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GW are best placed to judge their market clearing prices. The falling sales of the past few years have been overmatched by rising profits, so perhaps GW have calculated that they are better off with higher prices attracting fewer customers.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
GW are best placed to judge their market clearing prices. The falling sales of the past few years have been overmatched by rising profits, so perhaps GW have calculated that they are better off with higher prices attracting fewer customers.

True, but from what I understood (and please do correct me if I'm wrong) there has been no real way to link these profits to the increase in product pricing. It could be increased licensing revenue, less money spent with staff/stores, etc.

It comes from a number of causes.

The profit increase can partly be linked to product prices as GW have stated their Cost of Goods has been reduced from about 25% to about 20% of retail pricing.

This can be done two ways, by making things more cheaply (I mean, by spending less on manufacturing a kit), and by setting prices higher. In fact I think GW are doing both.

It's obvious that a kit like the Knight Titan is cheaper to manufacture than a similar size Gundam robot kit with more parts, flexible joints, detailing options, and an expensive licence. Yet the Gundams retail at cheaper prices..

Similarly, some of the new small infantry models like Sigmarines and FyreSlayers, that aren't a great deal more more expensive to make than say the new Tau Fire Warriors, are being priced much higher.

The lower retail price kits like Lizard Men Skinks and Tyranid Termagants are also the older kits. While they would have cost more originally to set up -- plastic mould prices have declined a lot in 15 years -- the set up costs will have been amortised years ago.

We also know that a lot of the terrain kits have been manufactured in China.

I haven't followed the licencing revenue but it is stated in the annual reports so it is easy to find out how much that has changed over the years.

The rest of GW's profitability must obviously come from savings in closing the regional HWs and larger, multi-man retail shops.

 pox wrote:
Ironically if they were priced at a more reasonable point I would spend a lot more annually then I do currently.

Everybody would, even if they were fans of GW. If you had $100 to spent and everything was $70, you'd buy one thing for $70 and $30 on something else. But if you could buy two things for $50, you'd end up spending all $100. (you'd also feel a higher sense of customer satisfaction and loyalty). But with people buying $4,000 painted armies off eBay, there is obviously customers with more than $100 to spend.

I wish I could find it now, but my wife shared a podcast (I think it was a TED Talk) about people who collect a specific brand of shoes. I think it was whatever shoe company made the Air Jordans (Nike?) - must be Nike. They have 1777 different shoes listed on their website. Anyway, they have regular shoes that normal people buy, but then they have a series of collectors shoes. They have special release dates, sold in limited quantities for higher prices, and people line up at stores to buy this stuff. There's an entire eBay secondary market dedicated to shoe trading - even Chinese knock offs of shoes sold in the 1980s. I had no idea this world existed, and frankly, I feel like life made more sense when I lived in ignorance.

Anyway, my point is... actually, I forgot what my point is. The shoe thing was relevant, I swear...

 Sqorgar wrote:

 pox wrote:
Ironically if they were priced at a more reasonable point I would spend a lot more annually then I do currently.

Everybody would, even if they were fans of GW. If you had $100 to spent and everything was $70, you'd buy one thing for $70 and $30 on something else. But if you could buy two things for $50, you'd end up spending all $100. (you'd also feel a higher sense of customer satisfaction and loyalty). But with people buying $4,000 painted armies off eBay, there is obviously customers with more than $100 to spend.

I wish I could find it now, but my wife shared a podcast (I think it was a TED Talk) about people who collect a specific brand of shoes. I think it was whatever shoe company made the Air Jordans (Nike?) - must be Nike. They have 1777 different shoes listed on their website. Anyway, they have regular shoes that normal people buy, but then they have a series of collectors shoes. They have special release dates, sold in limited quantities for higher prices, and people line up at stores to buy this stuff. There's an entire eBay secondary market dedicated to shoe trading - even Chinese knock offs of shoes sold in the 1980s. I had no idea this world existed, and frankly, I feel like life made more sense when I lived in ignorance.

Anyway, my point is... actually, I forgot what my point is. The shoe thing was relevant, I swear...

No, my point is I would spend more total money if the prices were reasonable. 50 bucks is too much to buy every book, so I only bought ten this year. (500 bucks spent.) If the books were thirty, I would buy at least 25. (750 spent.) I do not see value in buying every book they produce anymore, so I don't. If they kept the price under 40 bucks, I would see the value and thus buy them all.

I understand the economics of branding and charging as much as the market will bare, I'm just saying that for me the cost is prohibitive at this point. I don't play Chaos in AoS, but I will buy the book because the price is perceived value to me. I did not buy the Archaeon book, the Seraphon, or the Stormcast Eternal book for the same reason, the price stops me from buying it for an army I don't play. If they were a lower cost, I would buy all three.

 pox wrote:

No, my point is I would spend more total money if the prices were reasonable. 50 bucks is too much to buy every book, so I only bought ten this year. (500 bucks spent.) If the books were thirty, I would buy at least 25. (750 spent.) I do not see value in buying every book they produce anymore, so I don't. If they kept the price under 40 bucks, I would see the value and thus buy them all.

I get that. I was just saying that even if you were fine with the way things now, GW would still benefit from lower prices as it would give people more wiggle room in filling up how much they had to spend. So regardless of whether you already find the models personally worth the money or not, GW could only increase sales by lowering the prices. Why they seem to only increase prices is a mystery to me. Seriously, their pricing habits are confusing as hell.

I understand the economics of branding and charging as much as the market will bare, I'm just saying that for me the cost is prohibitive at this point. I don't play Chaos in AoS, but I will buy the book because the price is perceived value to me. I did not buy the Archaeon book, the Seraphon, or the Stormcast Eternal book for the same reason, the price stops me from buying it for an army I don't play. If they were a lower cost, I would buy all three.

I've ended up with the Dreadhold, Seraphon, and Archaon books because I found a good deal on them. I think the books are like video games, just wait six months and you can get them for under $40. And if GW didn't kill online retail in the US, I'm sure the same would apply to all GW products as well.

I'm pretty sure everyone would spend more money

My understanding is that charging as much as the market will bear isn't necessarily the best idea.

Some of you have touched on this with your comments that you would spend more if the individual items were cheaper. Well, one of the first things I learned taking introductory level business class was that there's a sort of sweet spot for price and sales. Kinda like an "X", with one line being how much the product costs and the other being how many of that product you move. Where the two lines cross is where you really get the most bang, units are selling at such a rate that you would make more than selling less for a premium, but you're definitely not losing money or charging too little. And maybe Games Workshop is at that point. But with the decreasing costs in the industry, I sort of doubt it.

To illustrate, let's take the codex example. Say GW spends $10 making a codex, then charges $30. pox buys a Dark Eldar Codex, because his hobby budget was $50. GW makes $20. Now if GW had charged $25, pox might have bought another codex just for fun, say Blood Angels. If pox bought the two codexes, GW would have made $30 instead of $20.

Just a little snack for your thoughts.

I think the prices are getting crazy and it will hurt GW and turn people towards other venues for their GW products.

For me I have fun looking into eBay and secondhand 40k minis and stripping them. My local game club (not a store) spends hundreds of dollars big group-orders via China recasts. We also took an oath to share our codexes and photocopy certain pages for a group collection.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 pox wrote:

No, my point is I would spend more total money if the prices were reasonable. 50 bucks is too much to buy every book, so I only bought ten this year. (500 bucks spent.) If the books were thirty, I would buy at least 25. (750 spent.) I do not see value in buying every book they produce anymore, so I don't. If they kept the price under 40 bucks, I would see the value and thus buy them all.

I get that. I was just saying that even if you were fine with the way things now, GW would still benefit from lower prices as it would give people more wiggle room in filling up how much they had to spend. So regardless of whether you already find the models personally worth the money or not, GW could only increase sales by lowering the prices. Why they seem to only increase prices is a mystery to me. Seriously, their pricing habits are confusing as hell.

I understand the economics of branding and charging as much as the market will bare, I'm just saying that for me the cost is prohibitive at this point. I don't play Chaos in AoS, but I will buy the book because the price is perceived value to me. I did not buy the Archaeon book, the Seraphon, or the Stormcast Eternal book for the same reason, the price stops me from buying it for an army I don't play. If they were a lower cost, I would buy all three.

I've ended up with the Dreadhold, Seraphon, and Archaon books because I found a good deal on them. I think the books are like video games, just wait six months and you can get them for under $40. And if GW didn't kill online retail in the US, I'm sure the same would apply to all GW products as well.

Odd, we are in agreement on something and seeing it from the same view. Quick, throw a chair out me, this is freaking me out.

On your points, it's especially strange about their price points because the cost is so front loaded. It's the Design, Die, and tooling cost thats so expensive, not the plastic. you would think that they would use a pricing model similar to physical media, like video games or movies. Start with the 60$ price, then lower it to 50, then 40, etc. Or even flash sales and BOGO sales. hell, even buy three get one free. (who here hasn't spent far to much on flash sales?)

Everything is about the customer buying something and enjoying the end product. I would think you would really want to avoid a situation where buyer's remorse is common.

(I do know I can get GW products cheaper online, but I like to buy in my local store for the most part.)

IMO GW will never lower their prices. It would just look plainly bad if they said:
"Hey, we could sell you the minis, we spent the last 300 years shouting in your ears are the bes in the world, for a lower price. They are worth less than we used to ask for them". For me it's a matter of perception. They could try to sweeten the deal by giving extra content, better bundles etc., but lower the price on individual kits? Forget it. It will only go up.

 CoreCommander wrote:
IMO GW will never lower their prices. It would just look plainly bad if they said:
"Hey, we could sell you the minis, we spent the last 300 years shouting in your ears are the bes in the world, for a lower price. They are worth less than we used to ask for them". For me it's a matter of perception. They could try to sweeten the deal by giving extra content, better bundles etc., but lower the price on individual kits? Forget it. It will only go up.

Did you see that Tau box? You gets 3/4 of that box for free

 CoreCommander wrote:
They could try to sweeten the deal by giving extra content, better bundles etc., but lower the price on individual kits?

Bundles are a different type of product. A bundle is meant to give you the perception of an extraordinary deal so you can buy it for different reasons - shed more money on a single purchase, get hooked on the product etc. I was talking about the price of individual kits.

 CoreCommander wrote:
IMO GW will never lower their prices. It would just look plainly bad if they said:
"Hey, we could sell you the minis, we spent the last 300 years shouting in your ears are the bes in the world, for a lower price. They are worth less than we used to ask for them". For me it's a matter of perception. They could try to sweeten the deal by giving extra content, better bundles etc., but lower the price on individual kits? Forget it. It will only go up.

I agree with this, there is a perception of sales and bargains being "cheap," and on top of that Roundtree stated directly that they would not lower prices but instead look for more price points to exploit. They can (and have) managed to lower some costs while saving face in the form of the Battle of Calth, the Starter army boxes, and the large box collections sold in-stores. (all of these are cheaper then if bought apart unlike the web-store bundles.)

If they can continue to do that in different forms I'd buy more. I bought Calth when I had no plans to work on a SM army, simply because I thought you got enough bang for your buck. If I can buy the bulk of my army for a few hundred bucks then flesh it out with more expensive kits then I'll buy it. I usually buy my armies all at once, so I can easily track my cost-per-army, which for me is more important then any one purchase.

In other words paying ridiculous prices for a character model or a tank/monster is a little more palpable when the rest of the army is reasonable.

Hey! Looked at the original OP's posting for those 20 odd guys for $170... same price in Canada and he is in USA!
He could get some 40% off cross border shopping.
Oh yeah, don't tell GW that...

<edit> Noticed the American flag in the corner and changed it... $205 for Canada! Yeah, good times. Some models I know I will not get. (About 20% more)

The getting started bundles are a good deal to a certain point. But mostly because the norm for GW prices has gone so high.

Still, they're the first non LOTR GW product in ages I've been seriously tempted by.

I've even been looking at the Tyranid Endless Swarm + Getting Started bundle as a very cheap way to start a Nid army, as I've always liked them. But I've enough on my plate right now hobbywise.

 pox wrote:

Odd, we are in agreement on something and seeing it from the same view. Quick, throw a chair out me, this is freaking me out.

Thinking GW is too expensive is hardly a controversial opinion. I think everybody would like everything to be cheaper so that they can have more for less, but with GW, you actually end up questioning whether or not the whole hobby is worth the price - and I think most people end up in the "screw this, I'm out" or the "screw you, I'll buy your toys but I'm not gonna like it" camp. Nobody is in the "You rock GW!" camp, even me. They are a necessary evil that sometimes isn't very necessary. I'd love to give 40k a try, but I'm not spending $200 on rulebooks. I do like AoS though, and as long as I can fit it in my budget, I'll try. But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't worry that one day GW would price me out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:

I've even been looking at the Tyranid Endless Swarm + Getting Started bundle as a very cheap way to start a Nid army, as I've always liked them. But I've enough on my plate right now hobbywise.

My wife loves the Tyranids. She'll play AoS with me, but she doesn't do the hobby stuff. I was thinking of getting the Getting Started bundle for her to encourage her to take up painting again (she was very good at it when we played Warmachine, but stopped when we had kids). But I don't play 40k, and I'm loathe to prove GW's 80% of customers don't game with the models theory.

 womprat49 wrote:
welcome to Kings of War. You can buy an entire army for that price.

Not familiar with Kings of War so I just Googled it and looked at the pics. While they may be cheap in price I thought for a second I was looking at minis from GW from the 80s. Now mind you I am not sure what I saw so maybe these were old pics then again maybe not. Could it be "you get what you pay for?"

Not trolling, just asking because right now I am not impressed with KoW. Then again I could be wrong so asking just in case I might be missing something actually good.

Davor wrote:

 womprat49 wrote:
welcome to Kings of War. You can buy an entire army for that price.

Not familiar with Kings of War so I just Googled it and looked at the pics. While they may be cheap in price I thought for a second I was looking at minis from GW from the 80s. Now mind you I am not sure what I saw so maybe these were old pics then again maybe not. Could it be "you get what you pay for?"

Not trolling, just asking because right now I am not impressed with KoW. Then again I could be wrong so asking just in case I might be missing something actually good.

Aside from it being personal taste (for example these dwarfs from GW look ugly as for me) but for 200 NZD you can get this from Mantic:



Or for 190 NZD get this (I have this set, it's amazing)



Compare that to 16 dollars a dwarf that GW is trying to sell here in NZ and well it's a no brainer which models to buy. In all fairness Mantic don't have all good models, for example their elves are pretty odd looking however largely Mantic models are pretty good. Especially when you factor in the price.

Also if you look at GW models from the 80s they are truly nasty, nothing like Mantics models. It's also worht noting that for most gamers (especially non GW ones) rules and models don't go hand in hand. Most people buy the rules and then search for any model they like and use them. So right now you are unimpressed by some of Mantics minis, but to be unimpressed about a ruleset because of the companies models is a bit far fetched.

Anyway, you are partly right. Mantics older stuff is hit and miss (Undead being awesome models, Elves being mediocre) but most people here rather like them and their new stuff is awesome.

@Vermis fair enough mate, I took a very literal interpretation of what you said, without thinking about the pov of a 12yr old. I spend all my working day surrounded by teenagers, so I appreciate the truth in what you actually meant. Apologies if my comment came across as dismissive.

Some of the new starter bundles are good value, because the discount off the normally very high price of the contents is jolly good.

For example, the Start Seraphon box has a Carnosaur, normally priced at £50, plus 8 cavalry and 12 infantry, normally priced at another £30 ish, but it costs only £50. Effectively you get a bunch of free infantry and cavalry. I bought two of them to start a Lizard Man army and I may buy a third.

However, once you go beyond the discounted bundle, the normal high prices reassert themselves. My final army will cost over £300 including a few more monsters and characters, and some more infantry and cavalry. Fortunately, the Seraphon infantry is mostly fairly cheap.

While this is more expensive than a historical army of similar size, it isn't a deal breaker for me because I like the Lizard Men, they actually are unique as far as I have seen, and couldn't be replaced with alternative figures from another company.

What I've learned through hobbying is I don't want 50 junky models. I'd rather 5 great ones. Of course, it's all subjective. But I value GW plastics highly and get many hours of hobby out of their kits.

Yeah, I bought the mantic abyssal dwarf £50 box. Horrendous. I'd rather pay the extra for FW and have beautiful models.

coldgaming wrote:
What I've learned through hobbying is I don't want 50 junky models. I'd rather 5 great ones. Of course, it's all subjective. But I value GW plastics highly and get many hours of hobby out of their kits.

Yea, imagine getting 125 models (made up of 5 boxes of your choosing) of decent plastic models with hundreds of parts compared to GW 20 models of very few parts and it makes the hobby hours an odd justification... ultimately with a good paint job all models look nice anyway.

Ultimately whats the difference (quality wise) between these (1 NZD each, hundreds of weapon bits and poses)



And these (4NZD each, no posing, spear or hand weapon choices)



When painted up and ranked up they all look awesome. The only difference (besides the look) is one of them is 4X the price or more. Hobby time/model count it's a no brainer. Ultimately a lot matters since looks, theme and game needs to be considered but at the end of the day I think you will find GW isn't miles ahead in most kits anymore, and certainly not enough to justify the costs. The differences in quality that are noticeable (if any) are hidden away when you paint them in the end anyway.

The only reason I see to buy from GW is if you cant find another model to replace them. For example I am about to buy a sentinel (scrapping the pilot) because I can't find something around here to buy instead. It pains me that the sentinel is work 50 ish models from normal companies but sometimes you need a model and it's the only thing around. Other than that I have never really seen anything on a quality level that makes GW much better than 90% of other companies models.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JamesY wrote:
Yeah, I bought the mantic abyssal dwarf £50 box. Horrendous. I'd rather pay the extra for FW and have beautiful models.

Did you paint them... because painted properly there is hardly a difference, and if you can't paint well then both models will look average in the end anyway.

The abyssal dwarfs from mantic look very bad, even painted well.

I bought a few to supplement my chaos dwarves and i regret it because they don't look very good. My paint jobs are fairly good, but the models are ugly and there were mold lines i had to deal with that i would prefer not to.

The forge world chaos dwarves are about 5000x better, but you pay for it.

Thanks Swastakowey. Nice to seem so good stuff from them then.

I have seen the Abyssal dwarves and fought them and they hardly look bad. You may not like the style but the end result is hardly very bad.





Hardly a difference really. I mean, I don't like either because im not a dwarven player however I would hardly notice the difference between the 2 when they are both painted nicely. Really it's just the designs are different (oh and the price obviously).

What I know of the situation is when I first moved here, the stores all had GW games along with the others. Fast forward 5 years and GW is almost exclusively at the GW store, which is in a lousy location, is tiny, and has 1 employee. That is bad since I live in a major metro area. I am not certain that isn't happening around the country. Europe might be a little more accommodating to GW, which may explain why its usually Brits or others over there saying AoS and GW look good, but from where I am standing, they are going away fast. Price is a big reason.

@Swasta: if you don't see any difference between the Mantic Chaos Dwarves, and the Forge World Chaos Dwarves, then you are stoked, as you will be happy with the cheaper minis...

personally, i see a huge difference in their appearance, and wouldn't buy the Mantic ones at half the price...
the Forge World ones look so much better to my eye, that it isn't even a question of which ones are worth spending money on...
The little horns on the champs head, the scale mail, the faceless helms, and wicked trophies in their beards are little touches that make the FW minis my prefered choice...

the thing is, you say that painting can make any model look good, and i agree with you to an extent, the difference is, which model will make you feel inspired to put in the hard work of actually creating the amazing paint job???
for me, the Forge World ones are inspirational sculpts to paint, while the Mantic ones would just be a massive chore, and not fun at all to paint...

different strokes for different folks...
as a guy who's only concern is inspirational aesthetics, Mantic have not convinced me to spend a single penny on any of the models in their range...
they just don't visually appeal to me, at all...

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:
@Swasta: if you don't see any difference between the Mantic Chaos Dwarves, and the Forge World Chaos Dwarves, then you are stoked, as you will be happy with the cheaper minis...

personally, i see a huge difference in their appearance, and wouldn't buy the Mantic ones at half the price...
the Forge World ones look so much better to my eye, that it isn't even a question of which ones are worth spending money on...
The little horns on the champs head, the scale mail, the faceless helms, and wicked trophies in their beards are little touches that make the FW minis my prefered choice...

the thing is, you say that painting can make any model look good, and i agree with you to an extent, the difference is, which model will make you feel inspired to put in the hard work of actually creating the amazing paint job???
for me, the Forge World ones are inspirational sculpts to paint, while the Mantic ones would just be a massive chore, and not fun at all to paint...

different strokes for different folks...
as a guy who's only concern is inspirational aesthetics, Mantic have not convinced me to spend a single penny on any of the models in their range...
they just don't visually appeal to me, at all...

cheers
jah

You are agreeing with me by the way, because the only reason you don't by from Mantic is "they don't visually appeal to you". However ignoring the subjective appeal there is no reason to get GW models when it comes to hobby time, price per model and final result. The only difference between GW and most competitors ignoring the crazy prices and design is that you simply like the way GW models look. Nothing really to do with quality etc in most circumstances.