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 Orlanth wrote:

Stux wrote:
I would suspect that something like 90% of the people spouting vitriol against Forgeworld and claiming to boycott then have either never bought anything from them anyway, or could count the number of kits ever purchased direct from them on one hand.

That would also account for the vast majority of Dakka.

Most forum members cant realistically afford Forge World products and never could.

The 'boycott' is a bit much, its clearly a luxury product and you pay a luxury price for the privilege of whatever you are getting. You don't boycott the Ritz because you cant afford to stay there, you go elsewhere.

I know of one or two Forge World whales through third parties, never met them or seen the collection. One is a severely disabled person who is on a vial of morphine a day. He lives for his hobby, it is all he has got. He buys lots of Forge World stuff. Forge World being a luxury service genuinely looks after its whales, as opposed to other gaming whale harvesters like Cloud Imperium who just laugh in their cups and exploit them, the difference is that Forge World see themselves as craftsmen doing a craftsmans service with a physical product, not as wheeler-dealer salesmen. It is very much in the mindset of the single customer orientated cottage industry the discerning connoisseur goes to. Which also has a webfront tacked on.
It is said from those who know him that his orders are placed on priority and everything is double checked for him, there is a personal customer rapport. A bit like rich ladies who shop habitually at Harrods get known by name and are looked after wherever they go.

Forge World being a luxury outfit relies heavily on its whales and the customer service it offers to them. There is a webfront for everyone and if they have to raise prices it doesn't effect their core business that much.

Exactly.

A grass roots boycott will do nothing. Forgeworld is about selling to whales, that's the business model.

 Orlanth wrote:

Stux wrote:
I would suspect that something like 90% of the people spouting vitriol against Forgeworld and claiming to boycott then have either never bought anything from them anyway, or could count the number of kits ever purchased direct from them on one hand.

That would also account for the vast majority of Dakka.

Most forum members cant realistically afford Forge World products and never could.

The 'boycott' is a bit much, its clearly a luxury product and you pay a luxury price for the privilege of whatever you are getting. You don't boycott the Ritz because you cant afford to stay there, you go elsewhere.

I question how accurate this is. 40K is a pretty old game now - 30 years? A little more? Which means the teenager who played Rogue Trader in the late 80s is now in their mid 40s with substantial disposable income. I've probably dropped at least two grand in FW stuff over the last decade without really even thinking about it. My coworker just bought that gigantic ridiculous titan the size of a toddler.


I don't think there is any data to decide that "most 40k people can't afford FW".

 Ouze wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Stux wrote:
I would suspect that something like 90% of the people spouting vitriol against Forgeworld and claiming to boycott then have either never bought anything from them anyway, or could count the number of kits ever purchased direct from them on one hand.

That would also account for the vast majority of Dakka.

Most forum members cant realistically afford Forge World products and never could.

The 'boycott' is a bit much, its clearly a luxury product and you pay a luxury price for the privilege of whatever you are getting. You don't boycott the Ritz because you cant afford to stay there, you go elsewhere.

I question how accurate this is. 40K is a pretty old game now - 30 years? A little more? Which means the teenager who played Rogue Trader in the late 80s is now in their mid 40s with substantial disposable income. I've probably dropped at least two grand in FW stuff over the last decade without really even thinking about it. My coworker just bought that gigantic ridiculous titan the size of a toddler.

I don't think there is any data to decide that "most 40k people can't afford FW".

We don't know the stats, absolutely. It's a hunch.

But it will always skew young. The people who have more or less continuously played from Rogue Trader to now will be very few in number.

No boycott.

I don't NEED Forgeworld.

I LIKE it.

Yes it's ridiculously expensive and ridiculously cool.

I've bought some pieces. Will buy some more. Won't buy others because I don't like/ can't afford / can't justify.

I would agree that GW probably skews very young. In fact, I suspect a large percentage of their model is getting a little timmy in the store, selling them a few hundred bucks of Ultramarines or whatever the AOS equivalent is, and never seeing him again.

I don't at all think that's the FW model.

And of course, FW was alwasys a bit expensive but not outrageous until recently: when I bought their weathering powder set it was $15. That's obviously an outlier but you could have bought any number of Rhino doors, brass etch, decals, and small parts and models here and there without being the Monopoly Man like it's kind of being painted in the last page here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Personally, I think the real Forge World outrage is their gakky website which selects a random country when you visit and then when you realize your order is being calculated in Zloty or Pesos, dumps the contents of the cart when you select the correct country. I've never seen any other web merchant anywhere on the internet that required dumping the contents of the cart to switch currencies.

 Ouze wrote:
I would agree that GW probably skews very young. In fact, I suspect a large percentage of their model is getting a little timmy in the store, selling them a few hundred bucks of Ultramarines or whatever the AOS equivalent is, and never seeing him again.

I don't at all think that's the FW model.

And of course, FW was alwasys a bit expensive but not outrageous until recently...

The idea of outrageous is a subjective thing. Theyve always been outrageous to me but then I think all GW pricing is too high.

This poll is going to be skewed by the British like me who are unaffected by the recent changes to their pricing policy.

I hated FW because it was pay to win, now the points have been updated its no longer that so I had been considering FW purchases but apparently the recent rules are creeping back to the old ways.

The other skew is that quite a few are ticking either box and are openly stating that they never have been and never will/likely never will be customers no matter the prices. So it doesn't really make any difference if they are or not boycotting because, by their own admission, they are not customers of FW at all anyway.

I used to collect their catalogs and think about what to buy for years. I finally put in a big order for some BFG stuff, some Epic stuff, a few other bits, 3 brass etch detail kits and some transfers. The quality of the resin was awful, and I stopped looking at their catalogs.

However, I am now extra boycotting FW. If I want to pay ridiculous prices and get screwed on shipping, I'll buy Kingdom Death!

I was never that interested in FW anyway. I could never take those "Experimental Rules" seriously. And about 90% of the FW units I see locally are just knockoffs and conversions with battlescribe rules. Pass.

I've never bought anything from Forgeworld either.

If we're going off hunches I would guess that most GW players start young but most of the money is spent by older GW players. I started as a kid and collected for about ~6 years, but since funds were limited I made purchases very slowly. I dropped out in my late teens. When I got back in I was thirty with a decent job and no kids, so I spent far more in that first year than I did the six years I was buying stuff as a kid. I think my story is pretty common. Just a guess though.

I have no doubt that there are whales that make up a significant portion of FW's sales and they get special consideration (this isn't limited to FW or even to the gaming industry, it's a pretty common situation). On the other hand people owning a few FW models seems very common, at least in my area. It doesn't seem to be the kind of thing where almost nobody has any FW models except one or two people who have ridiculous amounts. There are certainly people who have none, and people who have lots, but there are a lot of people that have some. That's just my anecdotal observation though.

Sunny Side Up wrote:


Adeptus Titanicus just came out. New Blood Bowl team literally on pre-order this week. Necromunda is chucking along with steady releases. Middle Earth wargame just relaunched with a new starter box.

They've literally never released more stuff than in the last couple of months than ever before.


I just suppose people don't "recognize" it as the stuff coming from the specialist games department (formerly FW) if it isn't resin Imperial Guard tanks or Rhino doors?

Why would anyone assume that they had come from fw when they have the the citadel logo on them? Specialist games and fw are not the same team, fw just produce upgrade kits and extra models for them.

What's amusing to me, is that my observation is generally of the opposite when it comes to Forgeworld purchasers. While I agree only well-to-do folks will be buying $3,000 Titans, I find that most of the people I see buying Forgeworld locally are the younger guys. The college-age kids who likely "shouldn't" be buying FW but are single, young, have some cash and aren't worried terribly about finances in the future.

I find the older gamers who can afford it (and honestly most GW gamers can afford FW - it's not prohibitively expensive by dint of actual financial stress...it's prohibitively priced because it's stupid for what you get) are the ones who aren't buying Forgeworld because more or less they simply think it's a bad investment. I only know a handful of people in the local community who couldn't throw $150-200 at some pretty Forgeworld toy. They can, but they often don't.

Can most people drop $600+ on a big Forgeworld toy? Maybe not without a month or two planning (or a convenient weekend when the wife is out of town). But saying people can't afford Forgeworld is a bit disingenuous. They "won't" afford Forgeworld is the reality from what I see.

Now, the question then becomes..what provides Forgeworld with their larget income. Is it large $500+ minis or is it waves of small $50-100 purchases? That, I have no idea.

 Overread wrote:
The other skew is that quite a few are ticking either box and are openly stating that they never have been and never will/likely never will be customers no matter the prices. So it doesn't really make any difference if they are or not boycotting because, by their own admission, they are not customers of FW at all anyway.

That's not a skew. If they are boycotting FW it doesn't matter when they started.

It's hard to boycott FW when their prices were already so absurd for what you receive that you never patronized them sans a decal sheet and set of LR doors, and those were pushing it. If I had been a regular customer, you can bet I'd be boycotting a large price increase- not to mention the blatant lie that this is somehow a benefit to the customer, because shipping is easier/cheaper.

It won't matter though, too many people simply see something they want and buy it because they just have to have that new shiny possession. The "rules give you something to do with your minis" crowd. GW is quite adept at harnessing their customer base's rampant materialism.

Stux wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Stux wrote:
I would suspect that something like 90% of the people spouting vitriol against Forgeworld and claiming to boycott then have either never bought anything from them anyway, or could count the number of kits ever purchased direct from them on one hand.

That would also account for the vast majority of Dakka.

Most forum members cant realistically afford Forge World products and never could.

The 'boycott' is a bit much, its clearly a luxury product and you pay a luxury price for the privilege of whatever you are getting. You don't boycott the Ritz because you cant afford to stay there, you go elsewhere.

I know of one or two Forge World whales through third parties, never met them or seen the collection. One is a severely disabled person who is on a vial of morphine a day. He lives for his hobby, it is all he has got. He buys lots of Forge World stuff. Forge World being a luxury service genuinely looks after its whales, as opposed to other gaming whale harvesters like Cloud Imperium who just laugh in their cups and exploit them, the difference is that Forge World see themselves as craftsmen doing a craftsmans service with a physical product, not as wheeler-dealer salesmen. It is very much in the mindset of the single customer orientated cottage industry the discerning connoisseur goes to. Which also has a webfront tacked on.
It is said from those who know him that his orders are placed on priority and everything is double checked for him, there is a personal customer rapport. A bit like rich ladies who shop habitually at Harrods get known by name and are looked after wherever they go.

Forge World being a luxury outfit relies heavily on its whales and the customer service it offers to them. There is a webfront for everyone and if they have to raise prices it doesn't effect their core business that much.

Exactly.

A grass roots boycott will do nothing. Forgeworld is about selling to whales, that's the business model.

Could you clarify - what is a 'whale' in the context of these responses?

A "Whale" in sales terms is a customer that spends a LOT of money. You get the little fishes, big fish... look out for the sharks... but you get a Whale? That's big money, little effort. They buy all the starter sets. They buy all the brushes. They buy an army worth of Knights in one go. They have so many unopened boxes at home, they could start their own store but just keep buying. That's a Whale.

Whales don't care about price. They want it, they can afford it, so they buy it.

PS: Not actively boycotting FW, but I generally can't afford it. I have purchased exactly one thing from them, and that's the Vendetta Upgrade Kit for a Valk... when the Vendetta was first introduced. Never regretted it, easier than trying to convert, but still pricey to get here.

But since that's the only thing I ever bought, and the only other thing I've ever really wanted was Kreigers... lulz... my money wasn't going to them anyhow.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Considering I've only ever bought two forge world products (XV88-2, now discontinued as GW wants people to buy the plastic overweight broadside model, and a Carmine Dragon to serve as Malekith's mount) and both of them were years ago, I suppose I am unintentionally boycotting them!

But that is just because they don't make anything I am interested in. I don't care for giant stompy robots, don't care for space marines of any variety, etc. so the majority of their stuff just doesn't appeal to me.

How did it work out with the Carmine? I've been wanting to pick up the mounted Carmine to use for a High Elf centrepiece model for a while now. I've just been putting it off as a carrot to get my models painte but I'm pretty much there now.

 NoiseMarine with Tinnitus wrote:

Stux wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:

Stux wrote:
I would suspect that something like 90% of the people spouting vitriol against Forgeworld and claiming to boycott then have either never bought anything from them anyway, or could count the number of kits ever purchased direct from them on one hand.

That would also account for the vast majority of Dakka.

Most forum members cant realistically afford Forge World products and never could.

The 'boycott' is a bit much, its clearly a luxury product and you pay a luxury price for the privilege of whatever you are getting. You don't boycott the Ritz because you cant afford to stay there, you go elsewhere.

I know of one or two Forge World whales through third parties, never met them or seen the collection. One is a severely disabled person who is on a vial of morphine a day. He lives for his hobby, it is all he has got. He buys lots of Forge World stuff. Forge World being a luxury service genuinely looks after its whales, as opposed to other gaming whale harvesters like Cloud Imperium who just laugh in their cups and exploit them, the difference is that Forge World see themselves as craftsmen doing a craftsmans service with a physical product, not as wheeler-dealer salesmen. It is very much in the mindset of the single customer orientated cottage industry the discerning connoisseur goes to. Which also has a webfront tacked on.
It is said from those who know him that his orders are placed on priority and everything is double checked for him, there is a personal customer rapport. A bit like rich ladies who shop habitually at Harrods get known by name and are looked after wherever they go.

Forge World being a luxury outfit relies heavily on its whales and the customer service it offers to them. There is a webfront for everyone and if they have to raise prices it doesn't effect their core business that much.

Exactly.

A grass roots boycott will do nothing. Forgeworld is about selling to whales, that's the business model.

Could you clarify - what is a 'whale' in the context of these responses?

It's a casino term that's been adopted into gaming in general as additional paid content became more and more commonplace. Basically people are catagorised into sizes based on how much they're willing to spend; and in general how easily they are to part with their money. Unfortunately this seems to be a more and more common business model.

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The other skew is that quite a few are ticking either box and are openly stating that they never have been and never will/likely never will be customers no matter the prices. So it doesn't really make any difference if they are or not boycotting because, by their own admission, they are not customers of FW at all anyway.

That's not a skew. If they are boycotting FW it doesn't matter when they started.

Agree with this. While demographics and how they purchase over time is interesting it's not really relevant to the core topic.

My point was two fold:

1)
Most of the people claiming to boycott weren't buying anything anyway. Sure, they may have bought one or two bits in the past, but they aren't active buyers, and therefore them 'boycotting' means nothing.

2)
The only people who actually matter as far as a boycott having any affect are the whales.

Stux wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The other skew is that quite a few are ticking either box and are openly stating that they never have been and never will/likely never will be customers no matter the prices. So it doesn't really make any difference if they are or not boycotting because, by their own admission, they are not customers of FW at all anyway.

That's not a skew. If they are boycotting FW it doesn't matter when they started.

Agree with this. While demographics and how they purchase over time is interesting it's not really relevant to the core topic.

My point was two fold:

1)
Most of the people claiming to boycott weren't buying anything anyway. Sure, they may have bought one or two bits in the past, but they aren't active buyers, and therefore them 'boycotting' means nothing.

2)
The only people who actually matter as far as a boycott having any affect are the whales.

I have no idea how we can measure #1, but #2 is doubtful. The whales leaving obviously has the largest impact, but price change won't bother them. However there is far more regular customers than there is whales, and if you lose enough of them it absolutely will have an impact. By your logic everyone would just raise prices for everything ever with zero repercussions.

And that's what I mean, people who are never buying anything from FW before the price rise are not boycotting them now as they were never the market in the first place, so them voting not to buy now isn't actually boycotting.

And I'd say that without seeing a full breakdown of FW's sales figures its impossible for us to say which market is more important - those who buy huge amounts of FW or the trickle feed of smaller purchases by a wider number of individuals. It might also be that those two groups have different product focuses within the FW product lines. Eg the AoS and much of the Xeno 40K stuff might be far more bought by many people buying fewer products; whilst the Marines and 30K stuff might be all whale market focused.

So a boycott of whale purchases might only impact select FW lines not the entire library of products.

 Overread wrote:
And that's what I mean, people who are never buying anything from FW before the price rise are not boycotting them now as they were never the market in the first place, so them voting not to buy now isn't actually boycotting.

I guess not to the relevance of the poll trying to see the impacts, you are right, it doesn't really make a difference I guess.



One thing I will say - people who started boycotting this month due to a "moral" dilemna over price gouging, do not exist. They have been openly price gouging for years, just ask Australians or New Zealands, they just began including a few more countries, it's not a secret. Anyone with a moral objection against price gouging was either already boycotting them already or didn't actually have that much of a moral dilemna with it at all when it didn't affect them. Anyone who stopped shopping with them this month did so because they can no longer afford to. My opinion.

 SHUPPET wrote:

Stux wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The other skew is that quite a few are ticking either box and are openly stating that they never have been and never will/likely never will be customers no matter the prices. So it doesn't really make any difference if they are or not boycotting because, by their own admission, they are not customers of FW at all anyway.

That's not a skew. If they are boycotting FW it doesn't matter when they started.

Agree with this. While demographics and how they purchase over time is interesting it's not really relevant to the core topic.

My point was two fold:

1)
Most of the people claiming to boycott weren't buying anything anyway. Sure, they may have bought one or two bits in the past, but they aren't active buyers, and therefore them 'boycotting' means nothing.

2)
The only people who actually matter as far as a boycott having any affect are the whales.

I have no idea how we can measure #1, but #2 is doubtful. The whales leaving obviously has the largest impact, but price change won't bother them. However there is far more regular customers than there is whales, and if you lose enough of them it absolutely will have an impact. By your logic everyone would just raise prices for everything ever with zero repercussions.

Not at all. There obviously is a tipping point. But as a boutique luxury range, normal forces don't apply in the same way to Forgeworld. Whales are a much bigger factor than for say core GW. A single whale is easily spending 100x what a median gamer is spending.

Anyway, whales aside, anyone interested in boycotts generally should give this a listen:

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/do-boycotts-work-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/

Honestly, the fact that it's some 10% more expensive in euro doesn't affect me.

The reason I don't buy from Forgeworld is that they sell crap.

They discontinued some of my favorite kits and models, so I had to find other ways.

And whatever they have is low quality amateurish casting with questionable QC at crazy high prices.



I will start buying from ForgeWorld if:

- they get their prices to about 2x/3x recast at most
- they learn to cast without warping, bubbles or other defects
- they get their QC right
- they use the best resin there is


The problem here is that there are people out there who cast way better than FW, have proper QC, acceptable resin (generally worse than FW though) and very good prices.




Lastly, about "price gouging", I don't think that's what they're doing.

Instead, they're incorporating the cost of shipping ( -s if you include returns) and the currency variation in the price to make it equivalent for them to sell to UK, EU or US (or AU).

If you take the highest level of the USD in the past year, which would be a fair point if you're playing it safe as a company, we're talking 1.43 GBPUSD, that means your USD97 Eldar Avatar should be USD88 without considering shipping costs, which brings it to roughly 10% more expensive.

Does 10% in shipping costs difference for a FW Avatar make sense?

Definitely in my book, I don't think you can ship something from the UK to the US, risk included, for less than USD9 on top of the UK shipping.

What *is* questionable though, is VAT, as I don't think it should be charged to non-UK customers, and there is no VAT in the US - which means there might be an issue there, as the UK price does include 21% VAT.

I am not b,c of price, but they stop supporting Corsairs. I spent 2yrs trying to get their product, playing them with counts as (and the most fun i ever had in 40k ever) just for them to kill off the army.

If they bring back Corsairs i might buy from them again.

morgoth wrote:
Lastly, about "price gouging", I don't think that's what they're doing.

Instead, they're incorporating the cost of shipping ( -s if you include returns) and the currency variation in the price to make it equivalent for them to sell to UK, EU or US (or AU).

If you take the highest level of the USD in the past year, which would be a fair point if you're playing it safe as a company, we're talking 1.43 GBPUSD, that means your USD97 Eldar Avatar should be USD88 without considering shipping costs, which brings it to roughly 10% more expensive.

Does 10% in shipping costs difference for a FW Avatar make sense?

Definitely in my book, I don't think you can ship something from the UK to the US, risk included, for less than USD9 on top of the UK shipping.

What *is* questionable though, is VAT, as I don't think it should be charged to non-UK customers, and there is no VAT in the US - which means there might be an issue there, as the UK price does include 21% VAT.

Except it's very blatantly price gouging in some cases. A set of rhino doors went from £14 to AU$40, the current exchange rate puts £14 at AU$25.44. That is quite frankly insane. That US$97 eldar avatar you mentioned? AU$174. When was the last time the pound was worth almost 3 Australian dollars? Baking in the exchange rate plus a bit of leg room for fluctuations is fine. Close to doubling the price of items is not. Postage should never be something baked into items like this. It's very unlikely that someone outside of Europe will be buying only a single kit in which case putting anything extra into the price of a kit to cover postage is insane. Adding a second set of rhino doors does not double the shipping cost.

That said I'm not boycotting anything. I was only going to buy some rhino doors and now I won't be because it doubles the cost of a rhino and that isn't worth it to me. I still buy GW plastic kits that have pretty much the same markup, I buy them from a hobby store that has 20% off RRP but I still buy them. Buying from FW just isn't worth it for me anymore. It's only really a boycott if someone in UK or somewhere with a tiny markup stops buying because of the international markup. Which we know they won't because they've had no problem with GW gouging the international market on plastic for years. If you stop buying something because the price for you has increased, whether you can afford the new price or not, isn't a boycott. It's just reevaluating if the product is worth it to you.

You have to pay shipping costs anyway
It's cheaper to buy it in England, have it shipped to a friend, and have that friend ship it to you, which should cost MORE if the price was shipping.
Not to mention the deals that businesses get with shipping companies.

At this point it's absurd to say it's to cover shipping and handling lol

 SHUPPET wrote:
You have to pay shipping costs anyway
It's cheaper to buy it in England, have it shipped to a friend, and have that friend ship it to you, which should cost MORE if the price was shipping.
Not to mention the deals that businesses get with shipping companies.

At this point it's absurd to say it's to cover shipping and handling lol

100% agree.
Unfortunately I think the change was more to bring FW into line with GW main. As someone pointed out it was cheaper to by FW unit + upgrade kits than the unit kit in Aus$.

I will not be Boycotting Forgeworld, their action's don't make me want to boycott them, however, it does limit my desire to buy anything from their store though. Why spend two or even three times more then a similar model in the GW range when I can just buy 2 or 3 of the GW models instead. I mean I would love some Meka Dreadz and others but I tend to build my army piece by piece.