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A worthy note is the phenomenon of price on the human psychology; if something costs more it MUST be better!

It is difficult to shake the idea that idea that this new kit that has fewer models and a higher price tag is going to be that much better than the old kit, yes it may be, but detail and flexibility are very hard to quantify.

Essentially we’re buying art, 3D plastic art which most of us wouldn’t be able to create ourselves. And as we all know, there’s no upper limit on what people are prepared to pay for that stuff!

I’ve drifted away from GW’s styling in AOS, but it’s what is drawing in new fans. If anyone needs me I’ll be sat in the corner painting my Avatars of War figures, but I’ve got a lot to get through as they’re so much cheaper (Bwahaha!)

I wouldn’t necessarily say more expensive=better in most people’s minds, but cheaper=inferior does seem to come up a lot.

I don’t know about others, but (noticably) more expensive does not equate dirrectly to better - I generally actually associate it with gouging - if there’s fairly equivilant items at different price points, I often find myself avoiding the most expensive (gouging) and least expensive (inferior quality) for something in the middle. I don’t know if other people act the same way, but I doubt I’m alone.

People tend to regard inexpensive things as cheap, because we recognize that people don't part with valuable stuff for next to nothing. Unless, of course, they're running a scam.

The top end of any market takes advantage of this, naturally, so you're always paying 50% more for that tiny increase in quality. For a serious example of this, look at the home audio equipment market. Huge sums of money for the tiniest increase in sound quality.

 Stormonu wrote:
I wouldn’t necessarily say more expensive=better in most people’s minds, but cheaper=inferior does seem to come up a lot.

I don’t know about others, but (noticably) more expensive does not equate dirrectly to better - I generally actually associate it with gouging - if there’s fairly equivilant items at different price points, I often find myself avoiding the most expensive (gouging) and least expensive (inferior quality) for something in the middle. I don’t know if other people act the same way, but I doubt I’m alone.

I'm half with you. I absolutely will buy one of the cheapest items just to gauge the quality, though. But then, I bought at least one of every WGF plastic kit when they came out and plenty of historicals (many of which I regret), but only one Wrath of Kings mini at full discounted-retail price (that is, 10 to 15% off). I've been buying Mantic products since their very first plastic kit, but only ever scoop up PP minis at clearance blowout Taco Bell aftermath prices. Good median plastic products, like Malifaux, Gates of Antares, MEdge, AoW Berserkers and Frostgrave I will support for weird reasons, like "I like the cut of their jib" or "I need those _______", but typically leave on the shelf until then. For GW, the prices are so high that I only tend to buy minis that blow my mind for months (rather than only when they are the new hotness) or at sub-eBay prices. I would definitely buy more GW if their prices were more in line with Malifaux, et al..

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I understand why they do it, but it sucks having to pay more for a kit because it "makes three kits" when it actually doesn't, and you end up not using most of the parts.

I'm not sure that's the case. Adding bits to a kit is going to be less expensive than making entirely new kits. So a kit that makes 3 kits is more economical to produce, and it sells more units, so the per-unit cost to the company is lower - move enough units, and it could be lower than the cost to make a single use kit. Here's a scenario:

Cost to design single use kit: $10000 (you do this 3 times, and it's $30000 for 3 kits)
Cost to design triple use kit: $15000 (sharing components saves time and money in production)
Sales of each single use kit: 5000 units (cost to design: 2 per unit), selling 15000 overall
Sales of triple use kit: 15000 units (cost to design: 1 per unit)

Now, if the increased materials cost is less than 1 per unit for the triple use kit, they've saved money making a triple use kit, and can actually charge less for the triple use kit - or the same - than for a single use kit.

And that's why GW will keep making multi use kits when they can.

 Red Comet wrote:
To some extent I'm slightly convinced that GW is pushing the cost of writing rules onto us by having the models be much more expensive than they should be. I can buy a Gundam Kit for about 10 bucks that has as much plastic and detail as a 40 dollar box of minis from GW.

Well its pretty much what a lot of companies do nowadays.

its the same concept as early access. its cheaper to get unpaid fans to do a bit of QA, it makes the fans feel like they are part of something, GW saves some cash or doesnt have to sit there and wait on the rules team to release stuff that are already done.

 John Prins wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I understand why they do it, but it sucks having to pay more for a kit because it "makes three kits" when it actually doesn't, and you end up not using most of the parts.

I'm not sure that's the case. Adding bits to a kit is going to be less expensive than making entirely new kits. So a kit that makes 3 kits is more economical to produce, and it sells more units, so the per-unit cost to the company is lower - move enough units, and it could be lower than the cost to make a single use kit. Here's a scenario:

Cost to design single use kit: $10000 (you do this 3 times, and it's $30000 for 3 kits)
Cost to design triple use kit: $15000 (sharing components saves time and money in production)
Sales of each single use kit: 5000 units (cost to design: 2 per unit), selling 15000 overall
Sales of triple use kit: 15000 units (cost to design: 1 per unit)

Now, if the increased materials cost is less than 1 per unit for the triple use kit, they've saved money making a triple use kit, and can actually charge less for the triple use kit - or the same - than for a single use kit.

And that's why GW will keep making multi use kits when they can.

It's a mistake to think about costs exclusively in terms of money with GW. Their staff are on salary and they own the equipment, so there isn't a massive gap between making and designing models and having people sat doing nothing and idle machinery in raw pounds and pence (some nominal utility and material costs.)

The chief costs are time and opportunity, which are much harder to quantify.

In my case its just a lot easier to get GW's LOTR models than to get mithril miniatures versions. :(

 Azreal13 wrote:

It's a mistake to think about costs exclusively in terms of money with GW. Their staff are on salary and they own the equipment, so there isn't a massive gap between making and designing models and having people sat doing nothing and idle machinery in raw pounds and pence (some nominal utility and material costs.)

The chief costs are time and opportunity, which are much harder to quantify.

Agreed, but it's useful to consider. It's more cost effective - even with time/opportunity, to make multi-use kits than separate individual kits. And GW is designing parts of their armies around the concept.

My view has changed a little this week.

Caught up with the rest of the world and started playing X wing. Starter set - great value. Expansions... seriously???

In my head, makes GW look like a bargain. (Yes, I know, previous invested value....)

Also building some Zvesta 15mm tanks. £2.99 for a 28 piece Katyushka rocket truck.... can't complain about that either.

GW spend has dried up, partly because I still have tons to build, but partly because my "value" threshold has been passed. X wing starter pack was good value, but I can't see it growing unless a bargain pops up on ebay.

WW2 will grow quietly, because it's cheap easy and fun too.

My view has changed a little this week.

Caught up with the rest of the world and started playing X wing. Starter set - great value. Expansions... seriously???

In my head, makes GW look like a bargain. (Yes, I know, previous invested value....)

Also building some Zvesta 15mm tanks. £2.99 for a 28 piece Katyushka rocket truck.... can't complain about that either.

GW spend has dried up, partly because I still have tons to build, but partly because my "value" threshold has been passed. X wing starter pack was good value, but I can't see it growing unless a bargain pops up on ebay.

Really? I'm kind of surprised since I thought FFG hit the sweet spot with X-wing - $15-20 is about what I'd be willing to drop on an impulse by at my LGS. Which I think is definitely a viable miniatures marketing strategy. I'm going to put down a $20 for a cool looking ship, whereas I'm not crazy enough to impulse buy 70-90 bucks for a GW box.

Some of the most recent X-wing releases are getting pricier though. I'm probably going to end up skipping some of them.

This might be down to perspective, but... played some x wing. Thought - what about 6 - 20 fighters duking it out in a dogfight?

Suddenly I'm looking at a minimum of £70....

But then, you're playing so far over the normal then, the analogy would be playing 1500-2000 of 40K and thinking "what about playing a massive game with titans and gak."

While I wouldn't argue the intrinsic value of what you get for your money is probably lower even than GW (it is mostly card after all) the relative value of a fighter size ship in relation to a competitive force is orders of magnitude higher.

It's starting to swing though, price wise. The weakening of Stirling, a price rise and (I suspect) a little inflationary creep have started to take their toll on my perceived value of X Wing (no doubt informed by a degree of burnout as well.) When I started it was a simple matter to find fighters for £10, now they're more like £15, there's been an extra price band at ~£20 for chunkier small ships like the ARC introduced, large base boxed ships have crept from £25 to £30+ and, most underhandedly IMO, there's a trend for offering small base ships in large base sized boxes for a premium for no other reason than because. The Resistance Bomber from the last movie has also landed with an RRP of almost that of the Ghost (the biggest model in the game and most expensive outside of Epic stuff) for no reason that I can see.

It's a shame as when I started X Wing at around Wave 2 it was a total antidote to everything I had a problem with GW and 40K about, fast, tight, affordable, balanced and fun. It's starting to drift away from a lot of that, and FFG need to be proactive about that if they want it to stay at the same phenomenal level and not become another also ran.

Whilst X-Wing prices have been sliding up I think its worth considering a ship blister/box is playable as is, no BRB, no Codex, no assembly or paint needed, which is most likely baked into the price point, not white knighting for FFG the Kylo TIE shenanigans means its unlikely any X-Wing purchases this side of a 2nd edition

And like Az13 said the rules are sinking into a quagmire of gimmick and complexity, and if GW plays well Shadespire could rip chunks out of the playerbase

And like Az13 said the rules are sinking into a quagmire of gimmick and complexity, and if GW plays well Shadespire could rip chunks out of the playerbase

That implies GW actually supporting a game that's not 40k or AoS and I'm really skeptical about that. We may see more Shadespire teams for a time, but I think that's going to dry up way faster than FFG running out of Star Wars ships or driving away the base with rules issues.

Anyway, this is getting a little off topic, my thought on X-wing is part of the appeal is the price point. I'm not the type of gamer that makes a big army purchase all in one go, so if a blister/booster/pack of whatever game is cheap enough I can just pick one up each LGS visit I'm quite likely to do that. Where as if the price is too high I'll either pass up the game or go for online discounts.

As it stand we're pretty much in barrel scaping territory for X-Wing ships, and the rules are creaking under the strain

its a fair point about Shadespires longevity but its cheap and easy to get into, something that's sadly no longer true of X-Wing

I like that people who complain about GW pricing pay $20 a model for Star Wars and it's garbage game rules.

I like that people who complain about GW pricing pay $20 a model for Star Wars

And what can I get for $20 from GW? Not any of the characters produced in the last what 5 years or so. Not a box set, heck not even half the price of a box.

So for $20 I can get... a paint handle thing? Some other useless accessory?

and it's garbage game rules.

The base rules are fine, and honestly I like that the rulebook is short and to the point. The recent waves have brought a lot of additional condition effects that have their own rules and that's getting out of hand, but that's a different issue and already been discussed.

yep but as daft as FFG currently are they are still a long way from The Harbingers Collection levels of butt - millinery

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I like that people who complain about GW pricing pay $20 a model for Star Wars and it's garbage game rules.

I'm pretty sure that most people, at least ITT, has said they've done the exact opposite? I.E. they've decided they're not liking the rules so much and have stopped or curtailed buying.

But as has already been touched on, the X Wing engine is probably one of the strongest rule sets out there, it's simply a case off FFG playing some sort of rules Buckaroo with it that's causing issues, something that they have in their power to fix if they've the will, and I'm happy to return to the game if they do.

Where GW seem to win is they have engendered a weird mindset in a percentage of their customer base where they can release gak, and the response isn't "I'm not buying that, it's gak" but "that's gak, but if I buy a load of other stuff to modify it, it'll be ok, so I'll spend extra to correct a substandard product." This not only contributed to sustaining them through the final years of Kirby, but forms an excellent platform for Rountree to build on.

 Azreal13 wrote:

Where GW seem to win is they have engendered a weird mindset in a percentage of their customer base where they can release gak, and the response isn't "I'm not buying that, it's gak" but "that's gak, but if I buy a load of other stuff to modify it, it'll be ok, so I'll spend extra to correct a substandard product." This not only contributed to sustaining them through the final years of Kirby, but forms an excellent platform for Rountree to build on.

So often seen on this forum regarding a new GW release...
"I don't like it, so I'm only going to buy one rather than 3".

I just never understand that. Seriously, if you don't like it, don't buy it at all.

Maybe the thread title of "A perspective on insane GW prices" should be "A perspective on insane GW customers".

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I like that people who complain about GW pricing pay $20 a model for Star Wars and it's garbage game rules.

And the roughly 10 pages of GW rules for 8th edition are ..... good?

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I like that people who complain about GW pricing pay $20 a model for Star Wars and it's garbage game rules.

#notallwhiners

I certainly don't find FFG's prices attractive. They seriously expect us to pay $15 for the Quadjumper, a ship we've only ever seen sitting on the ground for five seconds before getting blow'd up? I don't find the inclusion of cardboard rules to be a good justification. Refusing to sell rules cards and minis separately feels as gimmicky and distasteful, like blind buy boxes.

 ScarletRose wrote:

I like that people who complain about GW pricing pay $20 a model for Star Wars

And what can I get for $20 from GW? Not any of the characters produced in the last what 5 years or so. Not a box set, heck not even half the price of a box.

So for $20 I can get... a paint handle thing? Some other useless accessory?

and it's garbage game rules.

The base rules are fine, and honestly I like that the rulebook is short and to the point. The recent waves have brought a lot of additional condition effects that have their own rules and that's getting out of hand, but that's a different issue and already been discussed.

I think that's the rub right there. It wasn't so long ago that $20 got your a regiment/squad/vehicle/character/whatever. You'd think they could even throw in a box of squad/regiment/whatever fillers for $20. Right now, you can't even get a 5 man bog standard armed anything for $20. THAT is the true insanity. THAT is what needs to be addressed, there is no "slow burn" build up pricing for the younger demographic which is pretty much the lifeblood of any game system.

I can remember being a kid and a blister of 2 Chaos Warriors was like, six bucks. Maybe ten if it was something special, a Lord was like... fifteen bucks? I think I paid ten dollars for a couple of Champions. (I didn't play 40k until ~1998).

It's kind of sad I can get a better, more detailed Infinity single for about fifteen to twenty bucks, but a finecast character for 40k is like $40.00.

GW has eight Easy to Build kits (four for Warhammer 40,000 and four for Age of Sigmar) for $15 each.

 Ghaz wrote:
GW has eight Easy to Build kits (four for Warhammer 40,000 and four for Age of Sigmar) for $15 each.

Those are great and all, and to be honest? As big as 40k and Sigmar are? It would be nice to have more 'Easy to Built' kits. I use them religiously.

 Ghaz wrote:
GW has eight Easy to Build kits (four for Warhammer 40,000 and four for Age of Sigmar) for $15 each.

I'd be happy paying those prices if I could play a satisfying, interesting game with 3 similar packs and a character that cost similar. Unfortunately that would get me a small start to spending even more.

I'm not gonna lie, I'd much rather have an Easy-To-Build Predator, Rhino, or Land Raider.

I really, really hate building those models.

Ghaz wrote:GW has eight Easy to Build kits (four for Warhammer 40,000 and four for Age of Sigmar) for $15 each.

So they have those few kits, I honestly didn't know those existed. How many of them are fieldable as legal units straight out of the box? When GW had the $10 Space Marine Combat Squad, that thing was a playable unit straight from the get go. A learner could snag a box a week, and at the end of the month have a tiny force all his/her own to learn with at the FLGS. These, while a breath of fresh air given how GW USUALLY handles entry level stuff, simply supplement what you already have. In the case of the Primaris thinigs, what is the minimum size unit for those models? If it is NOT the specific count of that box, then it's a bit of a loss. I'd also love to see a character option at that price. Sure, give him garbage wargear to encourage the young player to want the $80 multipart kit, but at least have a beginner option. This is a tiptoe in the right direction, but not quite a step.