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Something else I don't like in the new Genestealer Cult codex the requirements for a base army is outrageous.. They REQUIRE 3-4 unit types and multiples of each those units for just the base army before you can select other units for your army.
That is a total of 8 non choices or 8 box sets a new player would have to buy just to start an army before adding the models he really does want.

I don't remember how long this goes back, but remember the Harlequin codex required 3 core units, a heavy and 2 fast attacks before making any other choices... That is 6 non choices box sets in a very small army;
So to build an army from the new codex we need you to buy multiples of all the new plastic models we just released because that is how the rules are wrote..

Marines use to be a Command choice with having a large number to choose from and two troop types again with a number of units to pick from ..(a total of 3 Box sets)

Now codexs list major unit requirements forcing you to buy a ton of new models before picking anything else or trying to use older models
Half the stuff you may not want to field or purchase in the first place...

Wait so you must spend £200 right off the bat before you make a choice?

Yeah I wonder why people demonize GW...

 Genoside07 wrote:
Marines use to be a Command choice with having a large number to choose from and two troop types again with a number of units to pick from ..(a total of 3 Box sets)

Guard used to require 5-7. 5 when they had platoon boxes of 20, and 7 before and after that when you bought them squad by squad.

 Genoside07 wrote:
Something else I don't like in the new Genestealer Cult codex the requirements for a base army is outrageous.. They REQUIRE 3-4 unit types and multiples of each those units for just the base army before you can select other units for your army.
That is a total of 8 non choices or 8 box sets a new player would have to buy just to start an army before adding the models he really does want.

Well that's not true.

You can take a Combined Arms Detachment like almost every other faction in the game, and then you only need 11 mandatory models.

From my own experience, it is like thousands of tiny cuts that eventually kill any sympathy one might have had for GW.

Yes, you can't please all the people all the time but that still doesn't mean you can be a complete jerk about it.

GW really is haunted by their past practices as stark contrast to their present behavior.

They had their own forums where all things GW were there, organized with articles.
Now in this day and age of social networking, they still have an internet presence that is a shadow of what it once was.
They literally were ahead of the curve in engagement with their customer base that other industry would have killed for.
This is where they come across as "nothing is free", there were many awesome articles that are gone (maybe look in "time machine").

Back when Apocalypse was released, those formations were sold with an actual deal.
They literally were good enough I HAD to buy them because I knew I wanted that many anyway and it would be more expensive otherwise.
These "one-click" purchases are... strange, bordering on insulting... no deal (in some cases more expensive!) like somehow bundling them together is a huge service because clicking on all those models is such a chore... please.

We joked that White Dwarf was one big advertisement, but many years back it had actual customer/hobbyist letters, articles and armies in it that gave a feeling of being part of a culture and engaged. Visions and weekly WD was the first time in a decade I did not buy any WDs, it literally seemed to have nothing of note in them. Maybe I am overly critical, but I collected some 12 years (every single month) of WD until this change. Bought the first two months (just to be sure) deemed it a waste of money and moved on. I am happy to see it come back to something that gives a little more to the hobbyist: it does not have to be the same to me, change is ok.

Sponsored competitions forced us to improve our game and required the "fully" painted miniatures. I remember feeling grateful to get to play great games on great boards with each of us complimenting the other's hard work in making it all look awesome. I hope they get back to this. Pulling out on this still seems is like not taking ownership of the game. They are able to ignore the hard questions on how to make the game competitive (which it cannot easily be at this time).

Demonize GW? They are like a girlfriend that wont even give you a kiss but loves you taking them out for a dinner and a movie.

I might be in the minority here, but...

GW prices have never bothered me, not when I was 15 and not now that I'm well into my thirties. If it's worth it, I'll buy it, simple as that. I'd rather have a game with 1 army that I absolutely love than a game with 3 that doesn't really do it for me.

For myself, it's because their actual games suck real hard right now. Really, really hard. It's not worth buying their minis and books for their games, because I no,longer have any desire to play them.

As much as I enjoy the painting and modeling side of things, it's not the only reason I'm into this hobby, and certainly not worth GW prices just for that.

I didn't realize how crap their games are until I branched out when WFB died. Now I'm playing x wing, battlelore, armada, descent, Kings of war, all kinds of cool board games, really looking forward to some new products coming soon.... Reminded me why I love the hobby and gaming again, after burning out on GW after so many years.

TLDR: their games have a long, long way to go to be excellent and worth my time in the future.

I've always seen the prices as a tangential problem. In and of itself it's not a problem until you take in to account the other stuff.

Though sometimes price can be the core problem as well, like Mek Gunz that cost more dollars than they are worth points. But there's always been stuff like that, when I started around 20 years ago I started with Lizardmen and Temple Guard felt insanely expensive. However it's probably more common now.

I think the general problem with the pricing is that army size has grown so it seems like you're spending more compared to what you used to at least it feels that way to me. For example in other games the prices are relatively similar but what you buy tends to take up a large chunk of your force so it doesn't feel like you're just buying two or three or more boxes of the same thing because it's so cheap in points. If the game scale was smaller like it used to be many years ago I don't think they would be that many complaints about the prices

It's not that I can't afford the prices it's that I don't feel like I'm getting enough for that price.

£500 for an army I use a couple of times a month or the same price for a console or pc I'll use every day, Its a no brainer.

They could match mantic easily for prices they are set up for mass production, in fact they could have lower prices and still make a healthy profit buy selling in bulk.

GW does not make artwork they make miniatures for a game they need to get over themselves they are no longer the only game in town, no longer the most respected, certainly no longer the best.

dosiere wrote:
I might be in the minority here, but...

GW prices have never bothered me, not when I was 15 and not now that I'm well into my thirties. If it's worth it, I'll buy it, simple as that. I'd rather have a game with 1 army that I absolutely love than a game with 3 that doesn't really do it for me.

For myself, it's because their actual games suck real hard right now. Really, really hard. It's not worth buying their minis and books for their games, because I no,longer have any desire to play them.

As much as I enjoy the painting and modeling side of things, it's not the only reason I'm into this hobby, and certainly not worth GW prices just for that.

I didn't realize how crap their games are until I branched out when WFB died. Now I'm playing x wing, battlelore, armada, descent, Kings of war, all kinds of cool board games, really looking forward to some new products coming soon.... Reminded me why I love the hobby and gaming again, after burning out on GW after so many years.

TLDR: their games have a long, long way to go to be excellent and worth my time in the future.

That's the scenario for me too.

I have never really had a problem with GW's prices in themselves. If somethings' too expensive I'd manage without or find a alternative. As far as I'm concerned they can charge a million per model if they want. In a luxury goods market like this, especially where the entry barrier isn't particularly difficult to overcome, demanding too high prices takes care of itself eventually since GW can only charge whatever people are willing to pay.

Every seller of items wants to sell their stuff for a infinitely high price and every customer wants it for free. A compromise is reached.

What pisses me off about GW is when they've done things that benefit no-one. Disrespecting their own legacy and customers, making things worse for no benefit to themselves. If they charge a high price for their models, that at least benefits themselves (assuming people still buy). Doing stupid gak like constantly churning out unbalanced crap rules benefits no-one. Not them and not their customers. I can respect trying to make the most money possible. I cannot however respect stupidity and arrogance, causing the company to make less money and giving their customers less value for their money.

For me, it's that I could afford it, but it's like just bloat. You typically need at least 2-3 of the same exact box (and the assumption is more to get all the special weapons you want since they almost never come with all the available options) and it gets very exponential.

I don't even think they could make prices lower, what I think they should do is scale back the game, so you don't need to buy like 6 boxes of guys, plus a few tanks, plus a few clampack characters.

Like, a good comparison for me is how Warmachine is priced, the prices are roughly the same (give or take in some regards) but one box of troops is like 1/3 of your force, you're rarely buying 2+ of the same box outside of certain skew lists, and the most individual models you tend to see is about 30ish (so roughly 3 squads). 40k needs to go back to approximately that size. Let a normal battle be like 3 or so squads, maybe a tank or two and some extras. They also need to package things better; it's stupid to sell 5 guys for $40 for army A when Army B gets 10 guys for $45 and Army C gets 10 guys for $50 but really wants 20 guys in a squad. You should never have to buy TWO boxes to make ONE squad of guys; non-Terminator sized things should always be in boxes of 10.

Their prices need to be consistent instead of seemingly at random with increases every time something new comes out. They also need to stop screwing people on special/heavy weapons by not including all the options in the box, in the amount needed. It is beyond stupid to expect people to buy like two tactical boxes just so you can get two of a specific special weapon, because each box only comes with one.

The sprues cost pennies to produce the cardboard packaging is more expensive, they could easily drop prices.

Thing is that impacts profits which impacts share price so they won't.

Price increases are to compensate for an ever shrinking consumer base.

But they'll never grow the way things are, so it's self defeating to constantly raise prices.

Dropping prices would get customers back which in turn would increase sales volume meaning your profits would then recover after a year or two of short term pain.

But whoever instigated such a strategy is likely to get it in the neck even if it works.

There's only one way to save GW and it's far from painless or guaranteed.

The sprues cost pennies to produce the cardboard packaging is more expensive, they could easily drop prices.

No, they couldn't.

The physical cost of the kits is in the pennies, correct. But the development cost isn't.

Their cost of sales is ~25%, but their net profit is around 8% (excluding royalties.) So there's a huge, non product related, expense they're obligated to meet, that amounts to around 2/3 of their income as well.

Most of this is the cost of running retail, plus the salaries of non-creative and production staff (lawyers, accountants, personnel managers, probably WD writers etc, etc.)

So no, they couldn't "easily" drop prices. If they dropped prices it would either be a gamble that the lower price generated sufficient extra volume of sales to offset the reduction, or they'd have to cut overhead, which would likely mean job losses and store closures.

Personally, I think the retail chain is a liability, but the reality of the situation is that a price drop would be anything but easy. Arguably necessary, but not easy.

For me, pricing is the biggest issue. The game adds no value to me. The fluff adds value, but then they went and ruined it. The number of bits and accessories ameliorates the issue somewhat--5 terminators with three DW sprues for $50 is a much more tempting deal than five terminators alone--but at the end of the day, GW is asking for an awful lot of money per pair of space marine legs and torso back. Without some fantastic game rules and fluff, there is no buffer between the price on the box and the number of minis in it, and that is a ratio that hurts to think about.

dosiere wrote:I might be in the minority here, but...

GW prices have never bothered me,

In a lot of cases I don't think it's the high cost people are complaining about, but worth. When prices were lower, it was worth it, but with higher prices and lower quality, it's not worth it anymore. It's like saying buying a case of pop. Say 12 cans for 5 bucks. A bit pricy but still worth it because buying each separately would be 12 bucks. But now GW increase the price to 10 bucks or even 12 bucks a case. Not so worth it anymore.

Azreal13 wrote:

The sprues cost pennies to produce the cardboard packaging is more expensive, they could easily drop prices.

No, they couldn't.

The physical cost of the kits is in the pennies, correct. But the development cost isn't.

I call BS on that. If development costs are a factor how come GW made a lot of limited quantities of minis for about a 1000? GW can't use the excuse of "the cost of mods" and "development" because GW just made so much limited production runs it's not a factor. Also it's called "the cost of doing business".

Sorry you are just wrong here. If GW made a car and then added in "development costs" then what GM/Ford/Toyota/Chrysler would sell for $18 000 GW would sell the same are for $40 000 (no pun intended at all). It's the cost of doing business to do these "development costs" and then you should be passing down the cost to the customer when stuff can be done cheaper and faster, but GW just keep upping the cost no matter what.

Again, just to repeat myself, for "development costs" GW does a lot of limited runs in the last few years. I guess molds don't cost as much as GW was crying about in the past.

That made my head hurt. Perhaps don't argue things you've clearly no understanding of huh?

hobojebus wrote:
The sprues cost pennies to produce

The molds, design, production tools, office space, contracting, etc did not; they cost a very large amount of money. In order for a product to be profitable, it has to pay for all the costs associated with its production, not just the final piece.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Davor wrote:

Sorry you are just wrong here. If GW made a car and then added in "development costs" then what GM/Ford/Toyota/Chrysler would sell for $18 000

The material price on a car is far, far lower than $18k.

Development costs are a thing, and do up the sprue cost - but GW has shown with its "Start Collecting" boxes that they could cut the costs of existing kits by at least 10-15%, before retailers add their own discount.

Davor wrote:

I call BS on that. If development costs are a factor how come GW made a lot of limited quantities of minis for about a 1000? GW can't use the excuse of "the cost of mods" and "development" because GW just made so much limited production runs it's not a factor. Also it's called "the cost of doing business".

Yes, they can use that excuse. It's the profits on their high-volume kits that allow those limited releases to even exist. This is how business works.

GW have stated their production costs relative to sale price before, I can't look it up right now but I think it was in the realm of one fifth?

 Stormonu wrote:
Development costs are a thing, and do up the sprue cost - but GW has shown with its "Start Collecting" boxes that they could cut the costs of existing kits by at least 10-15%, before retailers add their own discount.

^^THIS^^

Considering Waylands sells the start collecting boxes for 40 pounds, and both GW and Wayland are making money out of it, they could easily lower prices even more.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
GW have stated their production costs relative to sale price before, I can't look it up right now but I think it was in the realm of one fifth?

When you get a source for that, you let us know. Otherwise, what you said is meaningless.

 Stormonu wrote:
Development costs are a thing, and do up the sprue cost - but GW has shown with its "Start Collecting" boxes that they could cut the costs of existing kits by at least 10-15%, before retailers add their own discount.

The Start Collecting boxes are an interesting thing. In the majority, perhaps even the entirety, of cases, the constituent parts have been on sale for a while, and taking each kit in isolation, has probably recouped its initial set up and design costs.

This is where the mean average of 25% on cost of sales isn't a great barometer, because something like a Rhino has probably covered its initial costs many times over. As a consequence, the return to GW selling a Rhino today is much, much higher than, say, that new Deathwatch flyer.

The SC fulfil two criteria, they represent an element of product extension strategy (something manufacturers do to revive sales of lines that are past the first flush of sales) and a "loss leader." While I'm sure they aren't sold at a loss, they certainly serve the same purpose.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
GW have stated their production costs relative to sale price before, I can't look it up right now but I think it was in the realm of one fifth?

When you get a source for that, you let us know. Otherwise, what you said is meaningless.

See the question mark at the end? It was a question, I was asking if it was about one fifth, I can't look it up right now, either look it up yourself or wait until tomorrow when I can.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
GW have stated their production costs relative to sale price before, I can't look it up right now but I think it was in the realm of one fifth?

When you get a source for that, you let us know. Otherwise, what you said is meaningless.

How about the annual sales report, and every sales report they've printed in years?

The only distinction is around 2012/13 they started including design costs, whereas before that point they were reported separately. ASS is right though, they've been around 20-25% of revenue for most of the time I've been paying attention.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Stormonu wrote:
Development costs are a thing, and do up the sprue cost - but GW has shown with its "Start Collecting" boxes that they could cut the costs of existing kits by at least 10-15%, before retailers add their own discount.

The Start Collecting boxes are an interesting thing. In the majority, perhaps even the entirety, of cases, the constituent parts have been on sale for a while, and taking each kit in isolation, has probably recouped its initial set up and design costs.

This is where the mean average of 25% on cost of sales isn't a great barometer, because something like a Rhino has probably covered its initial costs many times over. As a consequence, the return to GW selling a Rhino today is much, much higher than, say, that new Deathwatch flyer.

The SC fulfil two criteria, they represent an element of product extension strategy (something manufacturers do to revive sales of lines that are past the first flush of sales) and a "loss leader." While I'm sure they aren't sold at a loss, they certainly serve the same purpose.

The significance of the plastic costing pennies means that it's more important for them to sell a large amount of money's worth rather than trying to get a high rate on each sprue.

In other words, they're likely better off selling an army of 200 miniatures for $600 to a customer than selling an army of 50 miniatures for $200, the former may mean they're selling for 25% less per model, but the extra models don't actually cost them much to produce so they'd rather sell larger batches.

Selling bigger lots does come with increased storage and shipping costs, but I'm going to take a guess and say that's small compared to what they pay employees.

Of course GW's tactic seems to be still sell 200 models, just sell them for $1000 instead. But the result of that is more people leave the game completely and they end up making nothing off some people they could be making money off and they become ever more reliant on selling to whales.

Also I think the cost of GW making a sprue has gone down a lot compared to old estimates now they have all their tooling in house and probably a more refined development process, otherwise I don't think they would have dropped metal and resin for low-volume models.

Yes dev costs apply to new kits but for a lot of kits that's long since paid off.

I'm talking about kits that have been around years now.

The sw kits from 2009 for example have had their dev costs paid off but they are still £25.

Video games cost millions to develop but they decrease in price over time, there's no reason the same couldn't happen with miniatures.

Most of their core product's molds have many times over recouped any R&D costs. The economy of scale should mean that these products cost less to produce due to amortization.
There is no reason at all why we can't see GW products next to Revell, Testors, and Lindburgh in large chain hobby stores (Michaels, A.C. Moore, Hobby Lobby, Pat Catan's, etc.)

Oh wait isn't that what Battle for Vedros was supposed to be, and there are what like three places actually selling it and they're all in Tennessee!

GW used a third party for distribution on those, someone dropped the ball. GW needs to go back to what works and get on the blower and start tootin'.

hobojebus wrote:
Yes dev costs apply to new kits but for a lot of kits that's long since paid off.

I'm talking about kits that have been around years now.

The sw kits from 2009 for example have had their dev costs paid off but they are still £25.

Video games cost millions to develop but they decrease in price over time, there's no reason the same couldn't happen with miniatures.

This, and mold making isn't as expensive as it used to be and adding 3D printing for prototyping also cuts down the costs, overhead for profits and infrastructure is where the GW's costs are.
That a bigger company like Bandai can make Fully articulate kits for less than 20 dollars is proof to that GW artificially jacks up the prices (and that other companies who make similar
miniatures who outsource their production are still able to undercut GW's prices).