Overpriced GW

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

I learned a long time ago that there are simply better options than Games Workshop.

[tuffyears 23171xp 0]

Well that’s me told then

[limburger 21674xp 1]

@redscope would you go find an obscure golf club brand just because a random golf enthusiast told you that the brand you found in your google result was ‘overpriced’ ?
Or would you buy into the number 1 brand in your results, because it gives you the comfort that you can easily find replacements and help should you need it ?

Would you avoid buying your gear at [insert mainstreet store] just to buy things that may be ‘better’ at a location that you need a map and a 2 hour drive to find ?

Convenience is a bigger factor for getting people into any hobby than most hobbyists realise.

//
I’d never pay 30 Euro for the Warlord or Wargames Atlantic bits.
I would pay 30 for the GW box … because I know what kind of production quality I’m getting from either of them.
WA and WL are overpriced for the kind of quality they deliver.

[redscopeParticipant 2713xp 1]

It is 2022 I can order from any company around the world in the few button clicks and have it arrived in a few days normally. Never in the history of the hobby has to be more Convenient to buy the items you need. I have book marks of 50 odd hobby companies. We have tons of videos from people on youtube reviewing companies and products. We have this whole site which is devoted to the hobby.

So never before in the history of this hobby have we had so much choice and different game systems. If you had said this 30 years ago you might have a point but now I cannot make any sense of it. The only limit you have is one you place on yourself.

[pagan8thParticipant 10747xp 1]

I’m still not here… no opinions…

[iceeagle85Participant 4967xp 1]

Forgeworld prices were always even more bonkers than GW. And on top of that the qualitiy is mixed, I had great and really bad casts. There customer service is great tough but this should be a given.

Primarchs are a bit bigger than marines though, but a bit cheaper wouldn’t hurt.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

@limburger chances are, if I were getting into Golf I would go to a golf shop and buy something not too expensive in case I didn’t really enjoy it and the look to upgrade in the future if it turns out that I do.  Not really comparable to Games Workshop really simply because there isn’t a “gateway brand” that then suddenly opens up your eyes to a whole world of other brands.  If you wanted to compare it Wargaming as a whole, rather than just a single brand within the market, Games Workshop is the equivalent of starting playing Golf with the most expensive clubs on the market only to realise that other cheaper brands exist – brands that do exactly the same job.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 1]

@tuffyears that’s “better options” for me.  If you like 40k, no worries.  You do you.

[waywarddarkwolf 1219xp 2]

Interesting debate.

Just to throw something else into the mix, GW’s pricing strategy seems to be largely focused on a specific demographic – boys of around school age. At that age, they’re really not focused on the “true value” of things, more on the “I want now”, “I want because my friends have”, “I want because its trending and cool” mindset.

Plus, the majority young men are very susceptible to what Carl Yung classed as the “hero archetype”, the need to transcend childhood and make the jump into noble manhood – hard to do in real life and widely accepted as a driving factor in why so many young men get addicted to games.Boys will gladly save their pocket money, bug their parents, ask for birthday or Xmas presents, etc to get their hands on GW kit. Parents, being parents, tend not to focus on worth when little Jonnie wants something – we see this clearly when it comes to other things, like XBox/Playstation consoles, computer games and other expensive kit which parents shell out a fortune for.
In that respect, GW are being very clever because they have tapped into a major market trend that will always exist.

When we get a bit older, get turfed out into the big bad world and start earning for ourselves and don’t rely on parents for our needs any more, we start to develop a sense of what things are truly worth and, usually, have to operate each month on a certain budget. It seems to be at this point the hobby wanes for a lot of people, although you also need to factor in other things like getting a job, starting a family, buying a house, etc which are obviously going to impact on the amount of leisure time and money people have. And Interestingly, I’ve noticed that this seems to be the point as well where people start to build a resentment of GW and love turns to hate.

Bottom line for me is that I still enjoy 40K and its spin-offs after many years. I’m long past the boyhood stage now but there’s still part of the big kid there that will never go away.
If I see something which I like and I can afford it, I’ll buy it.
If I see something which I think is ridiculously priced, I won’t.
If I see something which I really want even though its expensive, I’ll either save for it or look for alternatives – e.g. I’ve picked up some great stuff on Etsy in the past which, although not a high quality as the GW equivalent, is still good enough and at the end of the day when its painted and on the table top is practically unnoticeable.

[wurzzelParticipant 2734xp 0]

Pagan8th a single marine works out about £2 as they’re £43 for 20 that’s reasonable enough. What you’re talking about is a model that you’ll only buy one of, that’s why they’re more expensive. How many big standard marines will GW sell in comparison to Primarchs and when you compare prices with other companies for the most part they’re pretty similar a pack of seven monopose rebel troopers for legion are roughly the same cost as ten multipart multi option cadians for 40k.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 1]

@wurzzel I would disagree quite strongly with the cost comparisons you are putting forward there:

• GW: 10 Cadian Shock Troops – RRP £30
• Mantic: 20 GCPS Troopers – RRP £22.50
• Wargames Atlantic: 24 Death Fields Trooper – RRP £25
• Northstar: 20 Stargrave Plastic Troops – RRP £20

Games Workshop are about 3 times more expensive than other similar products on the market.  You can argue about quality of the models if you like (although I would argue the Wargames Atlantic models are superior in quality to the GW ones) but as @waywarddarkwolf has highlighted, you don’t need super quality Miniatures to build an army with.  You want something of reasonable quality that’s going to look OK from about 3 feet away in large numbers.  All of the above ranges will achieve that for a fraction of the cost of the GW equivalent.  That is, in fact, one of the reasons I started to drift away from GW in the first place.  First I was looking to put my own stamp on my army, so I started looking for non-standard parts.  Then you find companies making full alternative model ranges.  Then you see the price difference and finally you see that they make their own rules or that other rules systems exist.  Before I knew it I had all but stopped buying GW models altogether and more recently I also stopped buying paints reducing my GW spend per annum to about £20 (I still like the washes).  Getting out of the GW hobby is really, really easy.

[redscopeParticipant 2713xp 1]

@waywarddarkwolf

You make some interesting points. I recall as a kid ~I used to get 1 pound a week pocket money and the blister packs of 3 where 2.99. If I wanted something I would have to save up or as you say get it for birthdays. For a long while all I had was 20 space marines and the core book.

What is interesting is spectrum games at the times were also 2.99 at least for the cheap ones the A titles 9.99. When you compare a PS5 game is 60-70 and 10 space marines is 36 pounds. That rise in cost between those two items is not just inflation. However you cannot really compare the spectrum game directly with the P5 version and nor is it the same with the Space marine models.

Unless people had parents with money it was never a cheap hobby. I think people have very rose tinted glasses. As kids we did not have full 2,000 points armies we had a few models and built up armies over years. However it did not matter to us you just used the models you had.

One aspect to mention is I still have those models and can still use them. The models you buy are for the lifetime of the hobby unless you choose to sell them. Even then the value of the models on 2nd hand market you dont lose a lot on them.

If you just look at the price vs the value you get out of the models over the lifetime of the hobby it is really cheap hobby.

The only issue really is one we create ourselves for a constant need to buy more models. That is something you have to manage yourself.

[redscopeParticipant 2713xp 2]

@onlyonepinman

Cadian Shock Troops are perhaps a bad example they are 24 year old kits and franky I would agree over priced. However the new kits are far better quality than Mantic, Wargames Atlantic, Northstar. I love those models ranges, Northstars FrostGrave kits are amazing but lets be honest they are not in the same quality league as most GW models.

If you take Mantic kits I recently put together some kings of war models and they are fine for the price. However they are clearly made in China from a very odd hard cheap plastic. Even plastic glue would not work on them I had to super glue the parts together. The arms did not fit correctly to the body. Clearly they are not the same product quality as GW. I know this does put a lot of people off buying them.

Wargames Atlantic do some great models but it is one sprue of 5 models over and over again in each box. Which for some games systems is fine it does not matter. It is personal choice I think a lot of people mix and match those kits. However if you compare the Death Korps of Krieg recent models with Raumjäger Infantry I have they are light years difference in quality.

These differences come at a cost. By no means is GW the most expensive model company. The infinity games models are more expensive, the raging heros battle sisters where twice even 3 times the GW cost. Companies like Creature Caster who are at the same level as GW they are pricey because your paying for the quality.

Like a lot of products we have a range in the hobby from companies like copperstone who have some models 2-3 pounds all the way through to the northstars, GW to Creature Cast and Raging Heros.

You can select your own value and what it is worth to you. I suspect most of us cherry pick what models we want for each project based on budgets etc.

But this idea one company is bad because they offer a given quality at certain price it makes no sense to me. I dont buy tesco baked beans even tho they are cheaper than Heinz ones. I dont consider Heinz an evil company because they provide a different product. To me it is complete madness and a lot of it is just down to social media and trying to be cool rebel against the bigger companies.

[wurzzelParticipant 2734xp 2]

@onepinman I am respectfully going to disagree with the idea quality doesn’t matter, that’s definitely upto each individual gamer. Also as far as the options you listed they may be cheaper but with the possible exception of the Mantic range aren’t immediately useable in 40k, at the end of the day though it’s definitely upto the individual as to what they want out of their hobby experience and it’s definitely wrong and a little bit rude of the OP to be as deregotary as he was.

[onlyonepinman 18060xp 0]

@redscope The Cadians are the best example to use because there’s so many alternatives and comparators out there.  And it’s not as though the next generation of guard models will be less than £30 for 10.

Try comparing the Bulldogs or Les Grognards to the recent Death Korps… Mulipart, separate components, posable compared to the monopose Death Korps.  If I was going to build an army of hundreds, I wouldn’t be buying the Death Korps box.

Infinity is not really a fair comparison – individually they’re more expensive but you only need like 10 models.  That’s it.  And you can pretty much get a full size force for £80.  So I deliberately didn’t compare them to 40k because there’s a very different context about what it is you are buying.  In Infinity you are essentially buying a small squad, in 40k you need a small army.  I also limited comparison to like for like products – multi part, plastic, scifi soldiers

@wurzzel I didn’t say quality didn’t matter, I said you don’t need super quality Miniatures to build an army that looks good on a table – i.e. in large numbers and from a viewing distance of 3-4 feet.  That’s not the same as saying it doesn’t matter, only that in a particular context the quality is of no benefit other than to bump the price up.  Now, if you are of the view that you don’t want to paint those lesser quality models, that’s fine, it’s your hobby. But people shouldn’t complain about the higher prices having made that choice because in doing so you are also getting extra value out of the product – the value of the enjoyment of painting the higher quality miniatures.

Also, everything is usable in 40k, or any other game for that matter. It doesn’t have to look exactly like the GW model to be used in 40k.  40k is just a rules set, and the stats are just numbers on a page – you can proxy anything in for any unit in the game, you can use lego minifigures it you really want.  So Stargrave Miniatures can be used, no problem but Wargames Atlantic absolutely can because they are designed to be astra militarum proxies!  They’re a better fit than even Mantic’s Miniatures.

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