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He, wow, there goes any thought I ever had of collecting Forge World.

For those who think that this will be a mess, it will be, in the short term - give it 6 months and people will move on and forget about the price bumps, or new players will come and just assume that this is how it always was.

From a consumer friendly point of view, FW really should have kept the conversions roughly as is (round out the numbers to the nearest 50 cents, or dollar, or euro, etc) for the current lines, and only bumped up for newer items, much like how GW proper has avoided upping the costs of older kits (lately) while giving new kits higher and higher prices. People would grumble, but it would be far more spread out than it is right now, and on a smaller scale.

Took a nap and woke up to the internet rage posting....


So let's get some clarification.....did they have an overall price hike, or just in the US? Is it cheaper to order from the UK with shipping charges etc? What's the 411?

This suuuuuucks. The comments on Forgeworld's Facebook page almost makes up for it though

General Hobbs wrote:


Took a nap and woke up to the internet rage posting....


So let's get some clarification.....did they have an overall price hike, or just in the US? Is it cheaper to order from the UK with shipping charges etc? What's the 411?

Most of the world experienced an unexaplainable massive hike in prices. 20-30% and up. Meanwhile the UK customers took an overall cut.

People no longer pay for fw in GBP, at the world exchange rate plus a bank fee, but now in local currencies priced at a much higher exchange ( 1.55 to 1.6 from what I have looked at so far) but a fixed shipping cost (better for medium orders, worse for tiny orders, and irrelevant to those of use who make less frequent purchases that meet the free express point.

One thing to note is that any gift vouchers or credit you had was updated in line with whatever exchange rate they're using, so that's nice I suppose. My £65 voucher is now $170AUD

Every single chinabay recasters on forgeworld is laughing manically at the price increase. The amount of drek they sell is about to quintuple.

I decided to look at a dozen different kits across the price spectrum (from rhino doors up to the warlord), and found that the median premium-over-straight-currency-conversion was 20% for US customers. It wasn't exact on every kit, but most were very close, hovering in the 19-21% range (likely due to rounding to whole dollars). The worst two offenders from my random checking were deimos rhino doors and legion combi-weapons, both at a 24% additional markup.

 JBSchroeds wrote:
I decided to look at a dozen different kits across the price spectrum (from rhino doors up to the warlord), and found that the median premium-over-straight-currency-conversion was 20% for US customers. It wasn't exact on every kit, but most were very close, hovering in the 19-21% range (likely due to rounding to whole dollars). The worst two offenders from my random checking were deimos rhino doors and legion combi-weapons, both at a 24% additional markup.

I've been away from GW for ten years and just got back into it to find out they haven't changed much. Being 100% honest, I've never seen a company make more confusingly daft business decisions in my entire life. I had heard they had turned things around recently and hence my giving it a shot again. "They had to have done something good or they wouldn't still be around", I thought. If they just lowered their prices (which they most certainly can afford to do) they would increase their profit margins overall. It's why Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. Some will say, "but they gotta pay for this and that and ...." SILENCE. You are a fool. Some will say, "They can't keep up with demand if they lower prices...I took a class in economics and I'm a Socialist" SILENCE! Before I smite thee. Here's the answer, please read it twice. You GROW your business to keep up with demand. There is no way on earth their costs remotely approach their prices. And if they do, then they are even more Communist than I thought. What they need is an American business mogul to come in and teach these dingbats how to actually grow a business. I'm talking Donald Trump style we're about to make GW great again all while paying off hookers and eating cheeseburgers. If there is one thing we are good at, it's Capitalism for better or for worse. In ten years you would see a squad of Primaris Marines in every Happy Meal and there would be a Games Workshop store in the back of every Starbucks and it wouldn't take a 6 figure income to collect this magical rare earth mineral called plastic. It's freaking plastic still on the sprues. IT DOESN'T COST MUCH AT ALL TO MAKE THIS STUFF. "but, but, but.." SILENCE!

puzzledust wrote:

 JBSchroeds wrote:
I decided to look at a dozen different kits across the price spectrum (from rhino doors up to the warlord), and found that the median premium-over-straight-currency-conversion was 20% for US customers. It wasn't exact on every kit, but most were very close, hovering in the 19-21% range (likely due to rounding to whole dollars). The worst two offenders from my random checking were deimos rhino doors and legion combi-weapons, both at a 24% additional markup.

I've been away from GW for ten years and just got back into it to find out they haven't changed much. Being 100% honest, I've never seen a company make more confusingly daft business decisions in my entire life. I had heard they had turned things around recently and hence my giving it a shot again. "They had to have done something good or they wouldn't still be around", I thought. If they just lowered their prices (which they most certainly can afford to do) they would increase their profit margins overall. It's why Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. Some will say, "but they gotta pay for this and that and ...." SILENCE. You are a fool. Some will say, "They can't keep up with demand if they lower prices...I took a class in economics and I'm a Socialist" SILENCE! Before I smite thee. Here's the answer, please read it twice. You GROW your business to keep up with demand. There is no way on earth their costs remotely approach their prices. And if they do, then they are even more Communist than I thought. What they need is an American business mogul to come in and teach these dingbats how to actually grow a business. I'm talking Donald Trump style we're about to make GW great again all while paying off hookers and eating cheeseburgers. If there is one thing we are good at, it's Capitalism for better or for worse. In ten years you would see a squad of Primaris Marines in every Happy Meal and there would be a Games Workshop store in the back of every Starbucks and it wouldn't take a 6 figure income to collect this magical rare earth mineral called plastic. It's freaking plastic still on the sprues. IT DOESN'T COST MUCH AT ALL TO MAKE THIS STUFF. "but, but, but.." SILENCE!

The Forge World price rise was worth it for this alone

 Azreal13 wrote:

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

And it's not like it's going to be big effect to all.

Were I to buy spartan whopping 3 euro's difference. Whopedoo. 145 euro's vs 142 euro's. Yey. What a bankrupt for me! I need to abstain from half a beer! The horror!

The fethers are going to have the nerve to charge for shipping on anything under $400.

tneva82 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

And it's not like it's going to be big effect to all.

Were I to buy spartan whopping 3 euro's difference. Whopedoo. 145 euro's vs 142 euro's. Yey. What a bankrupt for me! I need to abstain from half a beer! The horror!

SILENCE!

tneva82 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

And it's not like it's going to be big effect to all.

Were I to buy spartan whopping 3 euro's difference. Whopedoo. 145 euro's vs 142 euro's. Yey. What a bankrupt for me! I need to abstain from half a beer! The horror!

That's all well and good for you, but what about the Americans paying 20% extra compared to last week's prices? The Australians who pay 50-60% more? That's not half a beer, that's half a week's groceries in the Spartan's case ($194 converted, becomes $260)

Paying 50% more for the same product because GW decided that was appropriate. Whopedoo

I was going to make a similar point, but then I figured letting an actual Ozzie tear him a new one for such a breathtaking lack of sympathy might just make that Ozzie feel a little better under the circumstances!

tneva82 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

And it's not like it's going to be big effect to all.

Were I to buy spartan whopping 3 euro's difference. Whopedoo. 145 euro's vs 142 euro's. Yey. What a bankrupt for me! I need to abstain from half a beer! The horror!

I love how you FREAK OUT at typos and imprecise rules wordings, but at obvious corporate cash gouging you're totally content.

If this was GW prime you'd be calling for lynchings.

 Rygnan wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

And it's not like it's going to be big effect to all.

Were I to buy spartan whopping 3 euro's difference. Whopedoo. 145 euro's vs 142 euro's. Yey. What a bankrupt for me! I need to abstain from half a beer! The horror!

That's all well and good for you, but what about the Americans paying 20% extra compared to last week's prices? The Australians who pay 50-60% more? That's not half a beer, that's half a week's groceries in the Spartan's case ($194 converted, becomes $260)

Paying 50% more for the same product because GW decided that was appropriate. Whopedoo

Yes and suck for them. But less hyrerbole along fw sales goes to zero. Uk(their biggest market) only benefitted and other markets don't feel big change either.

 Rygnan wrote:
That's all well and good for you, but what about the Americans paying 20% extra compared to last week's prices? The Australians who pay 50-60% more? That's not half a beer, that's half a week's groceries in the Spartan's case ($194 converted, becomes $260)

Paying 50% more for the same product because GW decided that was appropriate. Whopedoo

And not just paying more than last week, paying more than UK customers pay right now. It's not like GW raised prices on everything, which would be frustrating but at least fair, they raised prices on non-UK customers only and tried to justify it with the laughable argument that it's ok to pay 20% more because you don't have to pay a 3% currency conversion fee.

ERJAK wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

And it's not like it's going to be big effect to all.

Were I to buy spartan whopping 3 euro's difference. Whopedoo. 145 euro's vs 142 euro's. Yey. What a bankrupt for me! I need to abstain from half a beer! The horror!

I love how you FREAK OUT at typos and imprecise rules wordings, but at obvious corporate cash gouging you're totally content.

If this was GW prime you'd be calling for lynchings.

I freak out about hyperbole "FW sales go to zero!" when it's marketdly wrong. UK sales will go up, euro sales should be about same if price is such a factor...

Oh and funny you mention GW prime. They have been on this pricising system for years so if FW sales go to zero due to this...Well presumably GW prime sales in US have been zero in years. No new models sold there...Oh wait they do. Guess that shows you how US will in practice react to this. By still buying. After all if artificial exchange rate price couging will kill sales for FW it should have done same for GW when the GW went for it. Basic logic but guess too hard for some people.

Oh and btw imprecise rules affect players more than model prices. Especially luxury ones. One can always work around with luxury non-essential models being bit pricier. Harder to avoid GW sloppy rules writing except by not playing at all(which then makes buying models moot point anyway). Those have caused more headache for me than last decade's worth of GW price hikes combined.

Peregrine wrote:

 Rygnan wrote:
That's all well and good for you, but what about the Americans paying 20% extra compared to last week's prices? The Australians who pay 50-60% more? That's not half a beer, that's half a week's groceries in the Spartan's case ($194 converted, becomes $260)

Paying 50% more for the same product because GW decided that was appropriate. Whopedoo

And not just paying more than last week, paying more than UK customers pay right now. It's not like GW raised prices on everything, which would be frustrating but at least fair, they raised prices on non-UK customers only and tried to justify it with the laughable argument that it's ok to pay 20% more because you don't have to pay a 3% currency conversion fee.

I have purchased many items in foreign currency over the years and have never once seen a conversion fee. Whereas something like Death Korps went from 44 pounds (56/57USD) up to 69$ thanks to Forge World making currency conversion more 'convenient'.

tneva82 wrote:

ERJAK wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

You've a lot more confidence that people will follow through on abstaining from purchases when the new shiny for their thing shows up. All the last few years has shown me is while there was always a better way, there's a core of customers who'll keep buying regardless. Heck, there's probably a percentage who'll barely notice.

And it's not like it's going to be big effect to all.

Were I to buy spartan whopping 3 euro's difference. Whopedoo. 145 euro's vs 142 euro's. Yey. What a bankrupt for me! I need to abstain from half a beer! The horror!

I love how you FREAK OUT at typos and imprecise rules wordings, but at obvious corporate cash gouging you're totally content.

If this was GW prime you'd be calling for lynchings.

I freak out about hyperbole "FW sales go to zero!" when it's marketdly wrong. UK sales will go up, euro sales should be about same if price is such a factor...

Oh and funny you mention GW prime. They have been on this pricising system for years so if FW sales go to zero due to this...Well presumably GW prime sales in US have been zero in years. No new models sold there...Oh wait they do. Guess that shows you how US will in practice react to this. By still buying. After all if artificial exchange rate price couging will kill sales for FW it should have done same for GW when the GW went for it. Basic logic but guess too hard for some people.

Oh and btw imprecise rules affect players more than model prices. Especially luxury ones. One can always work around with luxury non-essential models being bit pricier. Harder to avoid GW sloppy rules writing except by not playing at all(which then makes buying models moot point anyway). Those have caused more headache for me than last decade's worth of GW price hikes combined.

Forge World sales will likely take a hit for awhile, but the fans will come back - some will need something to finish an army, some will forget that the prices suddenly went up in 3 or 6 months, some will grin and bear it to get a piece they want, and people new to Forge World will never know.

And you should note, in the US, most GW proper items can be found at a discount - some local game stores will have it marked down, online stores often have it at the GW maximum of 15%, and ebay coupons that give either solid chunks off the price, or 15% off of something already 15% off, makes it more affordable. Also with the more common GW kits, its easier to find preowned models either in the swap shop, on bartertown, or on ebay. Forge World, on the other hand, can only be obtained through their site itself, or booths they set up at a con - both of which will charge you retail price.

 Azreal13 wrote:
I was going to make a similar point, but then I figured letting an actual Ozzie tear him a new one for such a breathtaking lack of sympathy might just make that Ozzie feel a little better under the circumstances!

Given the author and his post history, I can't do much other than chuckle at how self-centered people can be.

As for Forge World's decision, China Forge already seems at least as popular as actual Forge World. If they're going to make the honest amongst us feel like fools for being honest ...well, I for one am not going to feel like a fool. /shrug

You only need to see that sold out Adeptus Titanicus here in Au/NZ to see how well overdoing it does - and I get my 100% legit boxed mainline stuff through a secret sauce at close enough to UKRRP inc shipping, because feth GWAU pricing.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

kurhanik wrote:

I have purchased many items in foreign currency over the years and have never once seen a conversion fee. Whereas something like Death Korps went from 44 pounds (56/57USD) up to 69$ thanks to Forge World making currency conversion more 'convenient'.

I purchase items in foreign currencies multiple times per week (yes really) and the fees are there, itemised, right on my statement. It's very much a real thing.
Possibly your financial institution isn't fully itemising your charges?

 Azazelx wrote:


I purchase items in foreign currencies multiple times per week (yes really) and the fees are there, itemised, right on my statement. It's very much a real thing.
Possibly your financial institution isn't fully itemising your charges?

Some credit cards in North America don't charge foreign transaction fees, while others roll their fees into the exchange rate. I have both types of card now, and in the past I also had the kind of card that itemized the forex fees but that wasn't in North America.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Welp, any plans for new DKoK models this year are out the window.

In fact, probably ever at these prices.

EDIT: Jesus...a single two-man DKoK heavy weapons team is now as much as an entire plastic cadian Heavy Weapons *squad*. $50 for a single Laser Destroyer? Almost $160 for a single artillery carriage with crew?

O_o

This is a good example of how they are normalising their non UK prices then.

It's £24 for the Cadians and £23 for the Death Korps

Compared to $39.5 and $36.

Forgeworld is as expensive compared to your region's core prices as ours is now (actually a bit less).

I haven’t tried to order anything direct since I went to WHW two years ago, but seeing Lorgar for $180 made me instantly double take.

And I have this strange feeling we’ll get hit with GST on top when ordering.. suddenly paying $200 for a primarch isn’t worth it.

*EDIT* when I viewed the website this morning primarch prices were $180 AUD. It appears they’ve changed since then. $140 w/ GST is still outrageous.

The problem here seems to be that FW have used an exchange rate that is likely based around an historical average (as they need to cover against future rate changes that make the pound more valuable*) but have done it at a time when the exchange rate when converting to GBP is very good, making it look very bad as there's this sudden huge price hike.

Todays exchange rate is approximately 1.28 dollars to the pound, but go back prior to the brexit vote and it was around 1.56, a year earlier again 1.66 (I believe it's even got close to 2 at some points in the past), so if the change had happened then it would have seemed much better, in fact probably even a price cut. If you look on the bright side, FW stuff is now likely to be cheaper than it was a few years back and if the exchange rate moves back closer to the normal rates then the new overseas prices may start to become a better deal than paying in GBP.

*This may be optimistic based on how things are going.

 Baragash wrote:

puzzledust wrote:

 JBSchroeds wrote:
I decided to look at a dozen different kits across the price spectrum (from rhino doors up to the warlord), and found that the median premium-over-straight-currency-conversion was 20% for US customers. It wasn't exact on every kit, but most were very close, hovering in the 19-21% range (likely due to rounding to whole dollars). The worst two offenders from my random checking were deimos rhino doors and legion combi-weapons, both at a 24% additional markup.

I've been away from GW for ten years and just got back into it to find out they haven't changed much. Being 100% honest, I've never seen a company make more confusingly daft business decisions in my entire life. I had heard they had turned things around recently and hence my giving it a shot again. "They had to have done something good or they wouldn't still be around", I thought. If they just lowered their prices (which they most certainly can afford to do) they would increase their profit margins overall. It's why Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world. Some will say, "but they gotta pay for this and that and ...." SILENCE. You are a fool. Some will say, "They can't keep up with demand if they lower prices...I took a class in economics and I'm a Socialist" SILENCE! Before I smite thee. Here's the answer, please read it twice. You GROW your business to keep up with demand. There is no way on earth their costs remotely approach their prices. And if they do, then they are even more Communist than I thought. What they need is an American business mogul to come in and teach these dingbats how to actually grow a business. I'm talking Donald Trump style we're about to make GW great again all while paying off hookers and eating cheeseburgers. If there is one thing we are good at, it's Capitalism for better or for worse. In ten years you would see a squad of Primaris Marines in every Happy Meal and there would be a Games Workshop store in the back of every Starbucks and it wouldn't take a 6 figure income to collect this magical rare earth mineral called plastic. It's freaking plastic still on the sprues. IT DOESN'T COST MUCH AT ALL TO MAKE THIS STUFF. "but, but, but.." SILENCE!

The Forge World price rise was worth it for this alone

Trump prices for Trump Amurika.

He seems to have gotten his wish but doesn’t like it...

Tavis75 wrote:
The problem here seems to be that FW have used an exchange rate that is likely based around an historical average (as they need to cover against future rate changes that make the pound more valuable*) but have done it at a time when the exchange rate when converting to GBP is very good, making it look very bad as there's this sudden huge price hike..

That would be in line with how GW have handled it down here in the past. They set the original rate with a bit of padding to be safe. When the Oz dollar went up, they would respond by raising prices to compensate. When the Oz dollar went down again, they would respond by raising prices to compensate. And so here we are...

Oh wow, that's not great news is it. I thought the new structure was touted to give us easier more cost effective products to buy from around the globe? and now it seems it's made the products more inaccessible as a regular purchase for those hobbyists who love the models they produce or collect certain factions.

I cannot understand what the thought process has been recently in GW/FW as it's really strange how they are ceasing production of a LOT of models and parts, the only thing I can assume is that they want to instill urgency in the products so even for future releases we as consumers will feel that if we don't buy the models we want straight away on release or very soon after then we'll miss out?

 insaniak wrote:
That would be in line with how GW have handled it down here in the past. They set the original rate with a bit of padding to be safe. When the Oz dollar went up, they would respond by raising prices to compensate. When the Oz dollar went down again, they would respond by raising prices to compensate. And so here we are...

Hmmmmm, I think I see what you are getting at...

edit. Also @insaniak, I remember reading Under the Couch yeeeeaers ago, nice to see you're still around

Well, there is one benefit for me, I can carry on buying stuff for my aussy mates and ship to them for FAR less than what FW charges direct.