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GW, like all companies, sells their product for what the market will bear. Their prices are not "too high" because they have no problem selling them at the current prices. People may grumble, seek discounts from MSRP, and purchase third hand, but they buy enough product that GW can't keep large amounts of their product line available. People buy enough to to make the investment in additional production capacity a worthwhile venture.

So, if you find GWs prices too high, it is you. You have company. You have lots of company. But GW has plenty of customers who feel they are worth the price of admission. The closet of shame wouldn't be a thing if people found GW too expensive to purchase. GW wouldn't be making record profits if their prices were too high.

Basically, GW is selling the miniature equivalent of luxury cars. Do you want a luxury car or will a basic sedan serve your purposes?

i think he was pointing to resin kits being the same or better quality for cheaper, which in most cases is true.

like i said previously there are a bunch of companies making fine miniatures in plastic
.warlord
.mantic
.micro art studios(well mostly terrain)
.DUST studios

then there are the resin makers like
.wargaming exclusive
.clear horizon miniatures(mostly 15MM)
.kromlek
.khurasan miniatures
.artel "W" miniatures

In epic scale
.vanguard
.onslaught
.trolls under the bridge


Unfortunately we lost dreamforge, his stuff was fantastic.

like redboi i refuse to give GW any more money, i have more than enough stuff to play 40K it happens when the collection is big enough.

Minis from Mantic or Kromlech (I have bought bits from both) are terribad in quality compared to what GW churns out these days. I am not saying Kromlech or Mantic don't deliver the price/quality they promise, they do, but it is an entirely league below GW minis. There are clear exceptions (finecast I am looking at you), but in general GW makes a superior product for superior prices. Also, they are becoming better with time. I own both metal sisters and the new SoB in plastic, and the improvement is clear, as is the quality of the sculpts. Is it expensive? Yes it is. It was never cheap to begin with if you take into account space, paints, brushes, etc. I can also paint with a 1€ brush or a 5€ one. Guess which one is clearly better.

I have to agree with you Kithail. I had a perfectly functional metal Sisters Army before the plastics came out. I’ve now replaced all the infantry except Celestine because the new sculpts are so sweet. I would have scoffed at the idea 4 months ago before I started painting the Army Box models.

 alextroy wrote:
GW, like all companies, sells their product for what the market will bear. Their prices are not "too high" because they have no problem selling them at the current prices. People may grumble, seek discounts from MSRP, and purchase third hand, but they buy enough product that GW can't keep large amounts of their product line available. People buy enough to to make the investment in additional production capacity a worthwhile venture.

So, if you find GWs prices too high, it is you. You have company. You have lots of company. But GW has plenty of customers who feel they are worth the price of admission. The closet of shame wouldn't be a thing if people found GW too expensive to purchase. GW wouldn't be making record profits if their prices were too high.

Basically, GW is selling the miniature equivalent of luxury cars. Do you want a luxury car or will a basic sedan serve your purposes?[

No, they are not. They sell Volvos. Outfits like Creature Caster sell "luxury cars," to continue with the silly comparison. Could you please point me to these companies that make miniatures I can play 40k with in sanctioned events?

GW products are poor value for the price, when you compare the $$ to the contents. Especially as game pieces. People purchase their products despite the prices and the atrocious rules, to get their "fix" of new stuff.

Blastaar wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
GW, like all companies, sells their product for what the market will bear. Their prices are not "too high" because they have no problem selling them at the current prices. People may grumble, seek discounts from MSRP, and purchase third hand, but they buy enough product that GW can't keep large amounts of their product line available. People buy enough to to make the investment in additional production capacity a worthwhile venture.

So, if you find GWs prices too high, it is you. You have company. You have lots of company. But GW has plenty of customers who feel they are worth the price of admission. The closet of shame wouldn't be a thing if people found GW too expensive to purchase. GW wouldn't be making record profits if their prices were too high.

Basically, GW is selling the miniature equivalent of luxury cars. Do you want a luxury car or will a basic sedan serve your purposes?[

No, they are not. They sell Volvos. Outfits like Creature Caster sell "luxury cars," to continue with the silly comparison. Could you please point me to these companies that make miniatures I can play 40k with in sanctioned events?

GW products are poor value for the price, when you compare the $$ to the contents. Especially as game pieces. People purchase their products despite the prices and the atrocious rules, to get their "fix" of new stuff.

I feel like this is an argument of cost vs value.

Cost is how much it costs to make the kit plus a given profit margin added on top of that (okay, it gets more complicated that that since you also try to divide that profit over the span of a given number of units you expect to sell, and other factors can kick in as well). We don't really know that profit margin, or if they cut into their margin from direct selling to have independent stockists carry their game, but since they refuse to cast models in cheaper countries (something I'm not going to fault them for considering the amount of IP theft pulled in China, plus ethical concerns) labor is always going to be a massive part of their cost. Since they dropped using metal for models shipping has dropped quite a bit which has meant they don't raise prices to maintain their profit margin as often as they used to.

Now we can argue on if the value of those models are as valuable as GW says they deserve to be paid of for their labor, but at the end of the day the prices are just being set through some math while the value is set by our emotions relative to that product.

The cost and value argument also gets complicated because of regional price variations.

GW products in the UK are closer in price to the competition than in some overseas territories where the price disparity is far greater.

After that we get sculpt quality and such which can be a huge minefield of opinions.


For example some true-scale models can have much superior sculpting quality in terms of the scale of parts ;but are more suited to a protected case on display than a gaming table; where oversized elements make parts a bit more practical to game with and also see at distance etc....

 Overread wrote:
The cost and value argument also gets complicated because of regional price variations.

GW products in the UK are closer in price to the competition than in some overseas territories where the price disparity is far greater.

After that we get sculpt quality and such which can be a huge minefield of opinions.


For example some true-scale models can have much superior sculpting quality in terms of the scale of parts ;but are more suited to a protected case on display than a gaming table; where oversized elements make parts a bit more practical to game with and also see at distance etc....

Yup. Import taxes, and trade deals can also mess with pricing above and beyond what GW intends as well.

And someone always mentions Gundam in these sorts of things, but Gundam relies on a larger sales volume than GW can attempt to produce for. I would love for them to have the product facilities available to allow costs to drop, but I'm also not going to hold my breath.

If Bandai got into this market, they'd run GW out of business easily.

 alextroy wrote:
GW, like all companies, sells their product for what the market will bear. Their prices are not "too high" because they have no problem selling them at the current prices.

Oh look, we have someone that took the first week of freshman's macroeconomics here without ever going in to any real detail on how an actual economy works.

The economic concept of a "free market" isn't a fact of reality, it's a platonic ideal to strive for. Ultimately the "free market" breaks down very easily, such as in the case of monopolistic market power, a lack of information (or the presence of misinformation), inherent human biases and stupidity, and a wide variety of other things such as costs being offloaded on to other people through externalities.

We don't KNOW what the actual balance of the free market is, and frankly neither does GW. They raise the prices because they can. A seller raising the price by direct fiat isn't some noble expression of economics like a sign handed down from Our Lord Money and Wealth, Owner Of All Things. It is nothing more than proof that GW wanted to raise their prices.

Whether or not GW's prices are good or bad is very, VERY subjective, and I know for a FACT that you don't have enough information to actually determine it objectively, and I'm pretty damn sure you haven't actually tried to to begin with.

Martel732 wrote:
If Bandai got into this market, they'd run GW out of business easily.

I don't know. They make toys, not games. Related, but not the same markets.

Personally I'd have nominated Hasbro, not Bandai, considering Hasbro is the only reason DnD isn't still wallowing in the foetid filth of 3.5th edition and decaying in to irrelevance.

 Melissia wrote:
Personally I'd have nominated Hasbro, not Bandai.

True, but people bring Bandai because of the Gundam model quality and parts counts.

Yeah, let's be fair to Bandai, they have a lot of income from outside of their miniature production that they can use to produce intricate miniatures in much larger scale. Bandai's hardly perfect, but they have the sheer weight of industry behind them.

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If Bandai got into this market, they'd run GW out of business easily.

I don't know. They make toys, not games. Related, but not the same markets.

If any of the big toy firms wanted a slice of the pie they could run GW into the ground by simply saturating the market for a few years with top end ultra cheap products. That said their business model is totally different. They thrive on short term mass market products that are tied to movies and other franchises. It's a churn and burn of constant new products.

GW on the other hand has a lot more long lasting elements in their products. Whilst many active gamers to "upgrade" many of the core armies are still using models that have designs dating back decades. Plus the average wargamer does not like short term products with little in the way of long term support. In fact they hate it and the hint of it when AoS launched aided to its stifled sales.

 Melissia wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
GW, like all companies, sells their product for what the market will bear. Their prices are not "too high" because they have no problem selling them at the current prices.

Oh look, we have someone that took the first week of freshman's macroeconomics here without ever going in to any real detail on how an actual economy works.

The economic concept of a "free market" isn't a fact of reality, it's a platonic ideal to strive for. Ultimately the "free market" breaks down very easily, such as in the case of monopolistic market power, a lack of information (or the presence of misinformation), inherent human biases and stupidity, and a wide variety of other things such as costs being offloaded on to other people through externalities.

We don't KNOW what the actual balance of the free market is, and frankly neither does GW. They raise the prices because they can. A seller raising the price by direct fiat isn't some noble expression of economics like a sign handed down from Our Lord Money and Wealth, Owner Of All Things. It is nothing more than proof that GW wanted to raise their prices.

Whether or not GW's prices are good or bad is very, VERY subjective, and I know for a FACT that you don't have enough information to actually determine it objectively, and I'm pretty damn sure you haven't actually tried to to begin with.

So my statement is correct. GW charges the prices they charge because people keep buying them at that price. I didn't say, nor to I pretend, that GWs pricing is some platonic ideal of the free market. It's just good business. It doesn't matter if it cost GW $5 or $20 to make a kit they sell for $50. If we (collectively) are willing to pay $50 to to get it, then GW at the least hasn't priced the product too high.

It's not like GW has a monopoly on minatures that are suitable for playing Warhammer 40K or Age of Sigmar. They do, in many cases, have the best value when you combine quality, cost, and their officially sanctioned tournaments. Still, if that value carries through for you is entirely up to you.

 alextroy wrote:
So my statement is correct.

A completely unsupported opinion backed by zero research and data, or really for that matter by anything other than your own gut opinion doesn't make you factually correct, it just makes you have an opinion. The global market is not as mind-numbingly simple as your asinine argument makes it out to be.

 Melissia wrote:

 alextroy wrote:
So my statement is correct.

A completely unsupported opinion backed by zero research and data, or really for that matter by anything other than your own gut opinion doesn't make you factually correct, it just makes you have an opinion. The global market is not as mind-numbingly simple as your asinine argument makes it out to be.

What part of GW charging what customers are willing to pay is wrong? I'll wait for an answer.

I find some GW model prices reasonably tolerable given the quality of what I am getting verses price. Especially when breaking things down to dollars-per-miniature a whole bunch of kits are not bad at all (or dare I say it: a good deal). But other areas of GW's line make me cringe. The $30 plastic characters are particularly bad.

Buuut to go back to GW's defense, their products have steadily risen in quality over time and inflation is a thing. $40 in 2000 is equivalent to $60 today, factoring that in quite a few kits are similar or small increases in prices of their predecessors coupled with vast increases in quality.

 Overread wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If Bandai got into this market, they'd run GW out of business easily.

I don't know. They make toys, not games. Related, but not the same markets.

If any of the big toy firms wanted a slice of the pie they could run GW into the ground by simply saturating the market for a few years with top end ultra cheap products.

This doesn't make sense to me. Those companies would need to get an entire new design process going for miniatures, would either be outsourcing to China or spending a huge amount starting up plastic casting themselves, and would still have to be competing by offering alternatives to the GW line. Namely they would need to offer a mostly-complete line of not-space marines that were sufficiently appealing for people to buy those instead of GW. And even then they would run up against brand loyalty and playing catchup when GW releases a new model. If anything there is no way GW could easily be run into the ground by anyone other than themselves.

 Overread wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If Bandai got into this market, they'd run GW out of business easily.

I don't know. They make toys, not games. Related, but not the same markets.

If any of the big toy firms wanted a slice of the pie they could run GW into the ground by simply saturating the market for a few years with top end ultra cheap products. That said their business model is totally different. They thrive on short term mass market products that are tied to movies and other franchises. It's a churn and burn of constant new products.

GW on the other hand has a lot more long lasting elements in their products. Whilst many active gamers to "upgrade" many of the core armies are still using models that have designs dating back decades. Plus the average wargamer does not like short term products with little in the way of long term support. In fact they hate it and the hint of it when AoS launched aided to its stifled sales.

I disagree with this "GW only wants to churn and burn" claim. That's the sort of mindset that killed WHFB. The game needs more people coming in than are leaving, and the more people who are unhappy about the game as it prices out newcomers from coming into the game the faster the game dies. They tried that market plan under Kirby where they tried to market themselves as a premier model company that sold primarily to collectors. And it killed one of their games and had 40k hurting as well.

At one point that was definitely the mentality, but it's not the mentality they're using now.

Zion I'm specifically saying that churn and burn isn't GW's model - its the model of the big toy firms. I also specifically noted the same AoS example you mention, that wargamers as customers don't like the churn and burn model.

The big toy firms could flood the market with cheaper products, yes they would likely outsource to china and the like. The challenge for them would be if wargamers picked up the market change - as AoS shows there's every chance they wouldn't which might be one reason (of many) that GW has mostly been left alone being the big-name in its market without attracting interest from bigger toy firms.

 Overread wrote:
Zion I'm specifically saying that churn and burn isn't GW's model - its the model of the big toy firms. I also specifically noted the same AoS example you mention, that wargamers as customers don't like the churn and burn model.

The big toy firms could flood the market with cheaper products, yes they would likely outsource to china and the like. The challenge for them would be if wargamers picked up the market change - as AoS shows there's every chance they wouldn't which might be one reason (of many) that GW has mostly been left alone being the big-name in its market without attracting interest from bigger toy firms.

Sorry, I misunderstood who you were aiming the argument about churn and burn at.

 Melissia wrote:
Personally I'd have nominated Hasbro, not Bandai, considering Hasbro is the only reason DnD isn't still wallowing in the foetid filth of 3.5th edition and decaying in to irrelevance.

Of course as Hasbro has owned WotC since 1999, they're also the reason for D&D wallowing in 3.5 in the 1st place....

 Mothsniper wrote:
Stopped by local store.
checked out some new boxes. and was a bit stunned for a heartbeat.

It's not just you.

I have been thinking about starting orcs (the fantasy kind), so I popped in to see what Ironjaws go for. You know, maybe AoS might be fun after some time away playing Kings of War.

Oh hell no. After getting used to Mantic prices GW models are not so nice that I can justify that spend. I just need models to be orcs.

ccs wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Personally I'd have nominated Hasbro, not Bandai, considering Hasbro is the only reason DnD isn't still wallowing in the foetid filth of 3.5th edition and decaying in to irrelevance.

Of course as Hasbro has owned WotC since 1999, they're also the reason for D&D wallowing in 3.5 in the 1st place....

The difference is in 3.5th, they let WotC basically run themselves. When WotC ran themselves in to the ground (almost inevitably, really), they stepped in and forced WotC to make a game more suited for new players in 4th edition then encouraged them to take what they learned to make fifth edition. Has bro has a lot of flaws, and they sure as hell ain't perfect, but given the leeway WotC was given in 3.5th edition, the blame for that edition's worst parts pretty much belongs to WotC.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
It doesn't matter anymore. A few will leave as they are priced out, the whales will stay to feed the company, and their reward is price hikes to cover the loss of those priced out.

Oh, we're back to the GW is doomed to fail tag line? Excellent. Genuinely haven't seen that one in a while.

I think GW is doomed to be consumed by a larger megacorp. Maybe a disney. Or an amazon. I'm afraid this megacorp will have interest in the ip for generating digital entertainment, but give absolutely no feths about models and just delete that part of the company after half assedly trying to make it work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 alextroy wrote:
GW, like all companies, sells their product for what the market will bear. Their prices are not "too high" because they have no problem selling them at the current prices. People may grumble, seek discounts from MSRP, and purchase third hand, but they buy enough product that GW can't keep large amounts of their product line available. People buy enough to to make the investment in additional production capacity a worthwhile venture.

So, if you find GWs prices too high, it is you. You have company. You have lots of company. But GW has plenty of customers who feel they are worth the price of admission. The closet of shame wouldn't be a thing if people found GW too expensive to purchase. GW wouldn't be making record profits if their prices were too high.

Basically, GW is selling the miniature equivalent of luxury cars. Do you want a luxury car or will a basic sedan serve your purposes?

This has never been true of markets ever. This is a simplistic view requiring the idea that markets are inviolate and perfect. They have never been such.

 Melissia wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Personally I'd have nominated Hasbro, not Bandai, considering Hasbro is the only reason DnD isn't still wallowing in the foetid filth of 3.5th edition and decaying in to irrelevance.

Of course as Hasbro has owned WotC since 1999, they're also the reason for D&D wallowing in 3.5 in the 1st place....

The difference is in 3.5th, they let WotC basically run themselves. When WotC ran themselves in to the ground (almost inevitably, really), they stepped in and forced WotC to make a game more suited for new players in 4th edition then encouraged them to take what they learned to make fifth edition. Has bro has a lot of flaws, and they sure as hell ain't perfect, but given the leeway WotC was given in 3.5th edition, the blame for that edition's worst parts pretty much belongs to WotC.

The blame for everything goes to Wizards. Hasbro doesn't give a dead hamster about D&D. They bought (and keep) Wizards for the M:TG money, and their financials reflect that. They talk about Magic as a serious premium brand that earns money on par with Monopoly and other traditional mainstays. On years they even bother to mention D&D in their annual reports (not often- including 4th edition's launch year), they treat it as a little side project that they let WotC run to keep the WotC management team happy. As a brand it gets lumped into the category of 'other games.'

As long as they don't lose money on it and don't do serious damage to any IP that could be turned over for real money, Hasbro honestly doesn't care what happens to WotC's little playpen. Various WotC team members (they have a high turnover) have made several attempts over the years to transform it into a real moneymaker (by Hasbro's definitions) but never manage it. The D&D team is down to maybe a dozen people and doodles out a couple books a year (if you include books from third party content creators like Critical Role and Penny Arcade)

 Overread wrote:
Zion I'm specifically saying that churn and burn isn't GW's model - its the model of the big toy firms. I also specifically noted the same AoS example you mention, that wargamers as customers don't like the churn and burn model.

The big toy firms could flood the market with cheaper products, yes they would likely outsource to china and the like. The challenge for them would be if wargamers picked up the market change - as AoS shows there's every chance they wouldn't which might be one reason (of many) that GW has mostly been left alone being the big-name in its market without attracting interest from bigger toy firms.

I still don't understand how that would work. Let's take for example Primaris models. How is anything Hasbro does going to kill GWs sales of new Primaris models?

 Overread wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If Bandai got into this market, they'd run GW out of business easily.

I don't know. They make toys, not games. Related, but not the same markets.

If any of the big toy firms wanted a slice of the pie they could run GW into the ground by simply saturating the market for a few years with top end ultra cheap products. That said their business model is totally different. They thrive on short term mass market products that are tied to movies and other franchises. It's a churn and burn of constant new products.

GW on the other hand has a lot more long lasting elements in their products. Whilst many active gamers to "upgrade" many of the core armies are still using models that have designs dating back decades. Plus the average wargamer does not like short term products with little in the way of long term support. In fact they hate it and the hint of it when AoS launched aided to its stifled sales.

Primaricrap strikes me as that churn and burn thing that people hate in the miniature business...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I still don't understand how that would work. Let's take for example Primaris models. How is anything Hasbro does going to kill GWs sales of new Primaris models?

lets take this from a different point of view

the one big advantage of GW is to produce in house, so they have the full quality control and short reaction time to changes, were others have to wait for the next container ship from China with the possibility that those kits do not sell as well as planned (or sell to well and are out of stock until the next ship arrives), GW can react on demand and produce more from the stuff that sells without needing to wait
they also have the shorter development time, as they can test in house what is working and don't need to wait months for the first test sample to make adjustments and so on

lets compare it to Mantic, their Resin is way ahead of anything that GW made because for the same reason, the whole development and fabrication happens in house so they have full control on quality
their plastic on the other hand was comparable to GW ~4 years ago but as the development is done in China there is no room for improvement and Chinese factory won't going up in quality for the Mantic kits

the Enforcers were the better models compared to the old Marines but felt behind their new stuff, same as their tanks are better in design and quality compared to Rhinos or Eldar Falcons while costing have of it
Wargames Atlantic is in the same boat, their Guard like Infantry is better than anything GW has, but as soon as GW will bring new Guard models they will fall behind

yet the new stuff GW comes up with is years ahead (in that part of the industry) and the others are just lucky that GW is not updating the whole range at once
as long as there are old Guard, Marine, Eldar models around, other manufactorers will have superior models


Now lets look at the other parts of the industry
While GW is ahead for 32mm Plastic in the Wargaming part, their rules are a different story and comparing it to the scale models of all kind, the plastic is nothing special (also compared to those brands that make historical models that can be used for both, any vehicle from GW falls behind to what Rubicon makes for half the price)

And now there is Bundai or Hasbro, they also can do stuff in house, have full control over their quality and have access to larger markets

If Bundai would decide that they want to go big into Wargaming and comes up with a 1/144 (or 1/200) full scale game (including infantry, tanks etc.), GW would have troubles to compete with them, specially in the Asien market