Overpriced GW

[onlyonepinman 18063xp 0]

Branding is a part of whether or not you VALUE a product but not whether it is like for like.  A like for like comparison is two items that can serve the same purpose.  Complex items like smartphones are probably more difficult than Plastic soldiers because they are technically multi-purpose items.  Toy soldiers aren’t and finding alternatives that can be considered like for like is incredibly easy.  Even if you think that like for like has a degree of subjectivity even in the plastic solders market, I have been fairly clear about how I have defined “like for like” so it should not be difficult for people to make judgements based on the same criteria OR challenge my definition of like for like – the latter definitely hasn’t happened.

[rickabod41Participant 9259xp 4]

As a the “owner” of a golden button for my Primarch project on this very site, I have dropped over a grand on 16 Primarchs.

Let that sink in – over a grand – for 50mm tall Resin miniatures which do nothing more than gather dust after I have painted them – if I manage to paint them at all (looking at you still unfinished Vulkan and Lion El’Jonson).

Do I regret that? Nope. As a 40+ year old man with no children (and a very understanding wife) I see my purchases as no better or worse than any other hobby/luxury item.

Do I think that money is well spent? is what I have in return for that money worth it? No, but I accept it as part of being interested in a niche hobby that can largely charge what is wants for its IP.

I am sure football season ticket holders have the same soul searching at the end of every season, but ultimately we all end up doing what makes us happy and damn the cost.

[redscopeParticipant 2718xp 1]

Is it money well spent is an interesting question.

For example if you take a modern console game about 70 pounds. Lets say you play that for a week 35 hour and complete it well the value is around 2 pounds an hour. Which depending on how you view life is pretty cheap. That is perhaps an extreme example as most games like fifa people spend 20 odd hours a week for 12 months.

If you apply that to this hobby. You have the building of a mini, then priming and painting. Even if that is not fun for you it is still for most part of the hobby. So lets say 10 space marines is 30 pounds, that is 3 pounds a model. Each model takes 7 hours from build to finish painting that is 42 pence an hour.

Then the best part is you get to play with in a game and they last for ever. I have a metal eldar army over 30 years old which I can still use to. The cost of the models vs the value I have had of them so far and way beyond that hopefully into the future.

So as Rickabod41 suggest 1,000 might seem a lot of money but if you value that over the countless hours you get from the hobby are you getting value for money. Yes certainly so.

Perhaps that explains why people are more willing to spend a little extra because you are not buying something that is consumed and lost. How much money do we spend on a night out and consider the value of that evenings cost which is often a fleeting moment. ?

I always look a hobby as the way same people drink or smoke or have takeaway food, even TV sky sports, football tickets. These days  I would rather spend 50 pounds on more models than going out getting drunk on a Friday. Largely because I cannot cope with 2 day hangovers and having no weekends. Models seem to win but not every week.

A lot worse ways of spending money than buying models from GW I guess is the answer. I dont think you can question if we get value from the models it is certainly a case of yes we do.

[onlyonepinman 18063xp 1]

If you enjoyed painting them and enjoy having them on display in your house or playing games of Horus Heresy and of course haven’t accrued debt in collecting them then yes, it was money well spent.  There are no other factors that you need to consider.  You spent your money and you derived some sort of pleasure from the experience, what more can you ask for?

[waywarddarkwolf 1219xp 0]

You missed one factor to consider mate (doesn’t apply to everyone here, just those of us who are married) – if you are able to withstand the fallout from spending the money and can put up with with verbal abuse, glowering looks and general passive aggressive behaviour from your Missus who considers anything you spend on “toy soldiers” to be a total waste of money and should be spent on something more useful (e.g. shoes and handbags).

Or maybe that’s just me.

[onlyonepinman 18063xp 1]

I mean, that just sounds like you need an upgrade …

[twinstripeukParticipant 150xp 1]

GW’s pricing is bad for the industry regardless of how many conversations you want to have about ‘perceived value’ simply because it sets a precedent. I’m pretty sure the likes of Corvus Belli couldn’t get away with charging £200 for 25 minis if they couldn’t also point at GW and say, ‘Yeah, but look what THEY’RE doing’…

The Horus Heresy set has its own problems though – you’re barely getting a single 2000 point army from it, and it’s not really an effective army. You’d need one of the faction books and maybe a couple of the weapon upgrade boxes in addition and now your £180 value box has cost you over £300… for a starter set.

Now if that will do you, and you’re really not looking to invest anymore, then yes, it probably does represent good value… but we all know that’s not how GW works. Their starter sets aren’t to get you started in the game, they’re to start you off as a consumer..

Plus, if we’re going to go down the apples-to-apples comparison route that most people defending their practises fall back on, then all those who bought the Ash Wastes set have got to be feeling fairly violated right now…

[waywarddarkwolf 1219xp 0]

“I mean, that just sounds like you need an upgrade …”

Way too costly mate – having to pay for the newer model PLUS for the maintenance of the older model would just make the whole upgrade way too costly.

Sometimes its just a case of better the devil you know ;0)

[onlyonepinman 18063xp 0]

@twinstripeuk value is, in this context, almost entirely subjective;  what you are talking about is cost.  In this case, value is a product of cost and reward it’s not just a question of how much did it cost and how much plastic did I get.  If someone purchased a product and got some enjoyment out of it then it has some value to them regardless of the price of other similar items.

So the prices are the prices, you choose to pay them or not based on whether you can afford them and whether you think you will get enjoyment out of the product.  They don’t set precedents for anyone other than Games Workshop, other manufacturers have their own pricing structure based on what they need to charge as a business to continue trading.  They aren’t looking at GW and saying “if they can get away with it so can we” when a better tactic would be to charge less and win business off the competition.

[limburger 21726xp 1]

Charge less and win the competition ?
That’s not how things work, unless you’ve got the resources to win the race to the bottom and the products are replacable on a 1:1 basis. Nothing of that sort is applicable to the kind of games that GW produces. It could work in the historical genre … but that’s about it.

Wether you like it or not the industry tends to favour standards over disruption, because the latter can be quite costly if you don’t have the cash to cover any set backs.
It’s why video games always have the exact same price at retail … because that’s the expectation they’ve set.

And as you’ve said … Infinity is not competing with 40k at any level. It may compete with Killteam as the forces would be similar. Even at that level it’s the lore and style of game that will be the deciding factor instead of price.

Speaking of cost (prices in pound sterling using official webshops):

• Infinity Code One starter : 125
• Infinity Operation Crimson Stone : 125
• Killteam : 65
• Ash Wastes : 180
• Horus Heresy : 180
• Hive war : 100 (out of production)
• Red Harvest : 135
• 40k/AoS starter : 110 / 65 / 32.50
• Mantic – Firefight : 95
• Mantic – Deadzone : 90

GW isn’t *that* expensive to get started … and prices are similar. Ash Wastes and HH as the only exceptions at the moment … and both contain a lot of models compared to the competition.
Heck … if you compare like for like than Killteam is cheaper than Infinity(!) which makes GW the better choice.
Most webshops tend to offer GW products at a discount too.

You can make playing GW games cheaper by looking for alternatives … but that same thing applies to others too.

The only thing that keeps playing GW games expensive is the need to buy their official army lists and expansion books whereas the rest have all that data either in the core rules or easily available for free on-line.

To me it’s not the cost of GW models or starter sets that is a problem.
It’s the near endless amount of additional rule books (Necromunda really takes the cake …) that you end up buying just to get all the info and up-to-date rules.
I’m so glad that none of the competition has copied that sales model (yet).

[twinstripeukParticipant 150xp 0]

Interesting in the examples you’ve shown, where literally only Kill Team has the cheaper starter set and which we know does so, because it leaves A LOT out of the box.

GW isn’t *that* expensive to get started … and prices are similar. Ash Wastes and HH as the only exceptions at the moment … and both contain a lot of models compared to the competition.

So the two ‘current’ sets are the exception? Actually, that pretty much establishes them as the ‘rule’ rather than the ‘exception’, doesn’t it? That’s the price point you can expect from now on because, as I initially said, it sets a precedent (and I can definitely see the WarCry reboot box coming in at that later this year). The Cursed City reboot will probably be in that ballpark too. It’s also been interesting to see people who are active in the current HH community commenting on the value in the box, with the general consensus being that ‘£180 is a good pricepoint… you’ll just need to add another £300 to that and you’re fine’!

Nor do they actually contain a lot of models compared to the competition when you even out the price points – HH:AoD contains 54 minis at £180 RRP. Mantic’s Firefight contains 71 models at £90 RRP, PLUS also contains the only rules and army lists you’ll need (at least until they release the remaining three factions in full plastic sets, at which point it’ll be one more book)

Their 40K and AoS starters are actually pretty poor too, as when you start into the game, you’ll realise that you might as well of left 60% of it on the sprue, because you’ll never use those units. Red Harvest actually features two very viable warbands, however the scenery is not only a PITA to put together, you’ll pretty much never see it in an organised game because it’s too setting specific.

So, they’re not good value at all – they’re just presented that way.

Also worth mentioning that the webshop discounts are roughly the same percentages for other manufacturers as they are for GW – yes, I can pick up HH:AoD for £150 rather than £180, but I can also pick up Firefight for £75 rather than £90 (which is actually an identical percentage saving).

You can indeed make GW games cheaper by looking for alternatives… but if you’re looking for alternative models, then why not alternative rules? And if you’re doing that, why not just cut GW out of the picture completely? OTT have done that themselves recently with a ton of GW proxies and the One Page Rules ‘Grimdark Future’ ruleset, and this is the aspect that GW (and to a large degree, quite a few of their apologists) seem to have missed out on. GW have tried to stamp down on it by instituting rules that won’t even allow third party upgrade plastics or magnetised parts in Organised tournaments, but how long is it going to be before it’s only the whales who can afford to play in them?

It’s one thing to charge a premium by presenting yourself as a quality product; it’s entirely another to actively price yourself out of your own market…

10%? 15% Even 20% higher than the competition? Okay

But over double?? Come on…

[zeker1966 1633xp 2]

What are people upset about. If you think GW products aren’t good value (however you want to define that value) then don’t buy it. If you want to play the games but with proxies from other companies, because you don’t want to pay what GW charges, then do that. If you want to collect, purchase or play non-GW then do that. There is absolutely no point in complaining about the prices of GW products. Complaining means one of two things either you want to purchase the models/games from GW but the prices are higher than you are comfortable with or you have no intention of buying GW stuff and want to convince others that this point of view is what everyone should have.

GW is a business. A very successful one. People complaining that they should have reduced their prices during the pandemic for some altruistic reasons. Well. That’s just BS. They are a company and to my knowledge paid their people throughout the pandemic regardless of if the stores could open or not (this is true in the USA at least). They are encountering price increases across the board just like every other business. Yes their products have always been on the more expensive side and they will remain their. They are a large business with large overheads. They have a duty to their stock holders to make a profit. If they didn’t make a profit they would change how they do things. If they try something new or revisit something old and it doesn’t make money they won’t be doing it for very long. Small companies in a lot of ways can get away with a lot more and can adjust to markets more fluidly. Companies like GW have long lead times for development and production and can not react quickly to changes in the market.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that there is really no point in complaining about GW and while comparing to other companies prices might feel like your fueling your argument but you really aren’t as a lot of people have pointed out – It is either of value to you or it isn’t.

[redscopeParticipant 2718xp 0]

@twinstripeuk

I think the problem is I just have a completely different mindset and way of thinking than you do.

I look at your comment about Red Harvest when you said “you’ll pretty much never see it in an organised game because it’s too setting specific.”

I saw Red Harvest what I loved about was the little mining setup. In my head I went that is amazing I can use that in a ton of games why has nobody thought of doing that before. Frostgrave, StarGrave, Saga, D&D, AOS, 40K. How many times have we seen in classic fantasy films, books and Sci-Fi advetures around a mine as a central feature.

When you say you dont see value in any of the 40K and AOS starter. If you mean personally because your not interested in them okay. But if you cannot look beyond that and judge the quality of the models for the price you pay and see that is good value that is on you. They work out about 1.50 a model for that quality.

You talk about firefight. But you seem to ignore the firefightset with the 2 vehicles which comes in at 152 pounds which is a lot closer to the 180 HH and a better way to compare it. The spartan tank in HH is massive you cannot compare that to what you get the FF 90 pound box. This is where I dont see your mindset. I dont see how anyoen looks at the 90 FF box and believe it is on the same level of quality and content to 180 HH box.

Maybe I am wrong but I would be willing to bet that sales in the HH boxset dwarfed Firefights.

 

[jamescutts 6929xp 0]

Great to see a forum topic getting this much activity, though I think its going around in circles somewhat in the specifics of comparing what you can get for your money.

Though I’ve previously said these comparisons are a bit futile and still retain that view as a fantasy miniature based on a IP owned by one company doesn’t really compare well to an alternative fantasy miniature from another company, I would like to point out there’s far more things to compare.

Take trying a scale other than 28mm(ish), look at a smaller scale such as battlefronts 15mm  flames of war, their starter sets go for about £40 RPP, they give to a bunch of miniatures and being historical can be used for more rulesets than you can shake a stick at, and a whole host of alternative companies also offering the same 15mm miniatures.

Look at Warlords “epic” not quite 15mm, you can get literally 1000’s of “figures” (if your counting like that) for about £100 in their starter sets.

How about 6mm? You could easily have two full armies of more miniatures than you would ever need for £150.

Anyway point being i think its a bit to easy to get bogged down in comparison’s, theres really no one size fits all to compare, these so much variety.

[twinstripeukParticipant 150xp 0]

They are encountering price increases across the board just like every other business.

And every other company put their prices up by 20-30% despite already having profit margins of over 50%, right? Nope, they didn’t…

I keep see that argument toted around and it doesn’t stand up even under the scantest scrutiny

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