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 Saturmorn Carvilli wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

WotC also has one on Tabletop gaming

... Only if you're a 12 year old kid who thinks CCGs = table top gaming. WOTC also produces D&D yes, but they are VERY much being challanged by Pathfinder these days

People still play Pathfinder?

It's a mess of a freaking system compared to how smooth and streamlined 5E is.

That was largely my impression as well. The only reason Pathfinder gained the foothold they have is because it was more D&D than D&D 4th edition. The impression I got of 5th edition was it really returned to its roots while still have more modern streamlined rules that make the old 3rd/3.5 D&D rules look mighty rickety. I am sure that Pathfinder is still the second most popular RPG, but like whatever is 2nd to Warhammer, it is fair distance away now. Being that is basically an OGL of 3rd edition D&D, I don't see it picking up the steam it once had so long as WOTC don't try and new Coke their system again.

leaving aside pathfinder vs D&D for now. I think it's worth noting that table top RPGs are also very differant from table top mini games due to "buy in" most people know D&D, on that I agree with, but at the same time, if I'm in a D&D group and am intrigued by say.. Wraith and Glory, it's a realitively simple matter for me to buy a single copy of the core book, share it with my game group, and play the RPG. total buy in for a RPG can be less then a hundred bucks for a group of 5 people. (don't get me wrong I like to have a core copy of the rules of whatever system I play for my own use, I'm just talking the minimum) 40k? you simply can't do that. for a group of 5 people, you need 5 armies, that's a big buy in. and it makes switching mini games, or trying a new mini game a MUCH less agreeable prospect. Off the top of my head, my own gaming Library contains, D&D, Pathfinder, Champions, Star Trek Aventures, Star Wars Saga Edition, Dark Heresy (as well as rogue trader, death watch and black crusade which I consider essentially "campaign books" I admit) Shadowrun, Battletech, and proably a few others I forget. There's no way I'd invest in that many systems if I needed to spend the kinda money nesscary for war gaming.

 FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
So;

1. A Lot of assertions, no citations or valid demonstration of basis or foundation.

2. Link to "proof" of earnings statement was bugged and didn't go to anything I could tell, so I'm not saying anything about his "source" that he did provide.

3. His rational is self-justifying, or more simply, he's using his assertions as proof of his assertions. This is a logical fallacy.

4. Claims personal experience or makes himself out to be an expert. This requires proof, or it is an appeal to authority fallacy.

5. False Dichotomy. Either GW is motivated by greed, or it isn't. Logical fallacy. GW can be greedy, and not motivated by it.

6. Very interesting article otherwise. If true, color me surprised.

Agreed. My partner who has a PhD in a similar field to the dude says that a bunch of the stuff could be totally wrong. It's an opinion piece rather than a factual document. But in the academic world everything is opinion with data and everything can be argued.


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I think the term greed gets tossed about a lot and we imagine it as a big fat corporate man with a cigar eating money and always wanting more.
However, what we really mean is them going "should we think about us or the consumer first?" And then them thinking about themselves.

BrianDavion wrote:
I think it's worth noting that table top RPGs are also very differant from table top mini games due to "buy in" most people know D&D, on that I agree with, but at the same time, if I'm in a D&D group and am intrigued by say.. Wraith and Glory, it's a realitively simple matter for me to buy a single copy of the core book, share it with my game group, and play the RPG. total buy in for a RPG can be less then a hundred bucks for a group of 5 people. (don't get me wrong I like to have a core copy of the rules of whatever system I play for my own use, I'm just talking the minimum) 40k? you simply can't do that. for a group of 5 people, you need 5 armies, that's a big buy in. and it makes switching mini games, or trying a new mini game a MUCH less agreeable prospect. Off the top of my head, my own gaming Library contains, D&D, Pathfinder, Champions, Star Trek Aventures, Star Wars Saga Edition, Dark Heresy (as well as rogue trader, death watch and black crusade which I consider essentially "campaign books" I admit) Shadowrun, Battletech, and proably a few others I forget. There's no way I'd invest in that many systems if I needed to spend the kinda money nesscary for war gaming.

Agree with this. I'm a DM for The Dark Eye aka Realms of Arkania (the German equivalent of D&D) which is infamous for the vast amount of books they publish because there are rules for everything everywhere in its playing world. I own multiple hard-cover books and a dozen e-books (official ones I bought from their store). My players have 2-3 books at maximum, some have none. I severely doubt that you can build and paint a 1500 point army for the money I spent on all that.

The point of conflict has always been people thinking that tabletop wargaming should be equivalent in costs to other hobbies like D&D and that a full army should cost as much as the buy in of a D&D group ($100 or so)

Thats been a common theme for a couple of decades in price threads.

 auticus wrote:
The point of conflict has always been people thinking that tabletop wargaming should be equivalent in costs to other hobbies like D&D and that a full army should cost as much as the buy in of a D&D group ($100 or so)

Thats been a common theme for a couple of decades in price threads.

Another thing I notice is that people often overlook two or three key aspects

1) GW kits often come with spare parts and optional builds. Most other miniature ranges don't have any of this at all, a majority are mono-pose mono-build models. Infinty, Warmachine, Malifaux, etc.... The vast majority give you 1 build per model.

2) Army size - GW armies are often bigger out of the box than those other skirmish games. Though Warmachine has scaled up somewhat, most of the others are still strong skirmish games.


Whilst this doesn't explain it all it certainly explains some of the differences.

This is also why skirmish games are so prevalent and saturate the market. There really is no room in the market for another mass battle game, and the interest for anything beyond skirmish I think is extraordinarily niche.

 auticus wrote:
This is also why skirmish games are so prevalent and saturate the market. There really is no room in the market for another mass battle game, and the interest for anything beyond skirmish I think is extraordinarily niche.

Yes and honestly no.
I see a good few mass battle games try to get into the market. I think the issue is not that there isn't demand but that:

1) Bigger games are a bigger investment and players want to play with those models not shelve them. Starting a 40K or AoS army you can pretty much guarantee that you can take it anywhere in the country to a club and find players to play against. If they play wargames they likely play those, and if not currently active there's likely more than a few in the club with armies.

2) Model quality. Kings of War is a big one here; it became very popular as a rules set, but the models. Eh honestly hte models whilst they hold a style, appear more akin to a quality from 20 or 30 years ago when you compare them to what GW puts out.

And that's the other issue GW puts out a really high bar that is hard to beat, esp if you want a mass battle game and thus need a LOT of models.

Skirmish games are popular because companies can make them far more cheaply. I think had Warmachine not crippled itself on MKIII and with the shutdown of many of their outreach programs (Press Gangers, their magazine, mostof their forums) they would easily be moving toward a mass battle system like AoS/Kings of war. They did exactly what most of the game companies are likely hoping to do - start with skirmish and scale up gradually.

We forget that 40K started with what we'd consider today as skirmish sized armies.


It's also easier to start your company with resin/metal on the skirmish scale and then build toward possible plastics for mass armies. Otherwise getting together the money for plastics for huge armies is a very big investment and a huge amount of risk and the miniatures market is just not big enough to attract the super investors needed for that. Even Kickstarters come in very shy on raising those kind of funds

 Togusa wrote:

People still play Pathfinder?

It's a mess of a freaking system compared to how smooth and streamlined 5E is.

 Overread wrote:

1) GW kits often come with spare parts and optional builds. Most other miniature ranges don't have any of this at all, a majority are mono-pose mono-build models. Infinty, Warmachine, Malifaux, etc.... The vast majority give you 1 build per model.

GW kits also have a tendency to come with insufficient special weapons to equip every member of the squad with the same weapon. So I fear I'm not willing to give them extra credit for giving me parts I don't need in exchange for not including parts I do. And then charging through the nose for those parts anyway.

Kings of War is a mass battle game, but it has been around since the mid 2000s. It was where a lot of whfb folks went to when 7th turned to 8th edition.

Your point #1 is the keystone to why mass battle games these days for the most part fail unless that mass battle system lets you use whatever models you want.

 insaniak wrote:

 G00fySmiley wrote:

Personally I would love to see GW open a few more factories but maybe in other market. Maybe one in NZ would give those down under a price break, and maybe on in the US or Canada to pay less for shipping around the world.

They used to have a foundry in the US producing metal models. It would be unlikely to be cost effective to have to double up all of the moulds to produce plastic in North America, though, and even less so for the volume of sales down under.

yea, I get they would probably not be best served to make all molds 2-3 times. though with modern metal 3d printing you can make injection molds for much less than you could a decade ago. but moving some for major kits might help and allow them to lower base costs for entry. Say make the most commonly selling models. Ork boyz, imperial guardsmen, primaris intercessors, etc. there and leave the less commonly selling things like shadowswords, stompas, wulfen (and other individual chapter models) still get just made in UK. Then going forward as new molds are made for new units they get 3x what they usually do. might make sense as less shipping and less costly realestate available.

This was such a typical reddit post. A wall of text from a person with only a semi-relevant background claiming one thing to be true than proving another. All that was proved was that GW doesn't really operate the same as a normal modern business. Seriously, self-financing all these new projects rather than taking out debt? That's not virtuous, it's just dumb. That's exactly what business loans are for, and that would be better for GW's bottom line. *Then* maybe they wouldn't have to pass the costs onto the customer! All this post showed me is that GW is used to a massive margin, and they will pass costs directly onto the consumer rather than cut into that. Again, as others have said, all those details were well and good but I'm still being asked to pay more for Cadians and Termagants, and that's ludicrous.

 TheFleshIsWeak wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

People still play Pathfinder?

It's a mess of a freaking system compared to how smooth and streamlined 5E is.

Spoiler:

5e is a good system and there are many things I prefer about it (the ability to move before, after, and/or between attacks, the ability to full attack after moving more than 5ft, the scaling cantrips that means Archmages aren't stuck using crossbows etc.).

However, I don't think it's outright better than Pathfinder. For all that I love 5e and the improvements its made, there are also things about Pathfinder that I prefer:
- I love the customisation available to races. Especially for races like Tieflings, which 5e basically threw in a dumpster marked 'play Hellboy or GTFO'.
- Pathfinder has a lot more basic classes - including many that don't have an equivalent in 5e (e.g. the Summoner). Maybe these will eventually make it into 5e, but until then Pathfinder is the only option for them.
- IMO Pathfinder's skill system is by far the best I've seen for a D&D-type system. I think it's better than that of any D&D edition, including 5e.
- Likewise, I much prefer the Damage Reduction/Elemental Resistance system in Pathfinder - which allows for different degrees of resistance, to the Resistance system in 5e where everything just halves damage (because apparently damage - 10 is just too complicated ).
- It's certainly not as streamlined as 5e but that's not always a negative thing. For example, whilst I much prefer 5e's combat in terms of moving and attacking, so many of its monsters - even 'boss' monsters - have been stripped of most or all of their interesting abilities and/or spells. Each to their own but I'm really not a fan of this.
- Legendary Resistance can go die in a fire.

Again, I love D&D 5e and it's been by far my most played system. I just don't think it's better than Pathfinder in every aspect and I can certainly understand people choosing to still play the latter instead.

 Overread wrote:

1) GW kits often come with spare parts and optional builds. Most other miniature ranges don't have any of this at all, a majority are mono-pose mono-build models. Infinty, Warmachine, Malifaux, etc.... The vast majority give you 1 build per model.

GW kits also have a tendency to come with insufficient special weapons to equip every member of the squad with the same weapon. So I fear I'm not willing to give them extra credit for giving me parts I don't need in exchange for not including parts I do. And then charging through the nose for those parts anyway.

I feel like GW has come full circle in the extra bits department. My oldest plastic sprues were quite barebones. Then the later 40k and WFB sprues had tons of extra bits and weapons and even if you didnt get enough in 1 tactical box, by the time you have bought an assault marine squad, a devastator squad and a few elite units you had enough fists,swords, flamers, meltas and plasmas to go around for the squads that needed them. Same with boxes made for making one or more character with different options in the same box.

But now we have Primaris units and characters that are monopose and have 0 melee/special weapon options and costs a ton. Wouldnt surprise me if they extend the liberal choices normal squad leaders/characters have to the primaris counterparts without giving us any more bits. The intercessor sgt can wear a power sword/fist but there isnt any in the box and I need 10 fists for my next unit of sanguinary guard, which I thankfully already have 8 extras (+2 from the Sanguinary guard box) from earlier boxes of marines over the years but my primaris will have to be without fists :(.

I aslo feel sorry for all tactical terminators and grey knights the last few years with them losing their arms and guns for equipping better units with stormbolters, and even shields from the assault terminators, since there isnt any good source of them at all from GW. I have been taking glances at my half finished terminators and their stormbolters and I can feel them sweating at their shelf. If GW sold me a box of 10 left handed and 10 right handed stormbolters for the same prices as a tactical squad I and every marine player I know, very few of us lately though, would buy a box in a heartbeat. I have wanted a Storm bolter sprue since 5th edition like they have the special weapons or jumppacks on their online store.

I mean 40k was a skirmish game. It has only being the last decade it has become this huge game that needs hundreds of models to play some armies.

But, there are many alternatives. Napoleonic gaming get's you hundreds of models for like £30.

 Togusa wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

WotC also has one on Tabletop gaming

... Only if you're a 12 year old kid who thinks CCGs = table top gaming. WOTC also produces D&D yes, but they are VERY much being challanged by Pathfinder these days

People still play Pathfinder?

It's a mess of a freaking system compared to how smooth and streamlined 5E is.

5ed is incredibly bland. I find it good only for beginners.
If I want a simple system I just play BECMI or one retro-clone of that version of the game.

Spreadsheetfinder lives?

I've played D&D for over 15 years and I think 5e is the best edition I've played. And judging from YouTube, I think most veterans feel similarly. But if you feel differently, then I ain't gonna begrudge you your opinion on the matter.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

WotC also has one on Tabletop gaming

... Only if you're a 12 year old kid who thinks CCGs = table top gaming. WOTC also produces D&D yes, but they are VERY much being challanged by Pathfinder these days

People still play Pathfinder?

It's a mess of a freaking system compared to how smooth and streamlined 5E is.

5ed is incredibly bland. I find it good only for beginners.
If I want a simple system I just play BECMI or one retro-clone of that version of the game.

I've been playing Pathfinder for almost 10 years now. I once joined a 5th ed group, and had to quit after several sessions because of how dull and empty the system is.

All the Pathfinder material is free online, so it's not hard to get into.

Pathfinder, I don't know about 2.0, suffers from a lot of system flaws from DnD 3rd. I can see people jumping to 5th for sure. I prefer classless systems strongly.

Price increases in general, unless they are egregious, can always been summed up as inflation. We all get uptight about it be the reality is, unless you are still in your 20s, you probably remember when anything from gas to a BigMac combo were less than half what they are now. Thats just a fact of modern economic paradigms.

What troubles me is how this hobby continues to get away with pricing hard good (models) based not on production cost, but rather on points or "in-game" value. A quick scan of the price hikes seems to only further exacerbate that.

On the notion of "everything made in UK", are not the books printed in China?

 Sunsanvil wrote:


What troubles me is how this hobby continues to get away with pricing hard good (models) based not on production cost, but rather on points or "in-game" value. A quick scan of the price hikes seems to only further exacerbate that.

On the notion of "everything made in UK", are not the books printed in China?

From what I gather the only "link to points" is that GW scales prices based "roughly" on purchase quantities. Ergo a hero will be priced more than a basic troop set in terms of materials involved because they can expect to only sell you one hero pack, but they can expect to see you multiple troop packs. However its not so simple because some troops are more expensive than others which suggests that there's some army or set (production blocks rather than army blocks) pricing going on - ergo groups of models supporting each other not based at the army level.

 Sunsanvil wrote:
What troubles me is how this hobby continues to get away with pricing hard good (models) based not on production cost, but rather on points or "in-game" value. A quick scan of the price hikes seems to only further exacerbate that.

Look at CCG and you will see this, but orders of magnitude higher. How much more for a rare Magic card that cost the exact same amount to print?
One of the reasons I never got into CCG.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Sunsanvil wrote:
What troubles me is how this hobby continues to get away with pricing hard good (models) based not on production cost, but rather on points or "in-game" value. A quick scan of the price hikes seems to only further exacerbate that.

Look at CCG and you will see this, but orders of magnitude higher. How much more for a rare Magic card that cost the exact same amount to print?
One of the reasons I never got into CCG.

Wizards sells booster packs, which have a flat cost. Relative rarity/usefulness of different cards may move the prices every which way, but that's not via Wizards and so you can't compare it to what GW does.

 Sunsanvil wrote:
Price increases in general, unless they are egregious, can always been summed up as inflation. We all get uptight about it be the reality is, unless you are still in your 20s, you probably remember when anything from gas to a BigMac combo were less than half what they are now. Thats just a fact of modern economic paradigms.

What troubles me is how this hobby continues to get away with pricing hard good (models) based not on production cost, but rather on points or "in-game" value. A quick scan of the price hikes seems to only further exacerbate that.

On the notion of "everything made in UK", are not the books printed in China?

Prices doesnt have to increase with inflation. Many things we use today get cheaper and cheaper while also becoming more and more powerful. Like electronics. You get way more for 100$/€ today than you got for 150 10 years ago. And R&D is just getting more and more expensive in that business every year. Production technique and scale makes the stuff cheaper with time.

GW also has better production abilities and scale than before so they could also be cheaper with time. And I dont buy that designers cost them alot. They probably pay less of a % of their income each year for that stuff so for them product design gets cheaper unlike for computers were companies like Intel put in billions just in research and increase it every year.

For a tiny studio I would suspect that designers take a large share of the tiny profits they may have but I dont see GW having that problem. Their main income is 40k and how much new designing have they actually done in the last decade? Almost everything is just a tweak on something already existing and they have better tools than ever to so it with too.

Klickor wrote:

 Sunsanvil wrote:
Price increases in general, unless they are egregious, can always been summed up as inflation. We all get uptight about it be the reality is, unless you are still in your 20s, you probably remember when anything from gas to a BigMac combo were less than half what they are now. Thats just a fact of modern economic paradigms.

What troubles me is how this hobby continues to get away with pricing hard good (models) based not on production cost, but rather on points or "in-game" value. A quick scan of the price hikes seems to only further exacerbate that.

On the notion of "everything made in UK", are not the books printed in China?

Prices doesnt have to increase with inflation. Many things we use today get cheaper and cheaper while also becoming more and more powerful. Like electronics. You get way more for 100$/€ today than you got for 150 10 years ago. And R&D is just getting more and more expensive in that business every year. Production technique and scale makes the stuff cheaper with time.

GW also has better production abilities and scale than before so they could also be cheaper with time. And I dont buy that designers cost them alot. They probably pay less of a % of their income each year for that stuff so for them product design gets cheaper unlike for computers were companies like Intel put in billions just in research and increase it every year.

For a tiny studio I would suspect that designers take a large share of the tiny profits they may have but I dont see GW having that problem. Their main income is 40k and how much new designing have they actually done in the last decade? Almost everything is just a tweak on something already existing and they have better tools than ever to so it with too.

+1 to all of this. In fact, I think if it weren't for their brick and mortar presence (which I think is a mixed bag, but that's another topic), GW's margins would be enormous -- as mentioned above, they're not breaking the bank on design. They're CERTAINLY not breaking the bank on rules and IP development (12 guys writing rules and making piddly wages for 40k probably means they've got at most 50 in the company).

Well, here's the groovy thing, Fact Cats.

GW's financials can be used to show their overall profit margin. And with a by category breakdown. You can see that here.

There are a lot of assumptions going on here, such as piddly wages for the design team, tech cost only going down. And there are some outright wrong claims (Almost everything is a tweak on something etc).

I mean, that's objectively wrong. Imperial Knights? Less than 10 years old. Entirely new line. Genestealer Cults, Adeptus Mechanicus, Dark Eldar, Kharadron, Sylvaneth, Daughters of Khaine, Nighthaunt, Stormcast Eternals, Warhammer Underworlds, Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Adeptus Titanicus, the Primaris Range, Adeptus Custodes, Fyreslayers, Idoneth Deepkin. All very recent (I think Dark Eldar still squeak in under the 10 years claim?), all either entirely new ranges, or significant updates of older ones, with minimal recycling of models.

And ultimately, GW are a plc, beholden solely to their share holders. And that's not many of us (I don't any, for the record). We as customers? Yeah, to do the former they need to please the latter as a whole. But individual customers? Nope. No obligation to us whatsoever.

Profit margin? Last year, they raked in an impressive £219,868,000. For evidence, see the link above. Profit before taxation? £74,546,000.00

By my calculation, that's almost exactly 33% profit. Before tax. Which they explain to be 19.9% of that. So their 'take home' I work out to be in the region of £59,711,346.00.

That's not the massive price gougey profit margin many seem to expect them to have.

A 33% profit margin in ANY business is massive. Huge. Highly profitable.

I ran a bakery. If I could push margins past 30%, I was making huge profits. It's tough to make that kind of margin on something as cheap as bread.

If GW is raking in a 33% margin before taxes, any business would be elated and ecstatic to make that kind of margin. When a third of your business is profit, the last thing you need to do is hike prices.

Not sure a Bakery exactly compares, though?

 Sunsanvil wrote:
On the notion of "everything made in UK", are not the books printed in China?

The initial large print runs are, at least. They're wanting to move the printing in-house (along with cards, transfers, boxes, etc.) but the factory isn't there yet (and I doubt it would be cost-efficient, but what do I know).

 Ghool wrote:
A 33% profit margin in ANY business is massive. Huge. Highly profitable.

I ran a bakery. If I could push margins past 30%, I was making huge profits. It's tough to make that kind of margin on something as cheap as bread.

If GW is raking in a 33% margin before taxes, any business would be elated and ecstatic to make that kind of margin. When a third of your business is profit, the last thing you need to do is hike prices.

Standard in hospitality is 60% GP. The sector and industry massively impact what margin you expect, so it's not really comparable.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Not sure a Bakery exactly compares, though?

It's about a bakery being extremely profitable with over a 30% profit margin. Bread has huge margins and it's easy to make money on. Not a lot of businesses can make those sorts of profits. Not unless your costs are extremely low. And with bread they are.
If GW is making a greater than 30% margin, it means their operating costs are very very low. Any business and I mean any business, that produces a product will be hugely successful with a margin like GW has. So much so, that raising prices is not needed. If their margins were taking a hit, I can see prices needing to be raised. But they're gangbusters on the profits. As a former business owner, I can see they're already doing exceptionally well. I don't see the need for a price hike.


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 Stux wrote:

 Ghool wrote:
A 33% profit margin in ANY business is massive. Huge. Highly profitable.

I ran a bakery. If I could push margins past 30%, I was making huge profits. It's tough to make that kind of margin on something as cheap as bread.

If GW is raking in a 33% margin before taxes, any business would be elated and ecstatic to make that kind of margin. When a third of your business is profit, the last thing you need to do is hike prices.

Standard in hospitality is 60% GP. The sector and industry massively impact what margin you expect, so it's not really comparable.

Show me any business that's making a 60% gross profit please. I have never in my 25 years of running g restaurants and bakeries have I ever seen one have higher than a 35% GP.
The standard for hospitality is 30%, and in any business that's doing well.