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 Grot 6 wrote:
^ Exactly. It's another day that ends in Y. The figures are starting to collect dust on our local markets shelves. It's that issue about price hikes on everything across the board, but not wage.

That's not what I was getting at at all.

My point was they just did a price rise.

They raised the prices and said nothing about it, then turned around and went "Times are tough guys, so we're raising the prices!", like, what, we didn't notice the other times they've already raised prices this year? And last year? And all the other release-to-release price increases they do?

They're acting like this is the first they've had to do this since the last time they announced an across-the-board price rise. It's not. It happens with almost every new set of releases.

Aecus Decimus wrote:
Yep.

I didn't write any of that.

Don't quote what I didn't say.

 Albertorius wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
Yes, of course.

Some people don't seem to understand that GW is a business.

They will charge what they can get away with.

Guess what? It's working for them.

Agreed. But that doesn't mean that you need to just suck it up, buttercup either.

Just take a look at WotC and all the OGL debacle and see what pushback can do.

But of course, if prices keep rising and people keep buying, it's not like they have any incentive whatsoever to stop doing it.

Regarding "suck it up, buttercup", I don't think that any mass boycotting of GW would work, after all, they are luxury goods when all is said and done.

Even if their data shows that price increases have harmed sales overall there is no way that they will reduce prices, they would most likely introduce more bundle deals to help with the perception of value.

Nobody *likes* the price increases, but this year they seem more justified than they normally are (to me, at least), mostly due to inflation.

Saying that, it is painful to have been hit by two price rises in a very short space of time.

I started in spring of 2014..

A squad of guardsmen were $30 and a dakkajet was $35.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

Some people don't seem to understand that GW is a business
.

No, some people think it's a hobby.

Miniature painting is a hobby, wargaming is a hobby, Games Workshop is a business.

I know that you know this, so whatever point you were making has clearly gone over my head.

That's precisely the point I was making, people treat GW as "the hobby."

I think this is where so much of the cognitive dissonance comes from and why some people get so angry when they're treated as a resource to be farmed and not like the design studio's bestest buddies.

Perhaps we need to bring "the hhhobby" back into common usage to distinguish the actual hobby for what some people think it is.

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

Some people don't seem to understand that GW is a business
.

No, some people think it's a hobby.

Miniature painting is a hobby, wargaming is a hobby, Games Workshop is a business.

I know that you know this, so whatever point you were making has clearly gone over my head.

That's precisely the point I was making, people treat GW as "the hobby."

I think this is where so much of the cognitive dissonance comes from and why some people get so angry when they're treated as a resource to be farmed and not like the design studio's bestest buddies.

Perhaps we need to bring "the hhhobby" back into common usage to distinguish the actual hobby for what some people think it is.

Good point, well made.

I can't help but roll my eyes when I see some of the more emotional posts in this thread, confusing Games Workshop with the actual hobby would certainly explain their rants.

I think we have to draw a line between those who think GW is the only part of the hobby and those who think/know that GW games are the only ones they can engage with their local playerbase, without having to basically become a rep/salesperson for another game line.

Because I think for many its not that GW is the only miniature producer out there; or the only wargame; or the only way to engage with miniature models. Indeed I'd argue that just being part of the online forum community invalidates that as to get to this point you are going to be exposed to other systems.

What I think it is is that for many people all they have locally is a GW store; or a club that plays GW games; or a socail group or a 3rd party store. If they have other games it really might be one or two people locally who play them if at all.

So for many its not so much that GW IS the hobby, but that they feel/art constrained by the local situation such that GW is the only viable local system for them.






At least excluding them becoming a rep for another game system and doing the hard job of building their own community up; promoting; demoing and building local interest up. Which can be hard and sometimes even if you do everything right it still won't work (and many many times it does work and its awesome).



I think that's an important line to draw in the sand because I think some get the impression that there are those who are so blinkered that they can only see GW and they see nothing else. Meanwhile I think for many its not that they don't see and aren't interested in other things; just that its not supported locally and its a tough fight to get things to change.

What about the metals? The article doesn't say.

Isn't metals basically a handful of skaven models and that's about it? Chances are production of metals for GW right now is so insanely low compared to everything else that either

1) They don't need to raise prices on them

2) They don't need to single it out in marketing info even if the prices are going to rise. Or more likely in this course, they just forgot that there's 5 or 6 metal models left in the range.

 Overread wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
It's weird people bring up board games and video games all the time when talking about GW prices. I mean, I guess it makes some sense, because they're both games, but GW isn't just an expensive game, it's an expensive game with highly detailed plastic kits.

So are gunpla kits. And a whole lotta boardgames nowadays. And still...

Yeah, anybody serious about boardgames is probably spending as much as a GW fanboi per year, and not even playing half the games.

Source: dude, trust me

Kickstarter

See also: the nigh ever growing Board Games sections in places like Target and Barnes & Noble.

Personally, I know 12 or so people who attend GenCon annually and have never NOT brought an additional large suitcase to fly back all the games they'll buy that I'll never see at the monthly board game day held at someone's house. That's not a rare occurrence to hear about from people that attend other game conventions regularly.

 Overread wrote:
Isn't metals basically a handful of skaven models and that's about it? Chances are production of metals for GW right now is so insanely low compared to everything else that either

1) They don't need to raise prices on them

2) They don't need to single it out in marketing info even if the prices are going to rise. Or more likely in this course, they just forgot that there's 5 or 6 metal models left in the range.

There are a handful of AoS models which are still metal, Skaven & Gloomspite have the last remaining metals. But there are a huge number of MESBG minis which are still metal, some forces are completely composed of metal minis still. On top of that they run enough MTO runs which are still often in metal.

The LotR range already had increases in the last year, another would really make their metal model range well over priced.

If metal is seeing another 6% increase next month as well I'd pretty much abandon any notions of picking up the last models I wanted. There is another MTO this weekend for LotR stuff and I was dreading the overall cost, and that's before this price rise news. Thankfully I don't play their middle earth game, but do buy a fair amount of the models to use in another game. I may change my mind about buying 3 of the fellbeast sets if this MTO is going to match next months prices. I'm already expecting them to cost almost double of the plastic kit.

It doesn't help that they fail to keep so much of the mesbg items in stock, and when they do miraculously get them back in, it always seems to be after a price rise. (The mumakil forgeworld kit for example, was out of stock for months last year and when it did return a few months ago it was hiked in price)


Thinking about this, I honestly don't think they are raising the prices now due to rising costs. They did that not many months ago, just before December. I think they do it at this time of year to get a few more panic buys in this month to help boost sales at a time of year people are just recovering from over spending over Christmas.

I already spoke to my group about skipping the next edition (at least expenditure wise) as I’m a little over the churn and burn of the edition/codex system. Adding in more expensive kits (that are already pretty overpriced to begin with), and the decision gets so much easier. I have enough stuff to last me a long time so this year will yield a major pause in my spending. It’s not that I can’t, just a case of I don’t want to anymore.

Just got the excel file.

6% is a lie, as far as the US is concerned. The 1.5 pounds Battle Sisters are going up as the article mentioned? Going from 60 to 70 in the US

Nearly everything I looked at, with the exception of Bloodbowl, had a minimum 10% increase, and as high as 20.

Even the Khorne items coming out Saturday will increase. Berzerkers and Invocatus go from 60.00 to 75.00, as an example.

 mikhaila wrote:
Just got the excel file.

6% is a lie, as far as the US is concerned. The 1.5 pounds Battle Sisters are going up as the article mentioned? Going from 60 to 70 in the US

Nearly everything I looked at, with the exception of Bloodbowl, had a minimum 10% increase, and as high as 20.

Even the Khorne items coming out Saturday will increase. Berzerkers and Invocatus go from 60.00 to 75.00, as an example.

Absolutely indefensible. This far and away outpaces inflation. As much as I WANT to buy the gw models for the quality even though I have a resin and a fdm printer, that difference in price is unjustifiable.

Someone saw the canadian increases, and they were closer to 7%.

Canada has always been closer to UK pricing.

So either someone really, really screwd up the US pricing chart, or the article is only about the UK.

I'm also seeing price increase to 9.60 on the formerly 7.80 paint pots, and yet they specifiy that paints weren't going up. Who the feth knows.

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Absolutely indefensible. This far and away outpaces inflation. As much as I WANT to buy the gw models for the quality even though I have a resin and a fdm printer, that difference in price is unjustifiable.

"But GW is a business!"
"But these are luxury goods!"
"It's not as expensive as gold collecting/diamond creation/amateur asteroid mining, so the prices are fine!"

As a business owner and retailer, I am quite glad I have not yet invested in GW products.

I’m going to laugh if those US rumored prices are correct. They are going to lose a lot of business, so many people are not going to pay these new prices.

They will though, and that's what makes me a little sad.

 bullyboy wrote:
I’m going to laugh if those US rumored prices are correct. They are going to lose a lot of business, so many people are not going to pay these new prices.

As stated above this is not the first time we have danced this dance. I'll keep buying some stuff here, and there because I have the money, but I never was the type of client to drop 500$ bucks every couple of months.

M.

Some models go up $30-40, the bigger starter sets $61. Absolutely insane. This is wild.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Absolutely indefensible. This far and away outpaces inflation. As much as I WANT to buy the gw models for the quality even though I have a resin and a fdm printer, that difference in price is unjustifiable.

"But GW is a business!"
"But these are luxury goods!"
"It's not as expensive as gold collecting/diamond creation/amateur asteroid mining, so the prices are fine!"

Hehe asteroid mining

You know my mum used to have shares in an Egyptian Gold mine. When they stopped exploration and started to mine, the shares hit an all time high. Which meant sell sell sell!

So how many GW consumers are now going to rush out and buy buy buy before this rise? Or before they even know exactly what the rises will be?

Tyton wrote:
Some models go up $30-40, the bigger starter sets $61. Absolutely insane. This is wild.

Where are you seeing these numbers?

lost_lilliputian wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Sledgehammer wrote:
Absolutely indefensible. This far and away outpaces inflation. As much as I WANT to buy the gw models for the quality even though I have a resin and a fdm printer, that difference in price is unjustifiable.

"But GW is a business!"
"But these are luxury goods!"
"It's not as expensive as gold collecting/diamond creation/amateur asteroid mining, so the prices are fine!"

Hehe asteroid mining

You know my mum used to have shares in an Egyptian Gold mine. When they stopped exploration and started to mine, the shares hit an all time high. Which meant sell sell sell!

So how many GW consumers are now going to rush out and buy buy buy before this rise? Or before they even know exactly what the rises will be?

I'm willing to pay a premium if its desirable and the alternatives are not as appetizing. GW miniatures are quickly becoming more and more expensive (many miniatures are now double the price they were in 2014 when I started) while their direct and indirect competitors are quickly catching up in terms of quality. GW miniatures will sooner rather than later become valuable not for the quality in and of themselves, but for the IP that they are attached to. The only reason that the individual would care about that is if GW had a means with which to bar entry from the game to those that did not use official models. Hence GWs continued meddling in the tournament scene and "narrative" events. The rhetoric around "the hobby" is also psychologically designed in order to make you believe that GW is THE HOBBY.

 Sledgehammer wrote:

I'm willing to pay a premium if its desirable and the alternatives are not as appetizing. GW miniatures are quickly becoming more and more expensive (many miniatures are now double the price they were in 2014 when I started) while their direct and indirect competitors are quickly catching up in terms of quality. GW miniatures will sooner rather than later become valuable not for the quality in and of themselves, but for the IP that they are attached to. The only reason that the individual would care about that is if GW had a means with which to bar entry from the game to those that did not use official models. Hence GWs continued meddling in the tournament scene and "narrative" events. The rhetoric around "the hobby" is also psychologically designed in order to make you believe that GW is THE HOBBY.

Yep I can see an added value to an official GW miniature too. It guarantees a player entry to a tournament that runs a GW game.

Even where I live, in a regional area, there is one hobby store in town, an independent store, not a GW. Any tournament they run for a GW game, WH40k, Warcry, Kill Team, Blood Bowl etc they insist only GW miniatures are allowed. They refuse to allow non GW miniatures at all. Even a conversion must be from actual GW miniatures. They have even inspected minis for pick up casual games on a weekend to check for 3rd party parts, shoulder pads etc.

So for sure when an independent store (the only store in a whole town) holds such high standards and a huge commitment to GW, some people don't even think outside of GW for 'the hobby'.

Unfortunately after 5 years the store I've mentioned has now sadly decided to close down. By the end of Feb they will be gone. Will be interesting to see where our local gaming community go to play and how they respond.

 McDougall Designs wrote:

Tyton wrote:
Some models go up $30-40, the bigger starter sets $61. Absolutely insane. This is wild.

Where are you seeing these numbers?

Was a link to the spreadsheet floating around earlier. I'm sure it'll be all over the place by tomorrow.

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Undead_Love-Machine wrote:
Yes, of course.

Some people don't seem to understand that GW is a business.

They will charge what they can get away with.

Guess what? It's working for them.

Agreed. But that doesn't mean that you need to just suck it up, buttercup either.

Just take a look at WotC and all the OGL debacle and see what pushback can do.

But of course, if prices keep rising and people keep buying, it's not like they have any incentive whatsoever to stop doing it.

Regarding "suck it up, buttercup", I don't think that any mass boycotting of GW would work, after all, they are luxury goods when all is said and done.

Even if their data shows that price increases have harmed sales overall there is no way that they will reduce prices, they would most likely introduce more bundle deals to help with the perception of value.

Nobody *likes* the price increases, but this year they seem more justified than they normally are (to me, at least), mostly due to inflation.

Saying that, it is painful to have been hit by two price rises in a very short space of time.

Everything you just said can be as easily applied to WotC and the OGL, or even you can take a look at MtG from the same company as see for yourself what predatory tactics can end up doing with your fanbase.

GW raises prices because their fanbase let them. Pure and simple. Everything else is a smokescreen. And they will keep doing it until there's enough pushback.

Glad I got almost my entire Sisters of Battle army from 'cheap' Imperium sprues, as even though I could afford to, I can't justify GW's mainline prices.

Wonder how hard Australia is going to get hit if that's how the US is getting hit...

 Albertorius wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Galas wrote:
6% increase after last year 5% prince increase with profits trought the roof.

Ok. Lovely lookin at those Ogre Infantry going from 32,50€ to 42,50€ and now 45€ in the span of 4 years.

What, you expected already amortized sprues (many, many times over) not to go up in price? C'mon, be serious.

If you don't want to see prices out better leave western countries and similar(japan etc). Our economic system is built on everything going up steadily and if not basically economy stalls, people get laid off, companies go bust and end of the world near.

Oh, yeah, ye olde "but you still live in a capitalist country" retort.

Spoiler:

I'm pointing out the obvious. If everything would stop going up it would be matter of time before YOU would be out of job and whole economy would have crashed.

The whole economic model depends on prices going up. Prices staying same is very bad. Prices going down is even worse. Ever heard inflation?

I earn more than what my job earned 2000 as well.

Sorry but unlike you I live in real world and not spend my days in hallucinations.

Psst. I'm going to tell you secret since you haven't noticed it. Food prices have gone up as well. They cost lot more now than 2000. Rents as well. Public transport. Medicine. Gasoline. Wonder why you aren't in barricades over that? After all that's actual essential item people need to live...Any sensible person would be ranting against those getting more expensive than over plastic toys. But guess for you plastic toys are more important than living

Ah well. Illogicallity of people never stops amazing me.

I am glad i got a back log of GW stuff. Over the years my monthly hobby budget has not changed much. I still buy some GW stuff, but honestly their last few price hikes have got me looking elsewhere. Between that and the library needed to play a 40k game, I would much rather play Fallout Wasteland Warfare or Marvel Crisis protocol.

GW isn't the only game manufacturer anymore even if they do act like it. They still act like they got no competition. Between other mini game companies and 3d printers, GW should worry less about raising prices and being the next great book publisher, and more about gaining a customer base. Their recent practices, are pushing more and more people toward other options.