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 Lathe Biosas wrote:
They postponed releasing the Knight codex until they raised their prices?

This is unfair! How dare they treat us like some Dark Eldar player!

I concour with the honourable delegate from the United States - we are being treated with contempt!

GW sales growth is consistently strong, but I do genuinely wonder if they are close to pricing themselves out of the middle class kids market, and if so, how long till the impact of that bites (if at all?).

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
GW sales growth is consistently strong, but I do genuinely wonder if they are close to pricing themselves out of the middle class kids market, and if so, how long till the impact of that bites (if at all?).

Honestly with Underworlds, Warcry, Killteam, Necromunda and Spearhead I think that's a lesser worry today than in the past. I recall in the 90s it was already a "very expensive kids hobby" for the middelclass.
Thing was back then killteam was a "well you use it to learn how to roll dice and then you play the proper game" system and the other systems weren't even around. If you were lucky you were born in one of the tiny windows where something like Mordhiem, Necromunda or Space Hulk were around, but by and large even they were limited impact because they were only there for a short while.


Today you've a whole host of well supported "mini" games that appeal to new and old fans in their own right. More than enough to keep kids entertained with one or two boxes of models and to keep in the hobby and steady grow.

People have been thinking that GW were close to pricing themselves out of their market since the mid-90s.

GW's pricing strategy hasn't really changed in that time, and the only time they were genuinely in danger of losing their market was during Jack 'otiose in a niche' Kirby's silliness, and that wasn't due to price but due to tipping the balance too far to focusing on pretty toys over gameplay.

Individual customers have certainly been priced out over the years. I'm one of them. But it's obvious that their pricing strategy works for them, if not for me. They've not lost their customer base... I'm just not a member of it any more.

 Jammer87 wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:

 Jammer87 wrote:
They also don't make great cars. What is the point you're trying to make?

...exactly what I said? That they are not actually heads and shoulders above most competition when talking about small scales (re: LImps/AT), which GW actually makes, instead of cars?

I think it’s worth pointing out that Games Workshop has never really positioned itself as the company for small-scale gaming. Their bread and butter has always been the 28mm range, where they’ve consistently pushed detail, design, and plastic kit engineering further than most competitors.

When they’ve dipped into smaller scales — Epic, Aeronautica, Adeptus Titanicus, etc. — it’s been very much a side project compared to the mainline Warhammer ranges. Those releases are sporadic, limited in scope, and clearly not the focus of their design studio or marketing machine. Meanwhile, companies that specialize in 6mm, 10mm, or even 15mm have built their reputations on decades of experience in those niches.

So, saying GW “doesn’t make the best small-scale models” is kind of missing the mark. They don’t really try to dominate that space. Their focus is on 28mm, and that’s where they put the overwhelming majority of their resources and creative energy.

And yet GW is and has been BRUTAL in Epic scale.

6mm epic metal tanks back in 1997 were leagues better than any competitor back in the day, and even hold up today.

8mm epic LI plastic vehicles and knights/titans nowadays are WAY better (and more expensive too) than any competitor EVEN when those competitors have the advantage of being even bigger 10 or 12mm.

Better not dwell too much into that since it really depends how you position GW inside the larger hobby...

Do you see GW minis as gaming tokens for a game? or as display sculptures for painters? and we can go on and on.

I would just say that GW inside their very specific niche is doing a good job.

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
GW sales growth is consistently strong, but I do genuinely wonder if they are close to pricing themselves out of the middle class kids market, and if so, how long till the impact of that bites (if at all?).

Former Till Monkey additional perspective. What follows is Factual, but is admittedly probably more Anecdotal than “proof”.

But don’t underestimate the will to spend of Middle Class Parents on things their kid enjoys. Multiple parents I chatted with in that past role said they were happy to pay, because At Least It’s Not Another Computer Game. Many were fond that whilst not exactly challenging in those spheres, the games got their kids reading and doing light maths in a way they enjoyed.

So….whilst my anecdotes there are multiple and consistent? I still wouldn’t say they’re proof like. But do go some way to explain why GW hasn’t priced itself out.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
GW sales growth is consistently strong, but I do genuinely wonder if they are close to pricing themselves out of the middle class kids market, and if so, how long till the impact of that bites (if at all?).

Former Till Monkey additional perspective. What follows is Factual, but is admittedly probably more Anecdotal than “proof”.

But don’t underestimate the will to spend of Middle Class Parents on things their kid enjoys. Multiple parents I chatted with in that past role said they were happy to pay, because At Least It’s Not Another Computer Game. Many were fond that whilst not exactly challenging in those spheres, the games got their kids reading and doing light maths in a way they enjoyed.

So….whilst my anecdotes there are multiple and consistent? I still wouldn’t say they’re proof like. But do go some way to explain why GW hasn’t priced itself out.

Im not even sure what is the main age group of the typical GW client these days.

Same as its ever been and ever will be, young boys and their parents

Kinda?

It’s hard to be sure of course, as GW don’t break their financials down to that level for their reports. The best we get is Sales Channel and Territorial. But not age range, or even game range.

In recent years they have of course exploded in terms of takings, and so presumably popularity.

Part of that will of course be people entirely new to the hobby. Always has been, always will be.

But consider that I started in 1989 with HeroQuest. I’m now ill advised enough to be positively middle aged. And so are many of my contemporaries.

Most of us are now earning more money than earlier in our lives. Some have paid off mortgages, or have older, less cost intensive kids, which helps free up disposable income. Some will be expanding spending, others will be returning to the hobby. Of the latter they might be dusting off old armies, or they may be effectively starting over from scratch.

So there’s an awful lot of moving parts here. And I’m not at all sure the main source of income is newcomers. I’ve little doubt it’s a chunky percentage like. But how chunky? We’ve no solid way of knowing.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
GW sales growth is consistently strong, but I do genuinely wonder if they are close to pricing themselves out of the middle class kids market, and if so, how long till the impact of that bites (if at all?).

Former Till Monkey additional perspective. What follows is Factual, but is admittedly probably more Anecdotal than “proof”.

But don’t underestimate the will to spend of Middle Class Parents on things their kid enjoys. Multiple parents I chatted with in that past role said they were happy to pay, because At Least It’s Not Another Computer Game. Many were fond that whilst not exactly challenging in those spheres, the games got their kids reading and doing light maths in a way they enjoyed.

So….whilst my anecdotes there are multiple and consistent? I still wouldn’t say they’re proof like. But do go some way to explain why GW hasn’t priced itself out.

Been on the same position and... well, it really depends. As you say, anecdote is what it is. IME, working on three different stores over 5 years, location is wildly important on the general outlook of the parents.

While I worked on the store located near the wealthiest part of Madrid, parents were pretty much happy to pay whatever, for much the same reasons, plus also to have them stay in the store painting and playing (we had a Battle Bunker).

Once I was transferred to another store located inside a big shopping center located near one of what we call "sleeper cities"? (that's the then towns, now booming cities located surrounding Madrid, where most of the working people can actually afford to live in)

Well... there outlook on that regard changed dramatically, and parents were much less chuffed about the regular GW prices. In my personal anecdotical experience, that store had much less younger customers, age skewed a lot older, and (logically enough) customers usually fell in two categories: poeople that already knew GW and Warhammer, so were used to the prices, and people visiting the shopping center that wandered to our midst, and those were consistently a bit horrified of the prices.

Oh, yeah, and family of a kid looking for a birthday or christmas gift, those were always fun. Some because of their reactions to the prices, some because of how they asked for what they were told what to look for (like one grannie that wanted "A Garfield"... which ended up being a slann, but the painted example was orange, so...).

That said, all this was like 15 years ago, so...

Vorian wrote:
Same as its ever been and ever will be, young boys and their parents

I would not be so sure about that... the crowd is changing, kids of 20 years ago are not like the ones today and surely not the ones 10 years from now and I see a huge increment of women.
We dont have the data so sorry if Im sceptical about what you are saying.

Cap doffed to Darksphere:

https://www.darksphere.co.uk/gwrise25.php?utm_source=Dark+Sphere+Newsletters&utm_campaign=a845719279-160806_DeathMasque_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_e5739860a2-a845719279-83622997

Nice!!

Some of them feel like a tiny rise of only £1-2 or so - but there's a good few higher priced items going up by £5 which feels more marked. Esp the £100 going to £105

GW fans always seem obsessed with the idea of new customers being the key to the company's success, but the reality for Warhammer like for nearly everything else is that existing customers provide 90%+ of their revenue. The value OF a new customer over their lifetime can be very great and it's definitely a worthwhile activity to constantly be trying to bring them in.

After the Kirby debacle and exit they spent several years rebuilding, and that's where we got some awesome Warcry sets and Kill Team sets, new Necromunda, new Blood Bowl, new Warhammer Quests, but then they turned into an exploitation approach, they raised their profile and brought a bunch of people back, and now they're raising prices and offering less until they see signs of it cracking.

People who say they can't keep raising their prices faster than inflation forever are actually completely correct, they will kill their own business that way, that's Business 101 stuff. But given they've got a bunch of executives who went through Business 101, I'd assume they're probably going to pivot once we see the signs of the market cracking, and that's when they'll transition back into that 2016-2021 era of can't miss box sets, more creative ideas, occasionally listening to customers, better price per figure on bigger boxes with more figures, and so on. The cycle can't continue on forever, eventually people would need 1,000 models to make a 40K army, and even if they're paying $500 to get a box with 500 minis, it'll be too much, but nothing lasts forever, GW will keep cashing in for the foreseeable future.

to be fair, the new customer obsession is because that was, at one point, GWs business model. Like most things though, what was true 10-20 years ago isn't necessarily true today, but people get stuck in their thinking and stereotypes, etc. and don't necessarily keep up with the times.

 frankelee wrote:
GW fans always seem obsessed with the idea of new customers being the key to the company's success, but the reality for Warhammer like for nearly everything else is that existing customers provide 90%+ of their revenue. The value OF a new customer over their lifetime can be very great and it's definitely a worthwhile activity to constantly be trying to bring them in.

I don't know what % different customer blocks bring in; that said GW is certainly a mature firm who will have a significant adult fanbase. I think the reason we focus on younger generations is because wargamers are quite well aware that without new people the hobby dies; and for most of us its a serious enough hobby that we don't want to see that happen. And it happens very very easily. A good many hobbies can end up with a big adult fanbase and very little youth recruitment and its a slow death. The more of an age gap you get the harder it is to bridge it.


Plus don't forget many are now old enough to have their own kids and hope that they might follow in their parents footsteps and have support from others of their generation. Esp in an age where the youth are even more bombarded by electronics.

Vorian wrote:
Same as its ever been and ever will be, young boys and their parents

I don't think that's true at all. The majority of people in the game are people who were kids and are now well into their 30s and back in the hobby. There are plenty of younger kids as well but I don't think that's the key demographic. There's a wealth of new people joining the hobby but they don't have a specific age group.

 Olthannon wrote:

Vorian wrote:
Same as its ever been and ever will be, young boys and their parents

I don't think that's true at all. The majority of people in the game are people who were kids and are now well into their 30s and back in the hobby. There are plenty of younger kids as well but I don't think that's the key demographic. There's a wealth of new people joining the hobby but they don't have a specific age group.

Yeah while GW are definitely making some effort to market to a new generation via a wider range of starter products & videos games, I'd be willing to bet that the biggest factor in GW's recent growth is middle-aged folks that now have some disposable income. GW have focused hard on nostalgia bait in the last decade; Horus Heresy minis that look like Rogue trade concepts, Blood bowl, TOW, Epic scale, Necromunda... they want to sell us the stuff we couldn't get with pocket money in the 90's.

Couple that with the 40k meta treadmill and it's a perfect recipe to draw £hundreds or even £thousands from individuals annually.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Some have paid off mortgages, or have older, less cost intensive kids, which helps free up disposable income.

Just to take minor umbrage with this specific bit - so far my kids have only got more and more expensive! Eldest is 17 now, and learning to drive, and bugger me I wish he was still into Warhammer instead. Driving lessons are monstrous now. I'm sure I remember my lessons back in 199[cough] were about £13 an hour. We're now paying £69 per 1.5 hours, or a bargain block of 10 for £660... And the little sod kerbed one of our alloys on his first practice session in our car over the weekend...

 frankelee wrote:
... but the reality for Warhammer like for nearly everything else is that existing customers provide 90%+ of their revenue. ..

I'm curious as to where you're getting that figure, to be honest.

The thing is, those of us who interact with other hobbyists get a bit of a distorted view of what the market actually looks like. The reason GW has historically focused on the new customer is because in wargaming the new customer is more likely to actually spend money. For every grognard who is constantly adding to their collection, there's a whole bunch of others who have completed armies and rarely buy anything new, or don't even actually play any more and just hang around the forums out of habit. The newcomer, though, will walk in and buy a starter set, and an army, and books, and paints and brushes and glue and a tshirt... and then as likely as not tinker with it all for a few months and then never touch it again. And so they're replaced with the next newcomer to walk in the door.

Veteran players are a valuable resource for keeping a game visible and being played... but the newcomers are the ones more likely to actually spend the money.

At least, that's GW's view, and it holds up with what I've seen of gamers over the decades.

 Olthannon wrote:

Vorian wrote:
Same as its ever been and ever will be, young boys and their parents

I don't think that's true at all. The majority of people in the game are people who were kids and are now well into their 30s and back in the hobby. There are plenty of younger kids as well but I don't think that's the key demographic. There's a wealth of new people joining the hobby but they don't have a specific age group.

https://youtu.be/-63A7cDkOm8?si=O4aADrFY4hHuDSiW

I don't know if the link takes you to the correct part of the video, but the relevant bit is from 13:22.

They do say it may have changed now and I guess they must be talking about data from 7 or 8 years ago, but their data then said it was mums buying for their kids.

The things they credit the boost in sales on, (reducing entry barriers, having affordable ways to start) would generally help more new people (ie a healthy % of kids) start and stick with the hobby.

So sure I guess bringing back some of us old people might have skewed the customer base a bit, but I think it's pretty safe to say that it has not turned the typical customer on its head.

Also lets face it - veterans don't need a staffer to sell them something; they are already coming to the store knowing what they want. Shop keepers will be pushing sales and encouraging and focusing on fostering new customers who need that early guidance, confidence, introduction and all. They don't have a network of gaming friends; or social groups or a bunch of other things to necessarily support them and help make/encourage those choices.

 insaniak wrote:

 frankelee wrote:
... but the reality for Warhammer like for nearly everything else is that existing customers provide 90%+ of their revenue. ..

I'm curious as to where you're getting that figure, to be honest.

The thing is, those of us who interact with other hobbyists get a bit of a distorted view of what the market actually looks like. The reason GW has historically focused on the new customer is because in wargaming the new customer is more likely to actually spend money. For every grognard who is constantly adding to their collection, there's a whole bunch of others who have completed armies and rarely buy anything new, or don't even actually play any more and just hang around the forums out of habit. The newcomer, though, will walk in and buy a starter set, and an army, and books, and paints and brushes and glue and a tshirt... and then as likely as not tinker with it all for a few months and then never touch it again. And so they're replaced with the next newcomer to walk in the door.

Veteran players are a valuable resource for keeping a game visible and being played... but the newcomers are the ones more likely to actually spend the money.

At least, that's GW's view, and it holds up with what I've seen of gamers over the decades.

I think today we see that too... but also things we did not have before which shows a clear shot at existing clients and different demographic new groups.

- Loads of big new boxes for "specialist games" these boxes are in par of main 40k for price and models. Basically a vet with all 40K armies now has options to buy a lot more that did not exist before, consistent stream of kill team boxes, 30k etc etc aimed at nostalgia too.
- New armies like Votann. Everyone, vets and new clients will be interested equally since they did not exist in this form before... Also full model revamp armies like Aeldari etc I mean a VET will get all the new models no questions asked.
- Flip flop from AoS and Old world and WFB... They took it off then they replaced with something else and now it's back... these changes are to keep vets buying.
- Videogames crowd will want some models and those are from all age groups and other hobbies.
- Community influencers again this will bring other people in.
- A stronger painter based activities, twitch, YouTube, contrasts... now this alone has the potential to grow even more, but now they cater to artists and we see a huge increment of women here, and thats such a good thing for the community.

If you take away all those points above and just keep selling the exact same 40k armies to people over and over again then that would fit the narrative of Vets dont buy because there was nothing for them to buy. Thats not the case today.

Warhammer is still growing and in different directions so prices will be going up and up.

I suspect that the reality is that vets buy in spurts over a longer time period as there are things that interest them released, while the newcomer will drop more money in one go.

If there were no money in selling to veterans, the whole edition cycle would make no sense. When you have a full product range, you don't need to keep making new things if you're only selling to new customers.

But I do think that the money from newbies makes up a larger portion of the overall market than most veteran gamers realise.

 Overread wrote:
Also lets face it - veterans don't need a staffer to sell them something; they are already coming to the store knowing what they want. Shop keepers will be pushing sales and encouraging and focusing on fostering new customers who need that early guidance, confidence, introduction and all. They don't have a network of gaming friends; or social groups or a bunch of other things to necessarily support them and help make/encourage those choices.

There are ways and means

Sure, you’re not running them an intro game, or intro paint. But you can still do a painting lesson, or help them understand a rule.

For sales? Just polite conversation. If a customer you know? Ask about their specific army. Ask “you ok for glue and paints” at the till. Ask “find everything you wanted”.

It can all help get more money in the till.

And yes, Dear Dakka, a significant portion of that game is Knowing When To Just Shut Up. This is reflected in the training I did on my last turn as “Tell Them What They Need, Sell Them What They Want”. Specifically for newbies of course. But it can be adapted with some success to more established hobbyists.