everything's pretty poor, £30/35 thin books with increasingly crappy art (in the few places they aren't just a catalogue for the models), horrible rules and shocking editing.

Marketing to high earners is a fine strategy, if your products actually live up to the price you charge for them, and increasingly, and it seems to an increasing number of people, GWs products don't. To use your analogy, it's like *higher end shop* selling Walmart level products but for higher end prices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Haruspex wrote:
I don't know if lower prices would help as much as simply lowering the entry cost for getting into the game, ie. writing rules that are functional and balanced when doing games with a small number of models. Unfortunately GW would never allow this without charging an exorbitant price per model even in comparison to their "normal" prices.

Agreed, the overall price isn't really the main issue, it's the amount you have to pay to even get started. AoS has moved away a bit with the free rules, but for 40k you're looking at £80 just for rules before you've even bought any models. I've spent as much on WMH/Infinity/Malifaux as I have on GW stuff, but getting started in all of them was much much cheaper.

^ I agree, and that's why I think I can't comment much more without seeing GW's real books. Marketing to high earners can work, but if it doesn't, then it doesn't.