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Sy2pie wrote:
Who cares if they are characters or not. The point is they probably cost about £5 to produce. I would understand if they were assembled and painted, but when you spend £100 and then open the box to find a fivers worth of plastic, it's crazy.

It's even a rip off by their own standards. Sure there are 5 in this box set, but a box of 3 regular jet bikes is a mere £25.

How does producing these characters cost more than these exactly?

I'll quote my initial post in this thread for you

 Glasdir wrote:
not sure if this has already been mentioned but has anyone factored in the cost of producing the molds? the actual molds for injection molding are expensive to produce and with the case of the clam pack characters people are only likely to buy one of them and not everyone is going to buy one, GW have to factor this in which is why they are much more expensive due to this much more limited window for sales and the fact that they still have to cover the costs of producing the molds, paying the designers etc.
that said those generic primaris characters prices are absurd for what they are, especially when compared to the prices of the primaris lieutenants that were released for the BA and DA.

as I said, making the actual molds is very expensive, sure the material cost is cheap but they have to make back the cost of the mold as well which is significantly higher than that of the materials, they also have to cover the costs of store staff wages, delivery and designer wages. The fact that these are character models means that people are probably only likely to buy a couple at most and not everyone who buys 40k stuff is gonna buy eldar and not everyone who buys eldar is going to want a jetbike farseer, this means they aren't going to sell as well as something like a box of troops (something which every eldar player needs) meaning that they have to put the prices up on them otherwise they'd lose money on the clampack models and would have to either stop producing them or make them in limited runs so that they can generate hype about them being limited in order to sell them and make the money back instantly rather than very slowly over time, neither of which is good.
That box set is a remnant of when we still had the godawful formations of 7th, those were created entirely to solve the problem of models not selling. the formations were given OP rules to appeal to the aforementioned whales who would buy them in order to win. This ensured that those models got sold in order to make back their production costs.

 Desubot wrote:

Sy2pie wrote:
Who cares if they are characters or not. The point is they probably cost about £5 to produce. I would understand if they were assembled and painted, but when you spend £100 and then open the box to find a fivers worth of plastic, it's crazy.

It's even a rip off by their own standards. Sure there are 5 in this box set, but a box of 3 regular jet bikes is a mere £25.

How does producing these characters cost more than these exactly?

asides from potential man hours going into the actual 3d modeling, and extra work that goes into cutting up and properly making what could be a fairly complicated steel block probably not that much more than a normal unit.

and yet it ultimately doesn't matter, they decided to increase the price because they knew they wouldn't sell more than x amount of them so they are squeezing as much profit out of their investment as possible. that's just how characters work for them. and it seems that trend will continue as people still buy them.

We know it's possible to sell a single hard plastic 30mm model for around $12 because Malifaux exists. It's not the cost of the mould. It must be more of your second point. I just wonder how many people decide not to buy primaris marine units or a box of plague drones or the new great unclean one due to the cost of the characters.

Just to make a couple of counters in regards to some points that have been made without having to mess around with and edit a ruddy great quote tree..

- GW have their own equipment in house, to my knowledge every other, or nearly every other, model maker working in plastic contracts somebody else to do their manufacturing, who in turn will be looking to make a profit from that process. As a consequence, irrespective of how much a die costs to machine, GW are almost certainly paying substantially less than any competitor.

- not for the first time in this thread, we know the amount GW spends on manufacturing and development of product, both in real cash terms and as an easily calcuated percentage of their income (and subsequently, a percentage of the RRP.) So how expensive the dies are in real cash terms isn't really an issue, we know that the whole expenditure of producing and making models is around a quarter of their income, dies, machining time, designing, plastic, the whole shebang. It's right there in the financials.

- GW have their creative staff largely on salary, meaning that there is no increased financial cost for spending longer on a more detailed or larger model. There is an opportunity cost in that a creative working in one project won't be able to do something else simultaneously, but equally GW have more people in their studio than anyone else, so this is mitigated.

What always bugged me the most is like Azreal13 says, other companies can do the same hard plastic sprue kits like GW does, often (always?) contracting out to someone like WGF or Renedra or whomever (so paying a fee to them) and still often give more models than GW, often with the same general level of quality (aesthetics are subjective of course; Bolt Action models have the same level of detail if not more than GW models, but aren't sci-fi 40k visuals), at less price.

Well, it has been a while. I was going to say some stuff about the relative points of inhouse production and the like, but Azreal has me covered.

Back to Kharn though, in all honesty even if he is a 'limited run' by GW standards he will still cost a lot less to produce than Joan over all. And if the plastic really does cost that bit more for a run of his size then why have GW not cast him in metal?
It really does, as another poster put it, seem to be the GW people whom consider GW's products to be 'out side' the hobby, whereas everyone else just regards it as one and the same.

My personal theory on why plastic is simply they're still GW and still risk averse (albeit less self defeatingly than they were under Kirbett.) Metal, especially in the sort of volumes they'd need, does still remain volatile as a raw material cost, and resin, as Finecast will have shown them and pretty much everyone else knew already, isn't really suitable as a mass volume product. They also both have much more stringent QC requirements due to the degradation of moulds, curing times etc.

Plastic has none of these issues, one can reliably turn out sprue after sprue of near perfect product with minimal human intervention, the only drawback being the significantly higher set up costs, and if you've got a customer base that will stump up a high enough price at retail to allow you to very quickly recover those costs and start making an enormous gross margin, that ceases to be any sort of a drawback.

If the customer base were more price sensitive, they'd be forced to adjust their approach, but while enough people remain happy to put their hands in their pockets, GW will continue to do what suits them best and charge whatever they need to to realise that.

Personally I do wonder whether we're in somewhat of a honeymoon period and whether there may be a backlash on the horizon, but given the growth recently, it'll have to be the mother of all backlashes to slow them down any.

I'm surprised to see so much discussion of costs in this thread, cost based pricing is quite an old fashioned way of doing things imo.

I'm sure GW use a value based pricing method based on leveraging their great brand recognition and market share.
Therefore I would expect them to be more expensive than the smaller companies who are trying to gain market share and brand recognition.

Where I work we say that if the customer isn't complaining about the price then you aren't charging enough, so I'm sure the boffins at GW towers would love this thread!

 John Prins wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Pricing what the market will bear is smart business,.

Finding the sweet spot where price and sales volume align for maximum profit is smarter business. Now, if GW is at the point where they literally can't make more sales than they are capable of producing product, then ratcheting up prices makes sense (ignoring their current production problems, which are temporary).

GW is almost certainly at the point where they can't sell any more stuff at their current price levels, and it appears they are doing just fine on profits. GW ratchets up prices, and sees how they sell. If it's slow, they simply wait until the market catches up with the price. Not a big deal.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Azreal13 wrote:
- GW have their own equipment in house, to my knowledge every other, or nearly every other, model maker working in plastic contracts somebody else to do their manufacturing, who in turn will be looking to make a profit from that process. As a consequence, irrespective of how much a die costs to machine, GW are almost certainly paying substantially less than any competitor.

GW needs to generate a profit on that invested capital, and it's possible that a 3rd party manufacturer works at a lower net margin.

And this is what is quickly turning me off from the hobby.

It seems a lot of 8th was designed around how to get existing players to spend more money and how to get new players into the game and then have them spend even more money.

The intro boxes are full of mediocre models that are easy enough to use but require more models to make a really well rounded force.

Most of the models that I own as a SM player are really no longer competitive so those of us who have been in the hobby for 20 years can't just plunk down our existing armies but need to tool up with the new hotness (I'm not going to go buy 3 fire-raptors and my termies, vanguard vets, stern guard, grav, drop pods, Land raider, Templars don't see the table and now my razorbacks are hitting the shelf after CA and with ITC champion missions...)

I'm starting to feel exploited rather than excited (CA seemed a very thinly veiled cash grab to sell more primaris and punch FW in the sensitive bits while it ignored most of the balance issues) and with GW promising to keep changing the rules to keep the registers ringing rather than balance the game I feel like a fool to keep supporting their business...

bananathug wrote:
And this is what is quickly turning me off from the hobby.

It seems a lot of 8th was designed around how to get existing players to spend more money and how to get new players into the game and then have them spend even more money.

The intro boxes are full of mediocre models that are easy enough to use but require more models to make a really well rounded force.

Most of the models that I own as a SM player are really no longer competitive so those of us who have been in the hobby for 20 years can't just plunk down our existing armies but need to tool up with the new hotness (I'm not going to go buy 3 fire-raptors and my termies, vanguard vets, stern guard, grav, drop pods, Land raider, Templars don't see the table and now my razorbacks are hitting the shelf after CA and with ITC champion missions...)

I'm starting to feel exploited rather than excited (CA seemed a very thinly veiled cash grab to sell more primaris and punch FW in the sensitive bits while it ignored most of the balance issues) and with GW promising to keep changing the rules to keep the registers ringing rather than balance the game I feel like a fool to keep supporting their business...

Wait really?

a company needing to get new blood to survive and get veteran players to buy things when often times they wont as they already have a completed army is a bad thing?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
- GW have their own equipment in house, to my knowledge every other, or nearly every other, model maker working in plastic contracts somebody else to do their manufacturing, who in turn will be looking to make a profit from that process. As a consequence, irrespective of how much a die costs to machine, GW are almost certainly paying substantially less than any competitor.

GW needs to generate a profit on that invested capital, and it's possible that a 3rd party manufacturer works at a lower net margin.

I'm not sure I agree, even so, ultimately the profit on the capital is just money on paper, it doesn't really exist and is just an accounting conceit, it isn't even like GW has "GW Machining Ltd" as a subsidiary to muck about with taxation.

I'd be more inclined towards the cost of the equipment being amortized and written off against tax over treated as profit making investment, and I expect the proof one way or another is in the financial report, but I don't have the enthusiasm to go looking.

The idea of a model "making back its production costs" is a very narrow and incorrect way of looking at the situation. Whether or not a particular model earns a profit is irrelevant, what matters is if GW as a whole makes a profit. To analyze the success of a product line you have to look at the product line as a single unit and ignore its various components. For example, it's ok if a space marine HQ kit makes less profit (or even loses money!) if that HQ is a necessary component in the space marine army and helps to drive sales of the product line as a whole. It's why you can't take things to an extreme and discontinue everything but the single kit that has the highest profits, nobody is going to play a game of 40k where the only model is the space marine tactical squad box. You have to maintain a certain level of diversity in the 40k product line to keep the game interesting and appealing, even if it means investing in specific kits that are individually less profitable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, in analyzing per-unit profit vs. sales volume don't forget that GW is not a normal business. They aren't just selling a product in a one-time transaction like many businesses, they're selling a social hobby that depends on having a certain critical mass of market share to maintain its existence. A box of space marines has essentially zero value if you don't have anyone to play 40k with. This means that doubling their per-unit profit at the cost of halving their market share would be suicide, it would likely start a death spiral where finding people to play 40k with gets harder, so people stop buying, making it even harder for the remaining customers to find players and keep buying, and so on until GW dies.

Er, ok?

Not sure anyone was arguing that wasn't the case.

But it looks like you're back from a ban, so I guess you've got a lot of pent up posting to get out.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Er, ok?

Not sure anyone was arguing that wasn't the case.

Uh, what? Look at the top of the page, for posts arguing that the prices have to be high because each model has to make back the cost of its individual molds. And on the previous page you can see JohnHwangDD defending setting prices as high as the market will bear, with reduced sales volume as an acceptable tradeoff.

Yes, every model should absolutely be priced in order to give it the best chance of recovering it's capital investments, otherwise you'll inevitably end up making a loss overall.

Acknowledging that some may fail, but are necessary to maintain in the range, is pretty self evident. It's also pretty unlikely for GW given the length of time much of their product remains on sale, a kit would have to be spectacularly unpopular to not ultimately break even.


As to your second point, that's what you get for double posting.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Acknowledging that some may fail, but are necessary to maintain in the range, is pretty self evident. It's also pretty unlikely for GW given the length of time much of their product remains on sale, a kit would have to be spectacularly unpopular to not ultimately break even.

Sisters of Battle would be the poster child here - a range that is so spectacularly unpopular that GW, with its vast resources, will not commit to developing plastic models, knowing that they will not ultimately break even.

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yes, every model should absolutely be priced in order to give it the best chance of recovering it's capital investments, otherwise you'll inevitably end up making a loss overall.

Again, this is not necessarily true. Consider something like the old push-fit 5-man squads GW used to (still does?) do as newbie starter kits, or the stripped-down version of 40k they were trying to get into mainstream retail stores. You don't care if something like that recovers its capital investments directly because you're using it as a loss leader to get customers to buy your other products. The total value added by making the loss leader is positive, so you do it.

It's also pretty unlikely for GW given the length of time much of their product remains on sale, a kit would have to be spectacularly unpopular to not ultimately break even.

This is true. GW is pretty much guaranteed to break even eventually on any product they sell, simply because the molds last so long. But this is just another reason that the idea of a kit "making back its mold costs" as a factor in pricing is not relevant, so I'm not really sure where you're disagreeing with me.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Yes, every model should absolutely be priced in order to give it the best chance of recovering it's capital investments, otherwise you'll inevitably end up making a loss overall.

Again, this is not necessarily true. Consider something like the old push-fit 5-man squads GW used to (still does?) do as newbie starter kits, or the stripped-down version of 40k they were trying to get into mainstream retail stores. You don't care if something like that recovers its capital investments directly because you're using it as a loss leader to get customers to buy your other products. The total value added by making the loss leader is positive, so you do it.

.

Of course you bloody care!

You might accept a higher than average chance it won't, but that's not the same thing. Neither is a loss leader and something failing to recoup its development costs, at least not when you're a manufacturer and a retailer simultaneously.

It's also pretty unlikely for GW given the length of time much of their product remains on sale, a kit would have to be spectacularly unpopular to not ultimately break even.

This is true. GW is pretty much guaranteed to break even eventually on any product they sell, simply because the molds last so long. But this is just another reason that the idea of a kit "making back its mold costs" as a factor in pricing is not relevant, so I'm not really sure where you're disagreeing with me.

A lot of discussion about plastic monopose characters earlier in the thread. It seems to be the solution is dual kit characters with lots of options in the box- a perfect example is the chaos terminator lord/sorcerer. You can buy the same kit a few times and model one as a lord, one as a sorcerer and then subsequent kits as terminator unit leaders with no cloak. No reason they couldn't also do a kit with options for a power armour lord, sorcerer and maybe dark apostle. Use the same kit for unit leaders and exalted champions

HQ's in boxes of troops has a precedent too. The tyranid warrior kit can be three warriors or two warriors and a prime. The meganobz kit can make a big mek in mega armour.

Then do specialised characters (warpsmith, independent characters etc.) in metal or finecast.

... and a Tactical Squad can include a Veteran Sergeant!!!

My argument is, if it costs £25 to make 3. Why is it costing £100 to make 5 which are near identical? It's a rip off by their own standards.

 Snake Tortoise wrote:
A lot of discussion about plastic monopose characters earlier in the thread. It seems to be the solution is dual kit characters with lots of options in the box- a perfect example is the chaos terminator lord/sorcerer. You can buy the same kit a few times and model one as a lord, one as a sorcerer and then subsequent kits as terminator unit leaders with no cloak. No reason they couldn't also do a kit with options for a power armour lord, sorcerer and maybe dark apostle. Use the same kit for unit leaders and exalted champions

HQ's in boxes of troops has a precedent too. The tyranid warrior kit can be three warriors or two warriors and a prime. The meganobz kit can make a big mek in mega armour.

Then do specialised characters (warpsmith, independent characters etc.) in metal or finecast.

Could go further.

The Chaos Sorceror/Lord Termie kit is of course now something of a legacy. From memory, we got four character kits of a similar stripe then - Space Marine Commander, Chaos Termie Lord, Empire General and Orc Warboss. All of these kits came with lots of options - and barring the Commander, the bits for other characters.

But that was abandoned for reasons we'll never know (and anyone claiming to that doesn't work for GW in the studio etc is probably a liar on that count).

If they resurrected it? Well, lets consider Primaris. One kit of Primaris characters - can make the Lieutenant or Commander, depending on how many spangles you pile on. Then sell an additional sprue (or bundle it in, I don't care) for Librarian and Chaplain parts - similar to the Chapter upgrade sprues.

Sy2pie wrote:
My argument is, if it costs £25 to make 3. Why is it costing £100 to make 5 which are near identical? It's a rip off by their own standards.

Perception of value.

I drive a Skoda Octavia. You may know that this is essentially a slightly less posh, slightly stretched VW Golf under the bodywork. In fact, to stretch the comparison further, it’s functionally comparable to the Audi A3.

Playing around with the configuration tools on the appropriate websites, a mid-range (though fairly bare) Octavia costs £21k. An absolute base-level A3 nearly £26k. For no other reason than the badge.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


Could go further.

The Chaos Sorceror/Lord Termie kit is of course now something of a legacy. From memory, we got four character kits of a similar stripe then - Space Marine Commander, Chaos Termie Lord, Empire General and Orc Warboss. All of these kits came with lots of options - and barring the Commander, the bits for other characters.

But that was abandoned for reasons we'll never know (and anyone claiming to that doesn't work for GW in the studio etc is probably a liar on that count).

If they resurrected it? Well, lets consider Primaris. One kit of Primaris characters - can make the Lieutenant or Commander, depending on how many spangles you pile on. Then sell an additional sprue (or bundle it in, I don't care) for Librarian and Chaplain parts - similar to the Chapter upgrade sprues.

It's bizarre that they don't do kits like that any more. It sucks having HQ plastic kits that are one pose with no weapon options. Not that they aren't usually great models, but the expensive Kharn kit could have had some head and arm options and been a nice Khorne chaos lord too. It's most frustrating when many start collecting kits include single pose plastic HQ's, like dark eldar.

The Custodes kits all have the parts to make characters. Why could the Plague Marine kit have that?

I guess one could argue they're easy to convert. But shame about the general lack of Bitz available to some armies (in terms of useful sprue leftovers)

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Out of interest, would anyone who works in the industry mind confirming roughly what, in 2017 it costs to tool a single mould for plastic sprues?

One doesn't even need to work in the industry. Just look at the SJG Ogre Miniatures Set 2 Kickstarter, along with the current Dream Pod 9 Utopia Kickstarter. It's quite a bit less than $30k for a large tool. I suspect a single character tool is under $5k.

And that's outsourced. Pretty sure making them in-house will reduce the price, whatever it is.

I admit I simply will not pay $30-35 USD for a single plastic character. Not going to happen. It's not a major concern since I play Eldar and mostly stick to used metals on eBay. I have no problem paying $30-35 for a squad of models or a small squadron of light vehicles, etc...but for a single figure? Nope.

If you want to hide behind the "oh, tooling is expensive" argument, I'd say - do multi-character boxes. Look at the Thousand Sons box of sorcerers. If Eldar ever got a proper release, there's zero excuse to not have 3-4 models in a box, capable of making Farseer/Warlock/Seers (possibly even a Bone Singer), etc. I'd have far less qualm paying $35-40 for a box of several modular characters. Basically bring back the old Space Marine command squad boxes but in plastic. Combine the Primaris Chaplain/Apothecary/Librarian into a single box, even if you want to charge $50 for it, etc. While I wouldn't be stoked about paying $10-15 for a single miniature, I find that acceptable.

So, until that kind of thing becomes commonplace I won't be buying any plastic characters from GW unless they're second hand or someone has a clearance. I own precisely one...and it was a Christmas gift from a friend.

I fully support GW selling stuff at whatever cost they can get people to purchase stuff at - there are enough sadists around to buy them at $35, so good for them. Personally, I just vote with my wallet. Despite having two large 40K armies, GW direct gets very little money from me.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
The Custodes kits all have the parts to make characters. Why could the Plague Marine kit have that?

Perhaps then would have actually got real power armoured and termi lords...

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
Acknowledging that some may fail, but are necessary to maintain in the range, is pretty self evident. It's also pretty unlikely for GW given the length of time much of their product remains on sale, a kit would have to be spectacularly unpopular to not ultimately break even.

Sisters of Battle would be the poster child here - a range that is so spectacularly unpopular that GW, with its vast resources, will not commit to developing plastic models, knowing that they will not ultimately break even.

Unpopular? Sisters are incredibly popular with the fanbase its just that GW seem to think that they are not. Case point, that limited edition Cannoness figure was expected to take several weeks to sell out, not the several hours it actually took. The sell out shocked GW who for some reason (and despite the fact that people are still willing to spend £55 on 10 20+ year old monopose figures) did not think that the Sisters line was popular. Dont mistake GW's ignorance for poor a lack of popularity.