# GW Price Change Spreadsheet - Effective May 28th



## Hurricane (Feb 27, 2010)

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?pli=1&key=tIytonRUpm6fRkxpIjqcDzQ#gid=0

New US and Canadian prices to go in effect May 28th. Some big changes going on here as well such as a box of wyches going up another $5.

Personally, this is the nail in the coffin that is me quitting GW altogether. Between their terrible business practices and constant price hikes I simply refuse to pay another cent for their product. Perhaps I'll see you all in WarmaHordes?


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

What the hell?


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## MetalHandkerchief (Aug 3, 2009)

Rest in peace, GW's business outside Europe. A glorious suicide it was in just one day.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

just wow, another price hike because they know they are going to lose a ton of money from the people who they give discounts to in the first place, GW really wants to be in debt, though if they were to ninja change the prices of the pre-order for the DE, id be pissed off to no end




MetalHandkerchief said:


> Rest in peace, GW's business outside Europe. A glorious suicide it was in just one day.


the price hikes were expected, but this is like a shot in the nuts.

"hey we are disallowing all of the smaller companies that sell our merchandise to sell outside of their respective countries, ontop of that, we are raising the prices we want everyone to sell our merchandise. We wish to completely destroy any and all real profits we would see outside of the UK with this shot to the nuts."


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

Yeah now that I'm out of college and money will be going towards things like rent, food, and insurance, I honestly don't think I'll be building much of a second army at all. maybe a couple boxes a year and thats because this is pretty much my only hobby. Individually each one isnt that much more but it sure would add up quick. At least the paint didnt go up. Three boxes with five dollar increases, $15 you wouldnt have spent before, thats a few meals gone for no reason. I'm gonna need that.

I cant believe I am still semi-willing to buy this stuff haha. I think this is pretty damn close to me saying no out-right as well though. Land raider is nearing $70, it_ will_ be next year if the trend continues. Its really hard to justify spending that much money that is at the end of the day, just a plastic model.

And they're trying trying to appeal to younger kids more too, thats a theory at least. can you imagine parents faces when their kid asks for a $70 plastic tank? haha 'what the fuck?! no way, he'll have to settle for micro-machines again."


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

yea this is getting retardedly stupid, we all love this game, but GW wont put its prices down, only up because of their greed and natural inflation.

of coarse they do not go up in small numbers, they prefer taking big chunks out of us.

I am sure if EVERYONE outside the UK stoped buying GW products all together, they would either lower their prices, seclude to just the UK, or ultimately continue as is, rip apart whatevers left of their money and go bankrupt and everything closes anyway.


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## Wusword77 (Aug 11, 2008)

Gas is rather quickly approaching $5 a gallon (USD) and people are wondering why prices are going up?

Prices don't exisit in a vacuum guys. GW is raising prices because they need to maintain a certain profit margin to remain in business.

As to people leaving 40k and WHFB to play WarmaHordes, there isn't a massive difference in box prices. WarmaHordes has high priced models, like the new battle engines costing $85 and most of their squad boxes are around the normal price for a 5 man box from GW.

All I can say is, with prices going up it just gives me more incentive to make more money.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

prices going up is one thing, but they are not going up a small amount, and its only in their international sections that its gone up, IE they are trying to screw their international players.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Wow reading through that list is a load of crap! most SM kits are going up 8-12 dollars apiece....that is crazy! Codexs are going up about 8 dollars a piece with is larger than any bookstore increase in any hard back novels. I feel that this is a very bad buisness decision...IMO. I guess I am going to start buying really badly painted models on ebay and striping them...lol


Doc


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Wusword77 said:


> Gas is rather quickly approaching $5 a gallon (USD) and people are wondering why prices are going up?
> 
> Prices don't exisit in a vacuum guys. GW is raising prices because they need to maintain a certain profit margin to remain in business.


Nobody cares.

I think that's what it comes down to. GW can wax lyrical about the reasons that they need to annually increase their prices but the fact is that nobody cares. Less and less people are interested in paying the amount of money that GW charges for plastic and metal (err, resin) space men.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

You Are so right! They can't even justify it with fuel prices because these are dispropotioned increases.


Doc


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## normtheunsavoury (Mar 20, 2008)

Well I suppose someone has to pay for those resin models we never fucking wanted in the first place, I wonder whats next in GW week of bombshells?


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## ZARDRA (Nov 12, 2008)

well, here in the uk when GW increased the vat they also pushed up the prices with out saying any thing about it! not many people noticed but they DID increase the prices on some of the products. i used to work for them and believe me when i say they are going nuts at the top levels! alot of people that used to work in HQ have left due to what some people call a business plan. if your dont FIT in with what they want they get you out as fast as they can, i was told i did not have enough passion for my job, yet had the highest sails in my shop. dont get me wrong, i still love the hobby but GW dont listen to there customers or most of there employees. if you ask me i think that there will be big changes that are still to come, dont be surprised if some or all of the specialist games are stopped all together in the future. i only hope that some one in gw can change what there doing before it's all to late!


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

The momentum is going to steam roll anyone that tries to stop this. As far as the specialist games go..they really don't give them much love anyways...but it would suck. You would think with the success of space hulk they would continue with great special releases.


Doc


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## Sworn Radical (Mar 10, 2011)

I could be happy to life in old europe, but then, I never really gave a damn about GWs prices anyways. 
Most of the models I use are conversions from RT - era or 2nd ed. models, which I bought when prices were still reasonable. I also use a lot of second hand or discount models, ebay and similar websites are your friend there.
For example, my dark eldar force is made up of 40+ old kabalites, converted characters and wracks etc. - only the Mandrakes are current ed. models.
Since I re-embraced the hobby last autumn, after my 12 year hiatus, I have bought maybe three kits in total for an actual GW price - and that's only because I really like the effort the two guys in local GW are putting into their store, and the time they actually spend chatting and listening to one's ideas rather than trying to sell you a kit at all costs.


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## Akhara'Keth (Nov 20, 2010)

So yeah, we now also have a changed Price List for Germany.....Krisis for 20 Euro and Tau Battleforce for 95....FML


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

If you're pissed off about this, 'like' this Facebook group and post about how displeased you are. Come on people, every comment counts!


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## nightfish (Feb 16, 2009)

Its not just international. Prices are up in the UK and even more so now this new resin shizzle is coming in.

I find it hard to see with these prices how they will entice new players to the hobby. Maybe thats the problem; they aren't getting new players so have to make up on lost sales by increasing already expensive prices. Think I might have to call it quits on the hobby.


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## Svartmetall (Jun 16, 2008)

ZARDRA said:


> well, here in the uk when GW increased the vat...


GW didn't increase the VAT, the right-wing Tory goverment increased the VAT.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

I didn't know the Tory's worked for GW.... 


On that note though, if this is the start of the hobby getting too expensive again... thats why I quit during 3rd ed... dunno what to do.

Anyone care to explain this Warmahordes thingy to me?


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

Uh-oh... Looks like they read all those emails from Australians angry about the price disparity and realised "Hey, yeah, we can charge everyone as much as we do the Aussies!"


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

So I just did some fact checking into the subject. It's about $2000 to manufacture a TON (imperial not metric) of polystyrene at the moment. That is a $130 increase per ton since january and roughly the same to the previous two januaries. That means that there was an increase of roughly 13-15% over the past three years. They have in response to the rising cost by 50% of what it was in the same timeframe per boxed set and actually limiting what is included within each boxed set thus reducing its actual value. That isn't changing with the times, that's a suicidal business model.

EDIT: The above figure does not include the other operation costs involved in the production of miniatures, however with the reduced GW workforce and their increased movement towards less expensive molds and types of polystyrine/resin etc. that would seem to indicate an increase in the other operation costs for producing the models either in GW press releases or in their financial reports.

They're doing a lot of things to hide the fact that the company is clearly and blatantly failing to adapt with the times but it is clearly and blatantly failing to adapt. I don't think it will ever go out of business but if it doesn't take its head out of its ass very soon it will discover that companies who are able to adapt and change to modern technologies and outside the box business practices will beat them every time.

The costs might make sense if they were compensating for maintaining a larger business model with the hope of expansion or maintaining their current marketshare. However it is abundantly clear that entire continents of the world are more or less being cut out of their business model. Moreover they are theoretically funding a substantially smaller number of physical investments and continued human capitol. They've cut back the number of physical locations worldwide nearly universally and cut back on their services almost entirely. Customer support has been reduced to little more than troubleshooting and their community building initiatives are constantly becoming less and less prominent. There are fewer tournaments run by GW, they don't last as long, they happen in fewer locations, and they are substantially more expensive for less perks (of course). They haven't had a significant increase in employee benefits nor have they had any substantial increase in employee pay. None of this leads logically to the absurd increases in price or reductions in service that we've witnessed in the past five years.

GW has been offsetting a failing business model by hiking costs, trying to undercut or sabotage their competition, slapping a lawsuit on anything that looks at them crosseyed, cutting all the services that initially helped them build a substantial customer support base and raising the price point beyond what anyone can reasonably sustain. It is working to conceal their major problems in the short run but anyone reading their financial reports can see major red flags in this company. Were this any other company selling any other product it would have gone bankrupt years ago, but as it hasn't had any real competition it's been able to circumvent that mostly. However with strong contenders like Privateer press or Malifaux its not looking good for games workshop.

GW is lucky enough to have a consumer base of fans who love its product enough to ignore its major faults but that can only carry it so far. I'm a fourteen year veteran of the hobby, more than half my life, and I simply cannot justify the continued cost of the hobby any more nor can I imagine that a new gamer of age 12-16 could do so either. If we are entering into an atmosphere wherein neither the veteran gamers nor the new gamers are able or willing to pay the cost of continuing/starting the hobby then who is left? Especially with substantially less expensive hobbies requiring less time and effort to master like video games or paintball cost some 500-1000 USD less to field an entire army.

Bad times ahead gentlemen, bad times ahead.


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## OIIIIIIO (Dec 16, 2009)

You know with all the price increases and changes to deadly resins, I am thinking of quitting the hobby and taking up masturbation again. God Damn you GW, I just finally regained usage of my left arm again.:ireful2:


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## coke123 (Sep 4, 2010)

^^ Dude, just learn to be ambidextrous, then you can share the load. This also gives the added bonus of not looking like a fiddler crab.


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord (Apr 17, 2009)

Make sure you wear a hoodie so you look extra creepy.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Well, I think at this point GW have backed themselves into a corner with their business model.

By offering both retail locations and online sales, they have to sell online and in store for the same cost, otherwise they are undercutting themselves and undermining their store traction. 

They should be reducing brick and mortar stores and moving to more online sales to reduce overhead (and prices). Further, by selling wholesale they were allowing other (mostly online) retailers to undercut them which is problematic especially when taking into account the divergent costs of bulk shipping and national currencies. So a GW store selling in Australia ends up costing significantly more than online retail sold from another market.

No matter how cool their games are, I think GW are about to price themselves out of more of their own market.

As a luxury good (non-necessity), the more expensive they are the fewer people can afford it. Of course, they have the primary market cornered, but not the secondary or tertiary. 

A part of the move to resin I suspect also has to do with the "strip and repaint" part of the secondary market. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that it is harder to do that with their new resin.

*Shrug*

It's all a bummer. I like what they make but this does sound like the road to annihilation.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

You know GW does this every year and every year we all get butt hurt over it. You know regardless its hobby and thats it. We will still spend the money pn it and we will just stand back and accept this. I know I'm not gonna stop I love 40k and I willalways support them. We have to rememeber that even though there costs go up so does much of the quality. The new resin minis are gonna ring a new level of quality into the picture that is also gonna make life easier for those of us that like to convert minis. 

Now the one issue i am seeing here is that eventually (maybe this time around) GW is gonna see a huge decrease in their sales just because they decided raise prices again. If Im not mistaken these prices were raised not that long ago and shouldn't have been due until a few more months down the road. But anyhow looking at the list of the increases there really isn't that much changing. I do feel this time around what is being inclreased is a bit more than it has been in a long time.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

I'm a fairly...... forgiving person when it comes to GW business practices, but they can shove their plastic crap up their ass and fucking spin on the shit. I'm sorry, but I am out.

(goes off and plays with his infinity models, grumbling about stupid ass holes)


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

I find it odd everyone claiming GW have just committed commercial suicide. They posted pre-tax profits of what £16 Million last year? They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves all in all.




> Finally, we know that if we want Games Workshop to be around for a long time, we have to deliver all this profitably. This is why we are cost conscious. We
> no longer spend money on things we don’t need, like expensive offices or prime rent shopping locations or advertising that speaks to the mass market rather
> than our small band of loyal followers. We only invest where it makes a positive improvement to our business model, such as in tooling to make better
> plastic miniatures, in opening more Hobby centres to improve our customer service and in fit-for-purpose systems to make our processes more efficient and
> ...


That's the statement from the CEO and they seem to be doing all that fairly well. Games Workshop is a business and they will make business choices based on the money. They don't do it because they hate a certain group of people nor do they make them based on stupidity. GW have owners, owners they have to answer to at the end of the day.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Ouch, that is actually quite a large hike for the American market. I dont however, understand why this is so surprising. For example:

1) In the uk in the last year insurance has increased by 20-30%

2) Gas and electicty prices have increased 10-20%

3) Inflation is up 5% (give or take)

4) Gas (petrol) prices are up about 30%


All of those things will impact on GW to greater or lesser extents - as someoone else above pointed out the price of manufacturing has also increased dramatically in the last year.

Based on those price increases that are taking place in the UK as we speak I am utterly unsurprised that prices have gone up by that much, in fact, Im surprised it wasnt more.

Does this mean I am happy? Hell no. Does this make this hobby cheaper or more expensive than other hobbies - its no different. £50 spent in GW will last me easily as long as £50 spent on computers or sports, or hell, £50 of petrol put in my car!

If anyone else wants to give me negative reputation for pointing out the truth - go ahead, it wont make my change my mind on the subject.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Aramoro said:


> I find it odd everyone claiming GW have just committed commercial suicide. They posted pre-tax profits of what £16 Million last year? They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves all in all.
> 
> That's the statement from the CEO and they seem to be doing all that fairly well. Games Workshop is a business and they will make business choices based on the money. They don't do it because they hate a certain group of people nor do they make them based on stupidity. GW have owners, owners they have to answer to at the end of the day.


Their profits are artificially inflated. They cut virtually all their shops in most of the US and Europe, relocated a number of their facilities and fired a ton of employees. They have a "profit" before taxes but it isn't a profit due to increased sales. In fact they've been having progressively worse sales statistics yearly.

They're cutting costs and hiking the price to hide their terrible sales numbers.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> Their profits are artificially inflated. They cut virtually all their shops in most of the US and Europe, relocated a number of their facilities and fired a ton of employees. They have a "profit" before taxes but it isn't a profit due to increased sales. In fact they've been having progressively worse sales statistics yearly.
> 
> They're cutting costs and hiking the price to hide their terrible sales numbers.


Just to give an example - Ferrari sell about 6000-7000 cars a year. Compare that to Ford who sold 528,349 of just the F-Series trucks in one year.

From the outside perspective Ferrari SUCK - their sales are appalling, however they are in profit and Ford arent.

As far as GW is concerned they dont care one jot if they keep up their current business model and stay in profit, even if their sales (units) decreases.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Maidel said:


> Just to give an example - Ferrari sell about 6000-7000 cars a year. Compare that to Ford who sold 528,349 of just the F-Series trucks in one year.
> 
> From the outside perspective Ferrari SUCK - their sales are appalling, however they are in profit and Ford arent.
> 
> As far as GW is concerned they dont care one jot if they keep up their current business model and stay in profit, even if their sales (units) decreases.


We aren't discussing an industry wherein if you cannot afford to buy a Bugatti Veyron one can simply buy a Dodge Neon. If I want to play warhammer Games Workshop is pretty much the only game in town. 

I suspect that if the only car manufacturer was Ferrari I'd be just as irked that I was being priced out of driving.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> We aren't discussing an industry wherein if you cannot afford to buy a Bugatti Veyron one can simply buy a Dodge Neon. If I want to play warhammer Games Workshop is pretty much the only game in town.
> 
> I suspect that if the only car manufacturer was Ferrari I'd be just as irked that I was being priced out of driving.


No - we are talking about a highly specialist product thats not aimed at people who 'require' them to live - they are a luxury product.

Its horrible to say, but if you cant afford them, then either dont buy them, or buy less of them. I will certainly be doing the second of those options, not out of choice, but necessity.

But that is the nature of a luxury product - it comes out of money left over after 'required' goods are bought.

Is a horrible way to look at life i know, but thats about all you can say. GW arent a charity, they arent in it to give people their 'plastic crack' for free - they are in it to make money.


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## Aramoro (Oct 7, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> Their profits are artificially inflated. They cut virtually all their shops in most of the US and Europe, relocated a number of their facilities and fired a ton of employees. They have a "profit" before taxes but it isn't a profit due to increased sales. In fact they've been having progressively worse sales statistics yearly.
> 
> They're cutting costs and hiking the price to hide their terrible sales numbers.





> Finally, we know that if we want Games Workshop to be around for a long time, we have to deliver all this profitably. This is why we are cost conscious. We
> no longer spend money on things we don’t need, like expensive offices or prime rent shopping locations or advertising that speaks to the mass market rather
> than our small band of loyal followers. We only invest where it makes a positive improvement to our business model, such as in tooling to make better
> plastic miniatures, in opening more Hobby centres to improve our customer service and in fit-for-purpose systems to make our processes more efficient and
> reliable. And when we make an investment, we measure its impact to ensure that it delivers an improved return on capital for our owners.


Like I say, they're following their business model. Sales are tough in this economy so they're making savings elsewhere and increasing/maintaining margins elsewhere.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Maidel said:


> No - we are talking about a highly specialist product thats not aimed at people who 'require' them to live - they are a luxury product.
> 
> Its horrible to say, but if you cant afford them, then either dont buy them, or buy less of them. I will certainly be doing the second of those options, not out of choice, but necessity.
> 
> ...


Even luxury products have to be profitable though, and frankly there has been little to indicate that Games Workshop's increased prices have been profitable. As I've stated elsewhere their recent 12 (ish) million GBP profit last year came from mostly layoffs and cutbacks in the face of a woefully small sales statistic. Traditionally Games Workshop has made a majority of its profit from the North American and Australian markets but those sales statistics were less than 70% of what they were the previous year and less than 60% of what they were the year before that.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> Even luxury products have to be profitable though, and frankly there has been little to indicate that Games Workshop's increased prices have been profitable. As I've stated elsewhere their recent 12 (ish) million GBP profit last year came from mostly layoffs and cutbacks in the face of a woefully small sales statistic. Traditionally Games Workshop has made a majority of its profit from the North American and Australian markets but those sales statistics were less than 70% of what they were the previous year and less than 60% of what they were the year before that.


 
And if they hadnt had year on year price increases then last year they wouldnt have made 12million, they would have made less.

Entire countries are having to do the same thing - spend less and charge more (taxes) just to simply balance the books (accept the US which seems to think a budget deficit is a good thing...)

And the reason why they have made more 'profit' in the american market is because they dont have massive numbers of stores there - there are already exisitng chains of hobby stores that will stock their products for them - in the UK that simply isnt the case.

So, in the US, they have almost no costs other than transport - in the uk they are both a manufacturer and retail, and its the retail stores that are eating up all their profit - but without the retail stores, there would simply be no way of getting the product out.


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## Midge913 (Oct 21, 2010)

I am with Maidel. As unfortunate as the price increase is I am surprised that it wasn't more. The price of everything, whether luxury or required goods, is going through the roof due to national economies and the price of crude oil. It only stands to reason that GW would have to do the same. I mean when I walk into the grocery and have to pay $5 a pound for fucking bacon, an almost 45% increase over 12 months ago, it only stands to reason that a luxury niche item like little plastic space men would also increase. 

I don't say this expressing any sort of pleasure in the price increases, I just understand it economically. For me personally that means buying fewer kits, and painting more of what I already have which in the long run would be a good thing.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

The cost of crude Oil is substantially lower now than it has been for five years both within the UK and outside of it. It is now at around 70-80 USD a barrel, some 50% the cost it was at in the year 2008.


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## Midge913 (Oct 21, 2010)

That doesn't change the fact that price at the pump is substantially higher. Everyone feels that in tranportation and production costs.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

the other day I spent 70 bucks at the pump...


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Sorry bro. The facts are the facts. Gas today costs the companies selling it to you roughly the same as it did in the year 2005 for them to buy by the barrel even if they are screwing you at the pump. The cost of Oil recently spiked because of Lybia and Egypt but it seems to be falling again, not rising.

Barring another unforeseen war Oil is becoming cheaper, not more expensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_of_petroleum

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/Brent_Spot_monthly.svg


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Hmm, I wonder if there's a way to speculate on the price of GW miniatures like there is on crude oil . . ?


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## exsulis (Jul 17, 2008)

Wusword77 said:


> Gas is rather quickly approaching $5 a gallon (USD) and people are wondering why prices are going up?
> 
> Prices don't exisit in a vacuum guys. GW is raising prices because they need to maintain a certain profit margin to remain in business.
> 
> ...


True, fuel prices have been going up, and are projected to hit $6 a gallon. As to WarmaHordes, they may have high priced models but you need far less models to play the average game.

GW doesn't need to raise prices as per their latest financial report they are doing really good.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

Well GW is greedy and wants more money and we all (at least most of us) will continue to play the game buy there stuff.


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## ashikenshin (Mar 25, 2010)

yup nothing will stop me from buying the new eldar models  and a nurgle prince! and the new necron stuff once it comes out.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

exsulis said:


> True, fuel prices have been going up, and are projected to hit $6 a gallon. As to WarmaHordes, they may have high priced models but you need far less models to play the average game.


Cost at the pump versus cost for the producer are not the same.




todeswind said:


> Gas today costs the companies selling it to you roughly the same as it did in the year 2005 for them to buy by the barrel even if they are screwing you at the pump. The cost of Oil recently spiked because of Lybia and Egypt but it seems to be falling again, not rising.
> 
> Barring another unforeseen war Oil is becoming cheaper, not more expensive.
> 
> ...


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

GrizBe said:


> I didn't know the Tory's worked for GW....
> 
> 
> On that note though, if this is the start of the hobby getting too expensive again... thats why I quit during 3rd ed... dunno what to do.
> ...


I watched a really great 2 part you tube video todat from beasts of war on warmachine. It was really well done. I game looks okay but it just isn't 30+ power armored SM attacking...lol! Not sure what to do so I guess I will continue with GW but just won't start that new army any thime soon. The kicker is that my two older sons(9 and 7) want to start playing....FML!! Their goes my retirement and their inheritance.


Doc


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## Chimaera (Feb 1, 2010)

Svartmetall said:


> GW didn't increase the VAT, the right-wing Tory goverment increased the VAT.


If you are going to bring politics in to it at least don't talk out your rear end. Labour had already scheduled in the VAT rise and the Tories inherited it. 

Regarding GW price increases. Not good news at all. They are starting to walk a dangerous path between profits and customer satisfaction. 

People on here moan about the GW culture. In truth I think it has effected most work places as the drive profit seems to override all other concerns these days & has only got worse over the last decade, which is surprising since the Govt of the time was meant to be a peoples party. LOL nothing will save us from the corporate dogs in charge of us all.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> The cost of crude Oil is substantially lower now than it has been for five years both within the UK and outside of it. It is now at around 70-80 USD a barrel, some 50% the cost it was at in the year 2008.


I'm sorry, you aren't living on planet earth then. Crude is $95 a barrel and Brent crude is $110 a barrel. Its the most expensive it's been since 2008 and the price is GOING UP at the current rate of growth prices will hit an all time record later this year.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Maidel said:


> I'm sorry, you aren't living on planet earth then. Crude is $95 a barrel and Brent crude is $110 a barrel. Its the most expensive it's been since 2008 and the price is GOING UP at the current rate of growth prices will hit an all time record later this year.


FML!!! seriously thhis speculation crap is killing us. I hate commodities.


Doc


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## Abomination (Jul 6, 2008)

While price increases aren't nice GW don't do it for fun or to rip anyone off, they do it because they have to. The cost's are always increasing wether these are the wages for the development team (Phill Kelly, Robin Cruddance, Adam Troke etc), shipping (it's very expensive to have something transported from China/Uk to US) or materials and manufacturing. It's just a fact of life. Wax lyrical about PP all you like if they grow to GW size they will become just as 'bad' as GW is accused of being now.


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## TheReverend (Dec 2, 2007)

going back to a thread I started about GW not using marketing and basically building their sales base from grass roots instead, I don't see how any sane 14 year old would get into this hobby on pocket money and paper round wages like I did back in teh day.

bye bye GW, it was good while it lasted.


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

TheReverend said:


> going back to a thread I started about GW not using marketing and basically building their sales base from grass roots instead, I don't see how any sane 14 year old would get into this hobby on pocket money and paper round wages like I did back in teh day.
> 
> bye bye GW, it was good while it lasted.


Thats what I was saying, kids cant afford it on their own, and parents wont be willing to buy it for them anymore due to both price increase in GW and the rest of the economy.

BTW, good info todeswind.


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## ashikenshin (Mar 25, 2010)

Well, this hobby is a lot cheaper than other hobbies out there. My brother's boss just spent 300 bucks on an accessory for his bicycle. I just started this hobby and it's a lot cheaper than buying videogames like I was doing before. I have money to save to start a family (getting married soon). It's a nice hobby and cheap to boot! I'm glad I started doing this.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

ashikenshin said:


> Well, this hobby is a lot cheaper than other hobbies out there. My brother's boss just spent 300 bucks on an accessory for his bicycle. I just started this hobby and it's a lot cheaper than buying videogames like I was doing before. I have money to save to start a family (getting married soon). It's a nice hobby and cheap to boot! I'm glad I started doing this.


Yoour new to the hobby ya see and many of us here were into it back in the rouge trader days when the prices were quite reasonable and now its just gettin silly. I agree there are many other expensive hobbies Im a guitarist and yes it exponentially more expensive but really think about how much your spending on lil plastic men and now they wanna charge more


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

TheSpore said:


> Yoour new to the hobby ya see and many of us here were into it back in the rouge trader days when the prices were quite reasonable and now its just gettin silly. I agree there are many other expensive hobbies Im a guitarist and yes it exponentially more expensive but really think about how much your spending on lil plastic men and now they wanna charge more


HAHA - seriously - how can you say that.

Back in Rogue trader times it was NOT CHEAP. Just because the prices were lower does not mean it was CHEAP, just that since then there has been 24+ years of price inflation.

Ive been here since the begining, since I was 7 or 8 and playing this game with my dad - back then he complained all the time about how expensive it was.

I will agree that metal models have become proportionaly more expensive since then - but that is counter balanced by how much cheaper and avialable the plastics have become.

I spend infinately more money on both my morgage and on yellowy liquid to put in my fuel tank than I could ever dream of spending on GW - for me - that is a waste, but its real life. Things go up every year - why do we thing that GW is immune from this?


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

TheReverend said:


> I don't see how any sane 14 year old would get into this hobby on pocket money and paper round wages


My brother got £12-£24 pounds a week for his paper round. It's still affordable, just annoying. I have absolutely nothing else to spend my money on (I get a new computer game once per year and play that for 12 months or more, and I get them cheap. Elder Scrolls Oblivion, £8. Supreme Commander, 75p.). If I can get £50 in a month, I'll go out and spend £25 of it (Or however much I can get in cash, I usually have loads of credit an the parents get suspicious and very interested if I start asking for £30+.)

Anyway, I think that this makes GW almost as expensive as doing gaming. After all, we don't need a £150 console, a multitude of £40 disks and a £90 annual subscription. If you play a MMORPG as well, that's £9 a month on top of that. Sucscriptions alone come to over £200 a year, for no actual product. Xbox and all that shit is more expensive, just comes in smaller chunks so that they can feed it down you unimaginative, bland, likes-to-gun-down-women-and-children-cos-it's-herp-a-derp-funny throat). On top of that, most gamers my age also have a £100+ phone, and any number of other crap that they don't need. I play Warhammer and I probably spend less than most people in my class.

Midnight

EDIT: I can't understand what on earth is going on in that spreadsheet. Are UK prices going up by a lot?


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## elmir (Apr 14, 2011)

It's not so much the increase in prices that bothers me. Everything becomes more expensive, that's a fact of life that you have to face. 

However... Making the EXACT SAME miniatures that they produced before (extra detail is a bunch of bull if they still use the same mastermini's for their mold making) out of a CHEAPER material (compared to pewter at least) shouldn't be giving some of the silly price hikes we are seeing now. 

That is what gets ppl's panties in a bunch I reckon. That, coupled with the trade embargo does make GW seem like greedy bastards. 

TBH, I cannot blame people for leaving GW products over it, but not necesarily the hobby. I did almost the exact same thing over 6 years ago when GW did a bunch of crazy price hikes (it was the time they basically cut all plastic boxed sets in half, while increaseing their price substantially). I ended up playing warmachine and some more confrontation in the meanwhile. I spend a good thousand euro's on those two companies easily. That money would have gone to GW if there weren't such greedy bastards back then. 

But here I am again, having just bought a full army of grey knights. And just in time as well it seems to beat the anual price hike... GW will never change... and you can only take your business elsewhere if you don't like it (and I don't mean ordering from other stockists, I mean different miniature manufacturers.

Warmachine mk2 has some pretty solid rules atm, so if you do want to try something else... That's what I'd recommend! ;-)


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## Suomimaster (May 17, 2011)

People people. The following comic (which wasn't made by me) explains the mind of Games Workshop: http://1d4chan.org/images/6/6b/1271198871887.jpg


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

elmir said:


> However... Making the EXACT SAME miniatures that they produced before (extra detail is a bunch of bull if they still use the same mastermini's for their mold making) out of a CHEAPER material (compared to pewter at least) shouldn't be giving some of the silly price hikes we are seeing now.


I keep saying this to people - stop judging before we actually know whats happening.

Firstly we dont know if they are using the same molds or new ones. Have they gone back to the original master and made new molds that are actually better and crisper than the old ones. I dont know - do you?

As for raising the prices, but using a cheaper material, well there are two things wrong with that. Firstly, we have utterly no idea what the resin is that they are going to use and also, that assumes that the majority of the cost of the model is the materials. Well the first one is likely to be true, it is most likely that the resin is cheaper than the metal, the second one is not true. The majority of the cost of the model is in fact nothing to do with its production, its payiing for the model designers (yes I know they are old models) and for the up keep of the shops. Add to that the fact that GW have had to produce entirely new molds and casting technigues and you might begin to realise why the price might have gone up a bit.

All I will say to 'sign off' is at least wait until the 28th for the offical announcement before getting your nickers in a twist. Then kick off if you think its necessary when you have all the facts.


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## Dicrel Seijin (Apr 2, 2011)

I just got done looking at the prices on the spreadsheet, needless to say I am not happy. However, I don't plan on leaving the hobby over this. 

I plan on splurging and getting the other units I need to field a large army (tries not to think about the half-dozen boxes sitting nearby not yet open). And then like others, plan on buying and stripping second-hand minis from eBay.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Maidel said:


> I'm sorry, you aren't living on planet earth then. Crude is $95 a barrel and Brent crude is $110 a barrel. Its the most expensive it's been since 2008 and the price is GOING UP at the current rate of growth prices will hit an all time record later this year.


That's still substantially lower than the 140-160 dollars a barrel price point it was at in 2008 and wouldn't explain the last system wide price increase they declared when it was at 40-50 dollars a barrel.

EDIT: And it's fairly obvious that the rise in speculated price over the past couple months is in response to the Jasmine Revolution. However as the region stabilizes that ought to go down. It actually already has in response to the death of Bin Laden.

http://www.wtrg.com/daily/small/clfclose.gif


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## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

Kreuger said:


> Well, I think at this point GW have backed themselves into a corner with their business model.
> 
> By offering both retail locations and online sales, they have to sell online and in store for the same cost, otherwise they are undercutting themselves and undermining their store traction.
> 
> ...


There is one big problem with your suggestion of moving to more online rather than brick'n'mortar shops:

GW games are social things. You can't play them alone in a basement like you can MMPORGs or other computer games. GW has built itself on providing places for people toget together and socialise, and play games together. That's why they use brick and mortar shops, and why they'll never go to fully online. And why, unfortunatly, the prices won't be as cheap as for fully online companies.


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## Overbear (May 10, 2011)

I looked over the prices, and along with the switch to resin rather than metal (I almost only use metal models) it just means my $ will go to ebay sales and craigslist buys rather than the GW store. 

I won't leave the game/hobby over this, and I am glad to see they are keeping the B&M stores (I happen to think they need to open more of them in some states), the hike in price of almost 30% on some things, is enough to keep my dollar going other places.


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## Justindkates (Apr 30, 2010)

Well I started doing photography for a hobby 7 - 8 years ago and trust me this pales in comparison. 

The first time you drop $4,400.00 on a camera you will think "Damn Warhammer is cheap"


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## bcwhat (Dec 12, 2009)

nightfish said:


> Its not just international. Prices are up in the UK and even more so now this new resin shizzle is coming in.
> 
> I find it hard to see with these prices how they will entice new players to the hobby. Maybe thats the problem; they aren't getting new players so have to make up on lost sales by increasing already expensive prices. Think I might have to call it quits on the hobby.


That's the same thing I was thinking. Its basic economics: theres supply and demand and an equilibrium price where the two meet. They must not have many new people joining (quantity) so they are relying on the people who are already in the hobby, figuring that they are devoted and won't care as much about price increases. But if the problem is a lack of new players then GW is going to keep losing profit anyway as people eventually opt out of the hobby. 

Personally I was considering starting a 2nd army but now that prices are going up again I will definitely not be doing so. I might buy a couple boxes to add on to what I have and then I'll stop buying GW products.


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## ashikenshin (Mar 25, 2010)

Justindkates said:


> Well I started doing photography for a hobby 7 - 8 years ago and trust me this pales in comparison.
> 
> The first time you drop $4,400.00 on a camera you will think "Damn Warhammer is cheap"


yup, every other hobby I have heard of or tried is expensive as hell. I get more enjoyment out of a 24 (now 30) buck box of wyches than out of a 60 buck videogame or my 200 buck paintball gun.


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

yeah I guess all in all it is still cheaper than airsoft, paintball, cars, drugs, women, video games, and music equipment. What other hobbies are there? lets see, reading...probably cheaper....pottery making? I have no idea.

Oh yeah sports. Thats probably the best option I suppose. Working out would be a free one, well unless you have a gym membership but that aint too bad usually. sometimes its horrible though.


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## Justindkates (Apr 30, 2010)

ashikenshin said:


> yup, every other hobby I have heard of or tried is expensive as hell. I get more enjoyment out of a 24 (now 30) buck box of wyches than out of a 60 buck videogame or my 200 buck paintball gun.


Right? I know a guy that buys classic cars and re-builds them. Talk about some mega $$$

I dropped a few hundred on new Grey Knights a few weeks ago and then I dropped $849.00 on a new lens this week. Nice things cost money.


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Funny part is you Americans still pay-less then Canadians do for GW stuff yet are dollar is better.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

It would be slightly amusing if this was an internet hoax. I know a few people who have already dropped some money down to get units at the current price prior to the supposed price hike.

Doc


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

unxpekted22 said:


> yeah I guess all in all it is still cheaper than airsoft, paintball, cars, drugs, women, video games, and music equipment. What other hobbies are there? lets see, reading...probably cheaper....pottery making? I have no idea.
> 
> Oh yeah sports. Thats probably the best option I suppose. Working out would be a free one, well unless you have a gym membership but that aint too bad usually. sometimes its horrible though.


some argue that video games are cheaper cuz they dont shell out hundreds of dollars on it... yes i laugh in their face every time they say that.

your right though, outside of building models that are NOT for a board game aswell, hobbies are expensive. and we can adapt to their new price, or say fuck you to them.


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## karlhunt (Mar 24, 2009)

Anyone else think that the American President Obama and GW went to the same business school?

"Hey, let's do something supremely stupid and expect the world to bail us out..."


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## Diatribe1974 (Jul 15, 2010)

Sure did decide they weren't charging enough for all the Codex's, eh? Sure, it's only a 4$ increase, but still.....man..


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

At least I don't need any new Codex's for a while.


Doc


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## Acrisius (May 17, 2011)

Time to go to GC-Minis... 30% discount is fine by me.. OMGOSH CODEX GREY KNIGHTS!! I am so behind...


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## Diatribe1974 (Jul 15, 2010)

I bought some stuff via GW's site earlier tonight at the old (current) prices, so at least I'm saving money in the long run. The rest of the stuff I'm buying will be via the Amazon seller stores since they were already cheaper than GW. (and appear to be even more viable now than with the prices GW is wanting to switch to in the future)


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## OIIIIIIO (Dec 16, 2009)

Well the thing about this hobby is that it does not have tires on it so it is very much on the cheaper side of hobbies. I can honestly tell you that this is probably the cheapest hobby I have ever gotten into. My past hobbies include: 

Bar hopping, I have literally dropped an entire paycheck of $900 in one night. One week of work for 6 hours of 'fun' ... should have gotten laid but I didn't.

Jeeps ... I have helped commit adultery (her cheating not me) to get Jeep parts. The more orgasms I gave her the more parts I got to order. Still spent over $20,000 on that Jeep. (I must admit that she was hot)

Harley .... HD does not stand for Harley Davidson, it stands for Hundreds of Dollars, cause that is what you spend every time you walk into a Harley shop.

This 'hobby' costs me the least of all that I have done and am currently doing. But it IS still just a hobby, they are not forcing you to buy the plastic crack, but they are damn good pushers.:biggrin:


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

damn I dont if its us or what but people have been hitting that facebook page of theirs that katiedrake linked to really hard today. I was one of the earlier people to comment but now there is a lot. Apparently they ahve even been deleting some of the comments. My first one is gone and it wasnt anything vulgar or whatever it was basically just 'looks like the collection of my second army will come to a halt with the raised prices. I need that kind of money for thigns like food.'


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## H0RRIDF0RM (Mar 6, 2008)

Katie Drake said:


> If you're pissed off about this, 'like' this Facebook group and post about how displeased you are. Come on people, every comment counts!


Thanks for posting this. I added my comment despite it surely being redacted by Gamesworkshop.

Honest to god I went out and spent $340 today on Legions of Everblight

I got the following

Absylonia
Lylyth, Shadow 
Lylyth, Hunter
Carnivean
Ravagore x 2
Angelius
Seraph
Bolt Thrower
Raek
Shredder x 3
Striders x 6
Strider Officer
Strider Musician
Death Stalker
Forsaken x 2
12 bottles of P3 foruma paint
Shepard

For those of you who don't know thats 2 armies worth of models at a 1,500 point equivelent. All of the models are awesome and the paint is high quality.

The next wave of Dark Eldar will be my last pre-order. I was planning on updating my Necron range when the new models hit, but I definately wont now. I also never intend to purchase another army from Gamesworkshop. Just as little maintenance as possible to play until the game becomes a minority.


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## Eleven (Nov 6, 2008)

My interest in the hobby has been sharply declining lately, largely because of my outdated codexes. I'm playing necrons, CSMs, and Eldar....

I still check their website from time to time and check heresy for news though. This definitely seals the deal. I can't afford this shit, no way.

It's sad that I simply don't make enough money to pay those prices, but it's just true. It was hard to justify before, if prices are hiked more then, damn...


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## Takizuchi (Aug 27, 2010)

Fuck it price hicks or not im still going to play the game that i enjoy. And honostly, i can still see this being complained about even though this just means this summer everything else is going to jump in price, from living expenses to food, the world is just getting that much more expensive. Wether its from Ebay or from GW themselves a little price hike will not stop me from playing. So what if i cant buy as much at one time, i can still play cant i? it isnt like they have banned the game or anything. Hell on $50 a month im still managing to find ways to grow my armies and play the game, mine might not be the fastest growing armies but im atleast still enjoying myself. Sheesh people quit whining there are worse things than having to pay an extra 4-8 dollars on something. Hell going to the theaters costs 5-8 dollars more because of the change to 3D depending on your local theater and game price rise by 10 to 20 dollars with each new console and by the end of this summer i see everything else rising by five bucks also because of the costs of gas. So man up, pay a few extra bucks and stop acting like the world is coming to an end just because the world market on everything is all pretty much going up in prices.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Personally i dont see how a price hike effects people enough to quit the hobby, if you own an army then the increase in price does not really effect you, just carry on playing with your owned models,or if you spend $50 a month on model religiously then carry on spending $50 per month, again no harm no foul. If you are just frustrated and annoyed because you dont want to pay more thats fine, join the club, but the reality is prices go up,nobody likes it, nobody wants it, but its always going to happen and GW does not need any actual reason to do it, they can gouge us as much as they want to.
Thing to remember is this, if you play in a GW store and most of the people there dont spend in store that store will close or GW will hike the prices up, buying at a discount online is great for your pocket but if you rely on a store for a game it will bite you on the ass, thats what happened down under, too many people buying outside the country has led to the embargo, if the embargo fails and the stores and FLGS dont see an increase in sales i can see the GW just canning the operation and stop distributing, yes it will cost them sales but if they are loosing money in certain territories they will pull out.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

bitsandkits said:


> Personally i dont see how a price hike effects people enough to quit the hobby,


It's the cumulative effect of multiple purchases over time. Also, it makes it that much harder to tell yourself that you're spending money on something worthwhile because you enjoy it. Then there's the whole thing about how many of us feel insulted and abused by Games Workshop. Those are pretty good reasons to stop.


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## Hurricane (Feb 27, 2010)

Katie Drake said:


> It's the cumulative effect of multiple purchases over time. Also, it makes it that much harder to tell yourself that you're spending money on something worthwhile because you enjoy it. Then there's the whole thing about how many of us feel insulted and abused by Games Workshop. Those are pretty good reasons to stop.


:goodpost:

It's much more than the price hike that are causing people to abandon GW at this point, including myself. It is the combination of the continuous price hikes, embargo, potential of not having early previews, etc that is seriously putting me off the game. I simply do not want to stand behind a hobby company that employs these practices.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Hurricane said:


> :goodpost:
> 
> It's much more than the price hike that are causing people to abandon GW at this point, including myself. It is the combination of the continuous price hikes, embargo, potential of not having early previews, etc that is seriously putting me off the game. I simply do not want to stand behind a hobby company that employs these practices.


Exactly and people can try to logically explain away GW's actions, but the fact is that people's feelings are not something that can be influenced by logic. Nobody gives a shit that GW has reasons for what it does - what the company does still pisses people off.


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## Sethis (Jun 4, 2009)

bitsandkits said:


> thats what happened down under, insanely inflated prices of about 200% over UK prices led to too many people buying outside the country has led to the embargo


You missed a step in the argument, I put it in for you. :so_happy:


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## Hurricane (Feb 27, 2010)

Not to mention that they don't even EXPLAIN the reasoning behind any of this to their playerbase. Not a peep.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

All in all I won't stop completely but I will pace my purchasing to include more ebay purchases. I will have to buy some items from my local game store just to support him but besides from White dwarfs and the occasional pot of paint it will mainly consist of games such as the LCG warhammer Invasion. I agree with most of the arguments here and I think GW forgets that this is what most of us spend for entertainment and as such if the prices raise to fast then we cut back. We won't cut back on food, rent, insurance, but instead onplastic crack. 

Doc


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> Exactly and people can try to logically explain away GW's actions, but the fact is that people's feelings are not something that can be influenced by logic. Nobody gives a shit that GW has reasons for what it does - what the company does still pisses people off.


Does your local supermarket explain why most food is more expensive now than 6 months ago? Supermarkets deal with price increases in an entirely different way, they just add pennys/cents every week and hope peopledont notice. GW cannot do that, it's far harder to add small amounts to something priced at £30 than it is to something priced 68p.

The fact that it 'pisses you off' has no bearing on what a company has to do to stay in business and in profit. It really annoys me when people make this sort of arguement, it's almost like they think GW makes these products for the love of the hobby and should sell them exactly at Market cost, rather than the fact that they are a business and have shareholders and need to turn a profit.


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## Hudson (Jun 3, 2008)

thing is if everyone swaps to another game system then that games system would need to buy new equipment to match the new surge of interest which would cost them money which would need paying for which YOU would in tern pay for....

lets face it it's expensive, live with it or don't play! it's annoying it's frustrating but in the middle of a recession you really think a company is gunna reduce prices?! good luck it's better for them to lose the international market and cut some limbs off and shrink the business back to a managable size. 

By losing pricing out some markets they can gain as much as possible then cut their losses, and sell that shop or whatever which reduces their running costs end of the day if a shop is still selling now it will continue to sell with the increases. 

I honestly believe GW grew too much and with a recession hitting everyone it now has to do something....what would you prefer? price increase or GW just up and closing the american division altogther?


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Maidel said:


> Does your local supermarket explain why most food is more expensive now than 6 months ago? Supermarkets deal with price increases in an entirely different way, they just add pennys/cents every week and hope peopledont notice. GW cannot do that, it's far harder to add small amounts to something priced at £30 than it is to something priced 68p.
> 
> The fact that it 'pisses you off' has no bearing on what a company has to do to stay in business and in profit.


That's nice. I'm still not buying shit from the company until they pull their heads out of their asses.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Maidel said:


> Does your local supermarket explain why most food is more expensive now than 6 months ago? Supermarkets deal with price increases in an entirely different way, they just add pennys/cents every week and hope peopledont notice. GW cannot do that, it's far harder to add small amounts to something priced at £30 than it is to something priced 68p.
> 
> The fact that it 'pisses you off' has no bearing on what a company has to do to stay in business and in profit. It really annoys me when people make this sort of arguement, it's almost like they think GW makes these products for the love of the hobby and should sell them exactly at Market cost, rather than the fact that they are a business and have shareholders and need to turn a profit.


I agree that a company has to do what it has to do to stay in buisness but they can't cut off their nose to spite there face either. This is a hobby and when times are tough,,like they are...increase of that magnitude turn their player base off. I understand a increase but a smaller one would have been better tolerated especially on the heels of the resin switch and the "embargo". The supermarket story was good but the difference is that we have to eat:grin:

Doc


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> That's nice. I'm still not buying shit from the company until they pull their heads out of their asses.


Ok, work with me on this one. Assume for a moment that the price increase is required for GW to stay in business and in profit. What would they have to do to 'pull their heads out of their asses' in your opinion?



docgeo said:


> I agree that a company has to do what it has to do to stay in buisness but they can't cut off their nose to spite there face either. This is a hobby and when times are tough,,like they are...increase of that magnitude turn their player base off. I understand a increase but a smaller one would have been better tolerated especially on the heels of the resin switch and the "embargo". The supermarket story was good but the difference is that we have to eat:grin:
> 
> Doc


I totally agree, and for me, that's why supermarkets putting their prices up in a 'stealthy' manner is so much more underhanded and hurts so much more. GW are upfront with it, inform the players in advance and give them time to make any last minute purchases before the price goes up.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Maidel said:


> Ok, work with me on this one. Assume for a moment that the price increase is required for GW to stay in business and in profit. What would they have to do to 'pull their heads out of their asses' in your opinion?


I would be extremely surprised to find out that GW would go under if they didn't increase their prices by such silly amounts annually. In fact, I don't think I'd believe it.

GW can do lots of things to improve. Firstly, they should feel free to increase prices, but by sane amounts. A dollar or two here or there, fine, but $5 for a Rhino (as an example, I don't recall anything specific at the moment) is just dumb.

Second, they really should be more in touch with their customers. I've rarely been involved with a company that seems so eerily indifferent to the thoughts and feelings of the people that keep it afloat. People can tell me that there are those that work at GW that _do_ care, but I don't see much evidence of it.

Third, Games Workshop _needs_ to hire more people to work on the development of their games. I'm exhausted right now so I don't remember where I read this (it could've been in this thread, I honestly forget), but supposedly the development team is worked almost to exhaustion without overtime pay in order to squeeze out new Codecies/Army Books in a quasi-timely fashion. That's retarded and I refuse to believe that a company as large as GW can't afford the salaries of a few more employees. I doubt games developers get paid much anyway. =/

Being quicker on the draw when it comes to Errata documents would be awesome too, but is a lot less important than simply getting more books out within a reasonable amount of time.

What it all comes down to is that I (and many others) simply feel abused in our relationship(s) with Games Workshop. We purchase their products, but along with that there are some very reasonable expectations that simply aren't being met. I consider it abuse when a company consistently increases its prices with little to no explanation, cuts back on the number of official events run per year, closes down its stores, fires its relatively few intelligent employees, uses a business model that in no way appears to acknowledge the reality of the company's (and its customer's) situation and generally acts like a group of entitled, semi-retarded fuckbags that are about as competent at their jobs as a pile of dog shit on the bottom of someone's shoe. I'm absolutely incredulous that Games Workshop has managed to remain in business as long as it has. So if they decided to fix even half of these things then I'd consider their heads (mostly) pulled out of their asses. Since that's not going to happen until they realize that people aren't going to keep shelling out cash for their goods and services, I'm going to take an extended break from Games Workshop's stuff.


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## slaaneshy (Feb 20, 2008)

Basically there is a lot going on here. We can all accept that GW is a business and exists to make money, not keep us in toy soldiers.

But there is a big HOWEVER here.

The overall feeling GW has generated with its long term fans over the last couple of years is negative. This is a company that has lost touch with its customer base. 
The company releases codex's and rules that seem to lack anything resembling adequate play testing, requiring an FAQ within hours of release - and often not getting it for years! This generates resentment.
The stores focus has shifted away from a good balance of selling and playing/hobby and is now far more about pushing sales. GW has been sacking good people if they are deemed more of a hobbyist than a seller. This generates resentment.
Great indie stores like Wayland and Maelstrum with excellent stores and staff who love what they do are being unfairly squeezed by GW as they do the things they fail to do - improve the hobby and create a gaming atmosphere. GW has stopped them selling to various contries and is looking to reduce their product range (my club has just recieved an email from Wayland asking us to write them a letter of support against this move) in order to force you to buy direct is underhand. This generates resentment.
White Dwarf, once a bastion of the hobby with interesting articles, projects and additions to armies, is now a souless catalogue of product pictures. This generates resentment.
While this forum's membership often appear to lack any understanding of a life of wargames outside of GW, but for those of us that do, enjoy a wealth of other systems from Kings of War to Warmahordes to Malifaux. These systems are better supported, play tested, cheaper to collect and play, and crucially, have a hobby 'feel' that GW now actively tries to kill within its own business model. This generates resentment.

So when people say they are done with GW, it is for a number of reasons, price hikes and treatment of indie retailers being the latest flux in the perfect storm for GW.

Many people have predicted the end of GW. I usually laugh when I hear it. But I am now going to wave the banner of extinction as well. I believe that unless there is a radical change of direction at the top GW will find itself isolated. This recession is hurting and people will cut back, especially if prices rise too far. Also there is now a real choice in the market with well established companies selling good quality product and excellent rule systems for far cheaper (Kings of War army books and rules are free to download for example, while warhammer ary books are now over £20 each).

GW can do all these things - those of us over 30 remember a time that they did it - the question is are there enough people left in the company with the will to bring it back from the brink?


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Maidel said:


> Ok, work with me on this one. Assume for a moment that the price increase is required for GW to stay in business and in profit. What would they have to do to 'pull their heads out of their asses' in your opinion?


This is a prime example of the argumentative fallacy "Argument by Scenario" wherein telling a story which ties together unrelated material, and then using the story as proof they are related. You've constructed an argumentative structure wherein we are assumed to have to accept that the price increase is necessary for the company to stay afloat. Demanding that other people accept that "the company would go under without these price increases" is absurd as it is a hypothesis contrary to fact. 

The GW financial reports and tax figures show a clear pattern of raising prices to compensate for profit losses followed by massive losses in market-share, countered by raised prices the following year, followed by equally lowered sales figures. The facts simply do not come close to supporting your hypothesis.... at all.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> I would be extremely surprised to find out that GW would go under if they didn't increase their prices by such silly amounts annually. In fact, I don't think I'd believe it.
> 
> GW can do lots of things to improve. Firstly, they should feel free to increase prices, but by sane amounts. A dollar or two here or there, fine, but $5 for a Rhino (as an example, I don't recall anything specific at the moment) is just dumb.


Ok - step back and think about it for a second. Last couple of years GW have utterly restructred the entire company. I think in total staff its about 25% short of what it used to be. Thats probably about 20% of its entire costs just there. Last year it made £12million profit - thats about 10% of its turn over. Therefore after saving 20% costs, it only made 10% profit - meaning that had they not saved 20% costs they would have made utterly no profit what so ever. Roll that back a couple of years and take away what was in fact about 5-10% price increases over the same time period and they would have made NO PROFIT AT ALL, even after making 20% savings.




> Third, Games Workshop _needs_ to hire more people to work on the development of their games. I'm exhausted right now so I don't remember where I read this (it could've been in this thread, I honestly forget), but supposedly the development team is worked almost to exhaustion without overtime pay in order to squeeze out new Codecies/Army Books in a quasi-timely fashion. That's retarded and I refuse to believe that a company as large as GW can't afford the salaries of a few more employees. I doubt games developers get paid much anyway. =/


How does that affect the customers? They have released more codexes and warhammer army books so far this year than they did last year (or at least they will do at the rate they are going and its only May). IF their employees dont like it - they can leave - thats got absolutely nothing to do with the customers.



> Being quicker on the draw when it comes to Errata documents would be awesome too, but is a lot less important than simply getting more books out within a reasonable amount of time.


They could get more books out faster - but it wouldnt make them more money - Im not going into explaining that here - IVe done so on many occations in other threads and its entirely a different converstation.



> What it all comes down to is that I (and many others) simply feel abused in our relationship(s) with Games Workshop. We purchase their products, but along with that there are some very reasonable expectations that simply aren't being met.


You buy plastic models from a company - they provide them, you pay for them. That is absolutely the end of their 'reasonable expectations'. What you are asking for goes WAY beyond anything any company provides. If you buy a new TV from a shop, do you expect that shop to prevent the cost of satelight TV from going up? Of course not.



> I consider it abuse when a company consistently increases its prices with little to no explanation, cuts back on the number of official events run per year, closes down its stores, fires its relatively few intelligent employees, uses a business model that in no way appears to acknowledge the reality of the company's (and its customer's) situation and generally acts like a group of entitled, semi-retarded fuckbags that are about as competent at their jobs as a pile of dog shit on the bottom of someone's shoe.


That bunch of 'semi-retarded fuckbags' have you, and others in a right nicker twist because you love their products so much you are upset that they are putting the prices up... sorry - consistancy is evidentally not your strong point.



> I'm absolutely incredulous that Games Workshop has managed to remain in business as long as it has. So if they decided to fix even half of these things then I'd consider their heads (mostly) pulled out of their asses. Since that's not going to happen until they realize that people aren't going to keep shelling out cash for their goods and services, I'm going to take an extended break from Games Workshop's stuff.


The thing is, and this is horrible to say, they simply dont care if you do or dont. People like you and me spend FAR less in their shops than a 14 year old with mummys credit card - that is who they care about, and us throwing their toys out of our collective prams will mean diddly squat to them.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> This is a prime example of the argumentative fallacy "Argument by Scenario" wherein telling a story which ties together unrelated material, and then using the story as proof they are related. You've constructed an argumentative structure wherein we are assumed to have to accept that the price increase is necessary for the company to stay afloat. Demanding that other people accept that "the company would go under without these price increases" is absurd as it is a hypothesis contrary to fact.
> 
> The GW financial reports and tax figures show a clear pattern of raising prices to compensate for profit losses followed by massive losses in market-share, countered by raised prices the following year, followed by equally lowered sales figures. The facts simply do not come close to supporting your hypothesis.... at all.


Im sorry - the facts prove EXACTLY my point - and you are making the same 'arguementative fallacy' as I did - you are telling me that I have to draw the conclusion that the reason they are losing market share is BECAUSE they are putting the prices up.

Where is the evidence for that? This is a hobby that is hit from all sides by competing hobbies, which in the 80's when GW really took off simply were not there.

TV (how many channels are there now, and how many where there in the 80's)

Computer games - compare the market in the 80's with what it is now

I could go on - but the reason why GW market is declining is that more children are spending their pocket money on 'cool' hobbies (like playing playstation) than on geeky hobbies that require skill, time and patience like model wargamming.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Maidel said:


> Im sorry - the facts prove EXACTLY my point - and you are making the same 'arguementative fallacy' as I did - you are telling me that I have to draw the conclusion that the reason they are losing market share is BECAUSE they are putting the prices up.



No, it is not. I'm not creating an arbitrary structure within which to conduct the argument i.e. "assume x must be true". I'm making use of fact and drawing a conclusion from it. You are creating an argument within which the only conclusion is the one you've decided to already be correct. 



> Where is the evidence for that?


http://investor.games-workshop.com/latest_results/default.aspx



> This is a hobby that is hit from all sides by competing hobbies, which in the 80's when GW really took off simply were not there.
> 
> 
> TV (how many channels are there now, and how many where there in the 80's)
> ...


That's more or less an argument in favor of price reduction.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> That's more or less an argument in favor of price reduction.


No its not.


I will explain using my current work as an example.


I work for a large property firm where I do a certain type of building survey.

Our costs for that survey run to about £50. That includes paying me, the bookings team, the council, commission and a few other bits and pieces. 

We have 'maximum' number of appointments its possible to achieve based on the number of properties the company sells - we dont offer outside of the company. We currently charge £120 for the appointment and we get about 60% of the internal business (other people can do these surveys for our clients if the client wants to shop around).

Therefore, we have argued that we should drop our prices to try and encourage the other 40% to use us (we are more expensive than internet companies for various reasons).

Our managing director has refused every time to allow us to drop our prices, and eventually when pushed, he showed us the figures he was working with - and they made total sense.

If we dropped to £100 an appointment we would need to get 20% more business just to match what we already do (for us doing less work I might add). If we dropped to £80 (to match other online companies) we would have to get 100% of the work and we would end up doing 40% more work, and making absolutely nothing out of it.


GW is EXACTLY the same - assume they can drop prices by 25% and still make a profit (I have no idea if thats the case, they might be able to drop them 90% and still make a profit off each kit sold, Im not sure).

What you are saying is that dropping the prices 25% would not only mean that their sales went up 25% - but they would have to go up MORE than 25% otherwise GW is just selling more product, but making the same amount of money.

Now, if they raise prices by 10%, but they only predict they will sell 5% less - then they have in fact made themselves 5% more money, and done less work for it.

This is how a business works - they try to place the point where they can make the most money for the least amount of work. GW is a business, why do you or anyone else think they work any differently?


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Maidel said:


> GW is EXACTLY the same - assume they can drop prices by 25% and still make a profit (I have no idea if thats the case, they might be able to drop them 90% and still make a profit off each kit sold, Im not sure).
> 
> What you are saying is that dropping the prices 25% would not only mean that their sales went up 25% - but they would have to go up MORE than 25% otherwise GW is just selling more product, but making the same amount of money.
> 
> ...


If you had bothered to read the financial data on the company, as you clearly did not, you would have seen that the increases in price over the past five years have resulted in substantially larger losses in profit. So for every 10% increase in price they are doing they are actually losing a larger share of the market for it. So they are doing more work (remember fewer employees trying to cover the same theoretical workload), in a smaller actual market, and making less money for it. 

In fact the recent upturn in GW profits can be traced directly to the Dawn of War francise otherwise the company would be making even less money than it already is.t


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> If you had bothered to read the financial data on the company, as you clearly did not, you would have seen that the increases in price over the past five years have resulted in substantially larger losses in profit. So for every 10% increase in price they are doing they are actually losing a larger share of the market for it. So they are doing more work (remember fewer employees trying to cover the same theoretical workload), in a smaller actual market, and making less money for it.
> 
> In fact the recent upturn in GW profits can be traced directly to the Dawn of War francise otherwise the company would be making even less money than it already is.t


'If I had bothered to read'.

WTF? Its a 60 page finanicial review of the company - you might want to have given place referances in it if you expected people to see what you have read - I just read through the CEOs introduction and overview and I cant see anything you just wrote - so throw us a bone here and then we can have a debate about it.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Maidel said:


> 'If I had bothered to read'.
> 
> WTF? Its a 60 page finanicial review of the company - you might want to have given place referances in it if you expected people to see what you have read - I just read through the CEOs introduction and overview and I cant see anything you just wrote - so throw us a bone here and then we can have a debate about it.


Fair enough, that was a bit petty. I shouldn't have worded it that way, sorry.

Give me a moment to write up a summary of the pages. I might not have it posted in the thread for a while. 

You can pretty much ignore everything other than the raw data though. Most of the investor relations jargon is BS intended to distract you from analyzing the numbers.

EDIT: You're pretty much going to have to read all those investor reports for the past five years though, there is relevant information on pretty much every page.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> You can pretty much ignore everything other than the raw data though. Most of the investor relations jargon is BS intended to distract you from analyzing the numbers.


 
Ok - so in fact, its just your interpretation of how the numbers stack up.

You see declining sales at the same time as seeing price increases and connect the dots and assume that one causes the other?

Or is there something more substantial than that?


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

So what I don't get then is why do they continue to raise the prices if seems to turn out opposite what they predict. Its obvious that GW's financial advisors are complete idiots and they need to fire them and hire someone else.

Anyway I say we just are gonna have to deal with it if love WH and 40k as much as we do. All the experiences ive had with GW in the past and today have proven to me that they do care of there customers. I know anytime they sold me a defected kit or forgot to send me part of an order or they just sent the worng thing they would correct fast. Prices are what they are. So this just means for those of us that aren't exactly rich are just gonna have to buy less. Its not a bad thing maybe many of us (like me) that tons of shit that needs to be painted and assembled will finally get some of it done. I for one prolly won't be gettin anything new until the next month at least for a good while so lets all call it a day and move on. Besides if GW went under one day then I can almost garentee some company(PP hopefully) sould buy the WH and 40k properties and continue to produce it. It just makes to much money and too many would see to great an oppurtunity for it.


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

Maidel said:


> Ok - so in fact, its just your interpretation of how the numbers stack up.


That is an accurate description of what I've been saying. Obviously it is open for interpretation but I'll take my interpretation of numbers over hyperbole any day. It's possible my conclusions are faulty but I'd need to see evidence to the contrary before I accepted that.



> You see declining sales at the same time as seeing price increases and connect the dots and assume that one causes the other?
> 
> Or is there something more substantial than that?


Well yes and no. There does seem to be an obvious causal link between the loss in sales and the increase in price, and it does always seem to rise slightly above what GW is rising the price to be. 

The most telling things for me are the comparative losses of GW and the comparative gains of both Privateer Press and Mantic Games, neither of which have needed to raise their prices. Thought it's admittedly difficult to give hard numbers for that as both those companies are privately owned and thus give substantially more limited (or even sometimes no) specific figures for their financials yearly.


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## Grins1878 (May 10, 2010)

unxpekted22 said:


> Thats what I was saying, kids cant afford it on their own, and parents wont be willing to buy it for them anymore due to both price increase in GW and the rest of the economy.
> 
> BTW, good info todeswind.


To be fair though, they've always been expensive, back when rhinos were £5 and a box of thirty plastic beakies were £10, wages were a shedload lower. I had to save up my pocket money for nearly two months so that I could afford the train to town, buy RT and the beakies and then get the train home. 

I think the biggest overall increase to prices have been terminators that used to be about £2.50 for two, but then look at the models then and the models now.


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## nogginthenog (Sep 8, 2008)

I havent read all the posts in this thread yet, but I assume that we will be getting price increases here in the UK at some point too.

I've been expecting some, as soon as the Blood Angels battleforce came in at £60 , I think it was certain the rest would eventually go up to that price, the new resin stuff, the rises seem a bit random to me, Dante staying pretty much the same, others going up 30% or more, I have concerns about the dust issue depending on what type of resin it actually is, and remain hopeful that the sanguinor and mephiston not being on the list means new sculpts, given how old mephiston is (and static in pose) and how god awful the sanguinor is.

Price rises are a fact of life, especially these days, doesnt mean we have to be happy about it, doesnt make GW evil personified either.

I do believe they are getting to the point where it will effect the playerbase though, and that is the only important thing, the game and miniatures are only any good with other people to play against.

I think the combination of rises in price plus 8th edition steering towards larger numbers of miniatures per army (and I expect the next 40k to go a similar direction) is a bit of a double hit, which is why theres so much hurt.

I'll probably scale back my plans a little, I have my hobby budget, I wont stop spending it, it just will get me less each time, but I just bought a viable Infinity army for £40, a combination of cheaper mini's (metal, but some truly fantastic sculpts) and a skirmish game requiring less models,plus free rules and a free army builder application., so there are options for those looking to get away from GW.

The hobby isnt just warhammer and 40k, although to be fair, without them, we probably wouldnt have any of the others.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Todeswind said:


> The most telling things for me are the comparative losses of GW and the comparative gains of both Privateer Press and Mantic Games, neither of which have needed to raise their prices. Thought it's admittedly difficult to give hard numbers for that as both those companies are privately owned and thus give substantially more limited (or even sometimes no) specific figures for their financials yearly.


But again - that is assigning a link between two things which may or may not be connected.

Just because their market share is rising may have utterly nothing to do with GWs price increases, it is most likely that they are getting a better product out and actually competing with GW for sales.

These things dont happen in bubbles - you cannot look at one set of company figures in isolation and then draw distinct conclusions from those figures.

For example - GW market share has been declining steadily ever since the LOTRs bubble burst - if you werent considering that factor then you may well assign any price increases to the reason why GWs market share decreased.

Just wait until the hobbit comes out - they already have the marketing rights for that - just watch GWs profits rise and they could stick whatever price increases they wanted in at that time and they would still make a fortune. Then you could read GWs financial reports and decide that price rises actually made them sell more models!


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

curiosity what do you mean by the LOTR bubble burst


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## Todeswind (Mar 2, 2010)

I'm probably heading to bed soon. Assuming I don't forget about it I'll try and post my thoughts on the GW financials sometime tomorrow (my time).


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## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

I don't know if it's still the case, but back in 2009, GWs released profit figures were ridiculously low because they were ploughing everything bar the bare minimum needed to actually make a profit into paying off ALL their debts. The plan was to have done this within 5 years. And as these payments come out before the total profit is announced, its not obvious that this is a reason the released figures are so low.

This comes, not from financial releases given to the City, but from Tom Kirby directly in his addresses to GW HQ staff. 

Price rises in general are something we all hate, but have to live with. GW is a business. Businesses exist to make money. I'd love for Mars Bars to still cost 12p, and to be able to get into town on the bus for 20p. That's not the case any more though, and no amount of complaining on my part will change that. As I keep having to tell my 2yr old: You don't like that? Tough, that's life...


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

INB4 every person that's posted with "I'm done with GW's greed" lines up pre-ordering the latest batch of plastic crack at the new prices...


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## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

TheSpore said:


> curiosity what do you mean by the LOTR bubble burst


When LotR came out, GW made silly profits for a few years. They used this to improve plastics facilities, build a new 3storey office building and Eurohub, and open loads more stores. When this period of artificially high profits ended and normalised again, GW couldn't sustain the additional staff and stores, and there were redundancies and a period of real financial hardship. That's where the debts I mentioned above came from.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

SilverTabby said:


> When LotR came out, GW made silly profits for a few years. They used this to improve plastics facilities, build a new 3storey office building and Eurohub, and open loads more stores. When this period of artificially high profits ended and normalised again, GW couldn't sustain the additional staff and stores, and there were redundancies and a period of real financial hardship. That's where the debts I mentioned above came from.


Oh now it makes sense. So GW basically needs another quick temporary cash cow. They should bid on flippin Star Wars they always bring the dough


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

TheSpore said:


> Oh now it makes sense. So GW basically needs another quick temporary cash cow. They should bid on flippin Star Wars they always bring the dough


They have one, it's the hobbit films comming out next year and the year after.

As for stat wars, well other than the fact that wizards/hasbro has that tied up on a multi year contract, I think the costs of that licence are more than GW makes in a year.

Having said that, I would LOVE GW to make the star wars models.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

yeah they wouldnt be that crappy assembly lined painted shit


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## Hellgore (Jun 19, 2008)

I have a close friend who runs the only gaming store in a city with 40000 people. We have a players base of roundabout 20 40k-gamers and the same amount of WHFB-gamers, not necessarily the same 

He is constantly selling less and less GW-products while getting more and more shafted by them.
Examples: 
- if he wants to get a black box to sell you have to order a whole batch of the new products in amounts he can't possibly get sold again. 
- all the blister stuff going GW direct only. Here the lizardmen-buyer wanting a single shaman there him telling the 14 year old that he must buy it online as he won't be supplied by GW.
- cutting profitmargins for independent shops every year so it becomes less and less profitable to even sell the few stuff they "generously" offer. 
- and then ringing right before christmas and offering a "great x-mas deal" where he should just buy products worth 2000 Euros he won't sell in years.

This continues and he contemplates about dropping GW-products alltogether as it just isn't profitable enough for him while he gets hit by the anger and disappointment of the customers. 

Meanwhile, he sells more and more Flames of War (which I'm a happy buyer/player of, too!). A company taking care of as even prices as possible throughout the world and acknowledging the situation of small stores with suitable offerings.

And from talks with fellow shops he knows that he's not alone with his situation.

So, it is not only the players/customers who are fed up with GW. It more and more is the shops that don't want to put up with this feudalistic business policy.

I for myself won't quit the hobby. But as a beginning I won't revamp my 7500 points of Necrons with the new codex but rather sell them off even though they were my first army. My SM and GK armies are big enough to even survive another edition, no new models needed.
So no new army from GW - I'd rather use my money for the next FoW-release where I have the feeling of getting my money's worth when I buy as well as knowing that my FLGS can make a living out of it.

I know a lot of my fellow gamers think quite similar, many of them have already sold their GW stuff to buy into FoW, what I won't do.

@maidel: you can write here about alleged necessities of this arbitrary price hike all day long. The competitors of GW did raise their prices too but not that steep, just to give you an example without getting into the obvious details of GW keeping a profitmargin only by these raises and internal cuts as their sales keep dropping year after year. And still they pay out dividends that quite exclusively go to the board of directors.

If you alienate customers AND retailers alike, you won't get back to rising sales again and sales is the only sure way to keep a company healthy and growing.

To me this sounds like a slow and draining sell out for the shareholders, squeezing as much money out of the company as possible before it finally will be bought off. Not that GW is going to die, but I surely think they will eventually be swallowed by a bigger game company like Hasbro or similar in a not so far future.


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## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

Another quick cash cow is the last thing GW needs. What they need is steady and reliable income. That they get from their main product range of WHFB and 40K. And maintaining a profit off these ranges means raising prices according to a maintainable business plan. Which, regardless of what all those on these forums think, they do have. They would not have lasted several decades and have a 90%+ market share if they didn't.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

SilverTabby said:


> Another quick cash cow is the last thing GW needs. What they need is steady and reliable income. That they get from their main product range of WHFB and 40K. And maintaining a profit off these ranges means raising prices according to a maintainable business plan. Which, regardless of what all those on these forums think, they do have. They would not have lasted several decades and have a 90%+ market share if they didn't.


This is true but at the same time many of their customers are so outraged by it that it seems that its gonna produce negative results that will hurt their income greatly. Many companies have done just waht GW is doing now and they have failed and gone out of business.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Hellgore said:


> @maidel: you can write here about alleged necessities of this arbitrary price hike all day long. The competitors of GW did raise their prices too but not that steep, just to give you an example without getting into the obvious details of GW keeping a profitmargin only by these raises and internal cuts as their sales keep dropping year after year. And still they pay out dividends that quite exclusively go to the board of directors.


There are two things wrong with that statement.

1) They barely pay out any divident and on top of that they have said that they wont be paying a divident accept from profits - its in the financial review they released - it basically says 'dont expect much of a dividend from us'.

2) Large shareholders are often the directors of companies, it tends to go hand in hand with owning large numbers of shares. GW is a business, businesses are in it to make money, shareholders invest in companies to make money. Thats a fact of life. I cant believe you would get so upset about the board of GW making relatively small amounts from their share divident (£100,000) when you consider the big screw balls who have directorships and large numbers of shares in companies like BP are taking home £10s of millions in dividends from their shares, and they are one of the biggest causes of inflation at the moment.



> To me this sounds like a slow and draining sell out for the shareholders, squeezing as much money out of the company as possible before it finally will be bought off. Not that GW is going to die, but I surely think they will eventually be swallowed by a bigger game company like Hasbro or similar in a not so far future.


That sort of process doesnt work for a company like this. If you buy up a company that has big assets and slowly split them up and sell them off, then that makes sense - GW simply doesnt have that. It has its IP and it has its stores - thats it - if you kill the stores and kill the gamers, then you kill the value of the IP - no one will buy a dead system with no players, and thus driving away the players devalues their IP and thus their investment.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Well it will never change until someones goes out of buisness or changes their buisness model. One thing they could do to improve ther bottom line is maybe another limited run of spacehulk(posssible new short term cash cow) followed by an expansion. This I would be interested in buying since I missed it thefirst time around.

Doc


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> Well it will never change until someones goes out of buisness or changes their buisness model. One thing they could do to improve ther bottom line is maybe another limited run of spacehulk(posssible new short term cash cow) followed by an expansion. This I would be interested in buying since I missed it thefirst time around.
> 
> Doc


OH PLEASE! 

I was on holiday when it was released - I took a 3hr drive to the only GW in the area of where I was while on holiday and they had sold out!


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## Overbear (May 10, 2011)

OIIIIIIO said:


> Jeeps ... I have helped commit adultery (her cheating not me) to get Jeep parts. The more orgasms I gave her the more parts I got to order. Still spent over $20,000 on that Jeep. (I must admit that she was hot)


Yea when I think how much $$$ I have tied up in my rockcrawler (85 4runner) I could have bought a M3 by now.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Maidel said:


> Ok - step back and think about it for a second. Last couple of years GW have utterly restructred the entire company.


 I don't care.




> How does that affect the customers? They have released more codexes and warhammer army books so far this year than they did last year (or at least they will do at the rate they are going and its only May). IF their employees dont like it - they can leave - thats got absolutely nothing to do with the customers.


You asked what I thought they could do to pull their heads out of their asses. I told you.



> They could get more books out faster - but it wouldnt make them more money - Im not going into explaining that here - IVe done so on many occations in other threads and its entirely a different converstation.


Don't care.



> You buy plastic models from a company - they provide them, you pay for them. That is absolutely the end of their 'reasonable expectations'.


I disagree.



> That bunch of 'semi-retarded fuckbags' have you, and others in a right nicker twist because you love their products so much you are upset that they are putting the prices up... sorry - consistancy is evidentally not your strong point.


Yes, that's absolutely correct. They abuse the fact that people love their products and use it to get away with being absolute shitbags. Hence why I'm not going to stand for it any more.



> The thing is, and this is horrible to say, they simply dont care if you do or dont. People like you and me spend FAR less in their shops than a 14 year old with mummys credit card - that is who they care about, and us throwing their toys out of our collective prams will mean diddly squat to them.


That's fine. They can continue fucking people over if they want - it just won't be me on the receiving end of it.


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## hungryugolino (Sep 12, 2009)

Wait, Katie Drake, GW apologist, is going cold turkey? :shok:


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

hungryugolino said:


> Wait, Katie Drake, GW apologist, is going cold turkey? :shok:


Er, what? I've never apologized for Games Workshop's business stuff, I think they're immoral and retarded. I do defend a lot of the decisions they make on the gaming side of the hobby, though.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> I don't care.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
So - basically you dont care SOOOO much that you got really upset about it 

But seriously - you have some WAY over expectations from what is in fact a business that provides you with a 1 time sale at which point they have no further requirements to do anything. Your expectations are in line with something that you have a subscription to. If this were WoW or EvE then I would totally agree with you.

Its not - its a toy shop that sells games - they sell them, you buy them - you have no contract with them and they dont with you - why do you have any expectations of them beyond that?


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

I kind of wish this thread would just stop now. Its gone into the person vs. person argument stage which is always worthless. We all understand both opinions now.


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Maidel said:


> So - basically you dont care SOOOO much that you got really upset about it


No, I just mean that I don't care about their reasons for what they do, I think it's wrong. I do _very much_ care about the whole price increase and that I won't get to buy new stuff from them after this. I care a _lot_. 40k is my favorite hobby by a large margin and I'll keenly feel its "loss" (so to speak).



> But seriously - you have some WAY over expectations from what is in fact a business that provides you with a 1 time sale at which point they have no further requirements to do anything. Your expectations are in line with something that you have a subscription to. If this were WoW or EvE then I would totally agree with you.
> 
> Its not - its a toy shop that sells games - they sell them, you buy them - you have no contract with them and they dont with you - why do you have any expectations of them beyond that?


I'm of the opinion that if a company is going to create a game that's widely loved across the world that has a semi-active tournament scene and so on that they should fix and update the god damned rules with some regularity. Privateer Press does it - it isn't like there's no precedent for gaming companies regularly doing fixing of the rules for its systems.



> I kind of wish this thread would just shut up now. Its gone into the person vs. person argument stage which is always worthless. We all understand both opinions now.


Then don't read it?


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> No, I just mean that I don't care about their reasons for what they do, I think it's wrong. I do _very much_ care about the whole price increase and that I won't get to buy new stuff from them after this. I care a _lot_. 40k is my favorite hobby by a large margin and I'll keenly feel its "loss" (so to speak).


Ah, well that doesnt make a lot of sense to me - For me, I need to know the reasons behind something before I make up my mind. See someone being punched on the street and you can immediately assume that the person doing the punching is wrong. Then you find out that the guy who got punched was trying to steal his wallet and you change your mind.

If its your favourite hobby, then frankly your position is very odd. I wont say it harsher than that, but its just damn weird.




> I'm of the opinion that if a company is going to create a game that's widely loved across the world that has a semi-active tournament scene and so on that they should fix and update the god damned rules with some regularity. Privateer Press does it - it isn't like there's no precedent for gaming companies regularly doing fixing of the rules for its systems.


Hang on - is that your ONLY expectation - because on that singluar point you and I utterly agree.




> Then don't read it?


I was wrong - because I also agree with that :biggrin:


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## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

Maidel said:


> Ah, well that doesnt make a lot of sense to me - For me, I need to know the reasons behind something before I make up my mind. See someone being punched on the street and you can immediately assume that the person doing the punching is wrong. Then you find out that the guy who got punched was trying to steal his wallet and you change your mind.


Honestly, I don't even care to try to explain it. I'm not looking to have my mind changed here.



> If its your favourite hobby, then frankly your position is very odd. I wont say it harsher than that, but its just damn weird.


It really isn't, or if it is, I can't grasp where you're coming from.

_I_ (and others) _feel abused by Games Workshop._ Who would want to continue purchasing product from an organization that abuses its customers? Whether you agree that we are indeed being abused or not is completely irrelevant - we're talking about people's feelings here, emotions are not logical things and you cannot hope to apply logic to them.




> Hang on - is that your ONLY expectation - because on that singluar point you and I utterly agree.


Between fixing their mistakes and pumping out books faster (not much faster even, I don't want a new Codex every month, just a _little faster_), then yeah, I'd be an awful lot happier with them. I'd still be annoyed by the price increase, but I might at least feel like it was worth it.


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## Necrosis (Nov 1, 2008)

Due to these price hikes, everyone at my local friendly game store has stop buying gw and is now buying warmachine and hordes. The staff there is thinking about no longer ordering gw product and talking to other local game stores about it. I myself have move on to warmachine. This made it funny for one of my friends who played warmachine and didn't hear about the price hike. As he was going to attempt to get people to start playing warmachine/hordes only to find that gw had already done his job for him. I think Privateer Press will now be sending GW there 2nd thank you letter (first being the rule change in fantasy).


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> Between fixing their mistakes and pumping out books faster (not much faster even, I don't want a new Codex every month, just a _little faster_), then yeah, I'd be an awful lot happier with them. I'd still be annoyed by the price increase, but I might at least feel like it was worth it.


Katie I have to agree GW needs to start focusing on their customers more than focusing on their sales. I'm quite upset as well as anyone else. I feel that many of us are overreacting a bit. Now I'm not mainly speaking of you of course but the commuity as a whole. 

But you know we all here love 40k for our own reasons and I just feel that this issue isn't a reason for us all to quit and play something else out there. 

I'm gonna tell the whole community why I play 40k and have all this time.

ya see I found out almost 2 years ago that I have diabetes and 40k was the only true thing help me get through the course of depression I went through at that time. This damn illness cost me the career a so enjoyed and wanted do all my life and now I will never get to become a US Navy Officer because of a stupid non hindering illness. I know this a bit off the subject but I'm tring to get people to just remember why they got into 40k and WH and think back on all the fun times you all had with it. Many of us on here have some really good reasons why we play the game and why have pured so much money into it.

I do agree they need to start putting out more support for the game and that the prices are insane, but they have always been insane and we have always paid them. I say we all just stop and think about why love it so much and forget why its such a problem. So this just means that when buy a new model hey we can't just splurge anymore. This will just make more special to us and we will enjoy painting that model even more beacuse now we will be more inclined to do a better job painting it.


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## OIIIIIIO (Dec 16, 2009)

The way I see it this is very much like what the oil companies in the US are doing. We are in an economic fucking recession and these no good motherfuckers are raising the price on GAS.
Does it cost more to refine now than it did 3 months ago? Not around here, our refinery is on a pay freeze for the last year.
Did the price of oil skyrocket exponentially? Nope, price has been dropping slowly.
Was there some natural disaster that shut down the pipeline? No again.

It all boils down to corporate greed. Henry Ford once said ' There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. ' as well as ' It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages.' and sadly most of these businesses have forgotten these simple rules that have made them a strong business.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Katie Drake said:


> Honestly, I don't even care to try to explain it. I'm not looking to have my mind changed here.


Fair enough - I have never personally signed up to the 'irrational' school of life, but my wife certainly has, so I cant really make comment :biggrin:




> It really isn't, or if it is, I can't grasp where you're coming from.
> 
> _I_ (and others) _feel abused by Games Workshop._ Who would want to continue purchasing product from an organization that abuses its customers? Whether you agree that we are indeed being abused or not is completely irrelevant - we're talking about people's feelings here, emotions are not logical things and you cannot hope to apply logic to them.


I simply do not understand this - I would love for someone to explain this to me. How do you Feel ABUSED by GW? Have you bought something from them and then they demaded more money from them? Peugot recently put their prices up for 207s. i bought one last year (yes I am mad...) - do I feel abused by them becasue they put the prices up AFTER I bought one? Actually, I do feel abused by Peugot - they put the price of a yearly service up after I bought one - I am tied into using their service so their price increase directly affects me. GW does not directly affect you, no one makes you buy their products.

Im just not getting how people can feel that GW OWE them something.



> Between fixing their mistakes and pumping out books faster (not much faster even, I don't want a new Codex every month, just a _little faster_), then yeah, I'd be an awful lot happier with them. I'd still be annoyed by the price increase, but I might at least feel like it was worth it.


Fixing mistakes and releasing errata should be done within a month of releasing a product - frankly that for me is utterly inexcusable because that IS affecting your use of a product that you have paid for - here you and I utterly agree.

But how can you be mad that they dont release codexes fast enough? They are releasing them at a faster rate than they have ever done so this year - what more do you want from them? You cant say 'back in the day they released one every week' because they used to be AWFUL at releasing codexes - Im sure there are a couple of years where they only released 2 codexes the entire year.




TheSpore said:


> I do agree they need to start putting out more support for the game and that the prices are insane, but they have always been insane and we have always paid them. I say we all just stop and think about why love it so much and forget why its such a problem. So this just means that when buy a new model hey we can't just splurge anymore. This will just make more special to us and we will enjoy painting that model even more beacuse now we will be more inclined to do a better job painting it.


:goodpost:


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## ashikenshin (Mar 25, 2010)

hehe I just spent like 100 bucks on gundam models. Stupid GW not releasing Necron soon enough, I'm spending my money on other stuff.

why I play? well I started with MTG and after playing dawn of war the videogame I fell in love with the brand. I then went to the forums at relicnews and they had a forum dedicated to the tabletop. I became interested in the game but here in my country there is no shop, no gathering place for wargamers. Since it's a game I couldn't play because there were no players I decided not to buy. Years later I convinced my brother to play, searching the net we found another two players in the area and now there is 5 of us. I don't think any other wargame would do, we are pretty much set on this one for now.


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## Hurricane (Feb 27, 2010)

@Maidel

This all boils down here to a few simple facts. We no longer want to pay the price to stay involved in this hobby. We don't enjoy having to wait forever for old codices to be updated and rules to be fixed via FAQ (I do think the current rate of codex release is fine though). Those of us living outside the US and Europe don't want to begin paying outrageous prices where elsewhere in the world people pay much less. Those of us living in the US and Europe are troubled by some of these moves because we have no way of knowing where the hobby is going. WE DO NOT CARE what GW's reasons are. It's as simple as that. If the hobby becomes too expensive and necessary support via rules clarifications and such is not given then I don't want to be a part of it. 

Just want to bring up that expense is relative of course since I've seen that argument thrown around a couple of times that this is actually a cheap hobby. When my other hobbies include checking out books from the library, going to my university's rec center, and running, I think I can safely say that I'm paying more for 40k than anything else.


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## unxpekted22 (Apr 7, 2009)

From their facebook page




Hurricane said:


> Hi everyone,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Hurricane said:


> @Maidel
> This all boils down here to a few simple facts. We no longer want to pay the price to stay involved in this hobby.


Thats fine - Ive stopped doing a lot of things i enjoyed doing in my life. I however did that with a teeny tiny bit of dignity...



> Those of us living outside the US and Europe don't want to begin paying outrageous prices where elsewhere in the world people pay much less.


For me - this is the most ridiculous statement - things cost different amounts in different places. I dont want to pay 33% more for Itunes than americans do - but I do. I dont want to pay 50% more for my car than someone from poland does - but I do.



> Just want to bring up that expense is relative of course since I've seen that argument thrown around a couple of times that this is actually a cheap hobby. When my other hobbies include checking out books from the library, going to my university's rec center, and running, I think I can safely say that I'm paying more for 40k than anything else.


The perhaps this is hobby you cant afford?

I would LOVE to do go-carting or some form of motor racing. A guy I work with runs his subaru imprettza (spelling!) at lots of events on an amature basis. He spends an utter fortune on it. I cant afford to do it, I have a wife and baby to house, feed and clothe. Hobbies are expensive, if you cant afford to do it, then sorry, its tough. We all have to make choices in life - Im not here to tell you that you must play the game and that you must buy models from GW - but Im also going to sit here and listen to people moan on and on that the hobbie is too expensive - it is exactly what it is, if its too expensive for you, then im sorry, it really sucks, wish that wasnt the case, but thats life.
If one day this becomes too expensive for me (basically if my wife ever wins the arguement about us having a second child...) then I will, with a heavy heart, put aside new model purchases, carry on painting and playing with what I already have, and wait for the day when I actually get a decent pay rise (pigs have flown faster...)


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## SilverTabby (Jul 31, 2009)

On the comment made on "this is actually a cheap hobby" - I completely agree. My other hobby is LRP, and it's far more expensive, for less tangible longterm results. I have paid roughly equivalent costs for my tentage, weapons, costumes and make-up as I have for my main armies, and on top of that I pay for replacement or repair of these things, then between £30 - £70 for each weekend, not including food and travel costs. Given my armies can be used indefinately once bought, 40k is the far cheaper hobby.

Oh, and in the 10 years I've been LRPing, costs of weapons and weekends have risen at a fairly similar rate to my toy soldiers. There is bugger all I can do about it, it's life. Hence the approach I take of "tough, this is how life works." Welcome to Capitalist life. You want a society where the good of the community dictates how businesses work? Go live in a communist country.


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## Hurricane (Feb 27, 2010)

Please stop with the underhanded comments. I'm quitting and this is a public forum where I can voice my complaints. Yes, this is my most expensive hobby, but that does not mean I cannot afford it. It's like how you said you don't want to pay more for itunes but you do anyway. I don't want to pay for more 40k, so I won't, simple as that.

When the exchange rate between US and Australian currency is fairly similar, why should they put up with paying twice as much as others do? I understand different places have to pay different prices because of shipping, etc but see that doesn't matter to people. All they see is that all of a sudden they are being forced to pay 25% more than they used to. Sure you're ok with paying higher prices, but don't expect others to put up with it.


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## Cypher871 (Aug 2, 2009)

slaaneshy said:


> Basically there is a lot going on here. We can all accept that GW is a business and exists to make money, not keep us in toy soldiers.
> 
> But there is a big HOWEVER here.
> 
> ...




I have spent the last couple of hours reading through this entire thread from start to finish. Whilst folks feelings are running high the one post that really resonated with me was Slaaneshy's.

You see, we are all *passionate* about our hobby, if we weren't we would just say '_costing me too much - time to find something else to do_' and quietly but bitterly ditch it. But if you step back and look at the big picture the pricing issue is really the least of the issues. If you can afford it you will buy it. 

I already have a Massive Marine and Tau army so unless I am going to start a new army (highly unlikely) cost is negligible. It's the social side of the hobby that has deteriorated. I have not played in over 5 years, I hate going into the stores now where once upon a time I almost lived in the damned places. They are just stores now, not hobby venues. White Dwarf...once upon a time I bought it religiously...I had stacks of the damned things...now I quickly flick through it at Tesco's and am consistantly disappointed with it.

After 23 years of collecting I will never, never get rid of my kit...I will, hopefully one day soon, get back into playing if I can find some local opponents. I can see me still building and painting my models till the day I die...and then I want burying with the fucking things...they are mine...all mine muwaahahahhahahaaaaaaa!:crazy:


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## ashikenshin (Mar 25, 2010)

we'll miss you?

I just saw a megaman (rockman) and I want it so bad, 40 bucks though. I will have to wait till after the wedding


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Hurricane said:


> Please stop with the underhanded comments. I'm quitting and this is a public forum where I can voice my complaints. Yes, this is my most expensive hobby, but that does not mean I cannot afford it. It's like how you said you don't want to pay more for itunes but you do anyway. I don't want to pay for more 40k, so I won't, simple as that.


Where was the 'underhand' comment - that would imply I was saying things behind your back or in a subtle but obvious manner - I didnt - I said it in plain english. Possibly you could call it a 'cheeky' comment, but certainly not underhanded.



> When the exchange rate between US and Australian currency is fairly similar, why should they put up with paying twice as much as others do? I understand different places have to pay different prices because of shipping, etc but see that doesn't matter to people. All they see is that all of a sudden they are being forced to pay 25% more than they used to. Sure you're ok with paying higher prices, but don't expect others to put up with it.


I cant remember if its in this thread or another thread - the reason why Austrailians pay twice as much is because their salary is WORTH twice as much. Average earnings in the uk are £18,000, average earnings in Australia after conversion to UK money is £42,000 - therefore prices are twice as much because you have to pay the shop assistant twice as much, the electricity company twice as much, the haulage company twice as much - I could go on, but I think you get the point. I has nothing to do with exchange rate, but the value of your earnings.


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## Hurricane (Feb 27, 2010)

Perhaps not underhanded, but the "irrational school of thought" comment that you gave to Katy and the "leaving with dignity" comment you gave to me I thought were uncalled for.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Hurricane said:


> Perhaps not underhanded, but the "irrational school of thought" comment that you gave to Katy and the "leaving with dignity" comment you gave to me I thought were uncalled for.


 
I stand by my 'irrational' comment - she even said it herself that she was acting emotionally and didnt want her mind changed.

For me - this is irrational - giving up a hobby for which you already have all the models you actually NEED to play the game because of a price rise for models that you dont actually NEED to buy - that for me, is the utter definition of irrationality.

the 'leaving with dignity' well that for me is just good old 'british stiff upper lip' stuff - if you are going out, the go out with your head held high and dont make a fuss.

You can call them uncalled for or whatever you like - but I wont applogise for telling the truth.


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## Anarkitty (Jul 29, 2008)

I just finished reading this thread.
Frankly, Maidel, I think your comments were rude, not just to the pepole they were directed towards, but to everyone who feels the same way.

I, for one, am basically not buying any more GW products for a while if things keep going the way they are. I'll use my existing armies, and fill them out with third party models (that are in many cases better quality and cheaper) and scratch-builds.

The big difference between GW and other companies you purchase products from, that has not been pointed out, is that with GW, it is an investment. When you buy a codex and a unit, that isn't the end of the business relationship the way it is when you buy, for example, a bicycle. That codex and unit are a start towards building a larger collection, which is necessary to gain the full enjoyment of those items. Future purchases from the same company are required to make the initial investment useful.

Once a player has made that initial investment of a Codex, an HQ and two Troops, they can technically never buy anything else and have a technically playable army. However if they wish to fully utilize their purchase, it requires additional investments. Ultimately, when playing with their starter force gets boring, they can choose to set them aside and at the same time write off that initial investment, or they can purchase more models. If GW raises their prices to an unreasonable level, it unfairly burdens the customers who have made that initial investment and forces them to choose between writing off that investment or accepting the higher prices. GW controls the tournaments, the outlets (which for many people is the only location they can go to play) and to a large extent the retailers, and they are able to prohibit the use of alternative models, effectively giving them a top-to-bottom monopoly, albeit within a specific game, but a game that we love and play and in many cases have invested a lot of time and money in.
It is because of that investment, and that ongoing business relationship that i feel it is entirely reasonable and rational for players to be getting upset. GW is exploiting that investment to a level that i agree with many people is unreasonable.

It is perfectly rational to disagree whether the price increase is reasonable or not. I believe, however, that it is irrational to try and say that there is something wrong with being upset about it.



@Maidel: When you express your personal opinion rudely, and then try to excuse it by calling it "truth", you are not excusing anything. You're just being an arrogant prick.


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## Diatribe1974 (Jul 15, 2010)

On a related note (about sending a ton of cash to GW), I just ordered almost 160$ worth of paints to finally get that avenue done for me (going from all but none, save my foundation paints, to I believe being fully stocked up enough to start). Tomorrow, I hit up my Amazon store folks and order even more models, before those prices go up.


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## ashikenshin (Mar 25, 2010)

Anarkitty said:


> @Maidel: When you express your personal opinion rudely, and then try to excuse it by calling it "truth", you are not excusing anything. You're just being an arrogant prick.


pot meet kettle?


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## rasolyo (Dec 22, 2009)

As someone who appreciates the fluff, the hobby aspect, and the gaming aspect of 40k, this price increase probably wouldn't drive me off the hobby.

As a Sisters player who isn't currently affected by this, but by other factors (direct-order only metal models), I'll probably have to weather the new prices when the Sisters will finally be updated so that I can finally have all the models I need.

I just won't be as willing to drop the cash for that DE/SM army I've been considering.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Anarkitty said:


> I just finished reading this thread.
> Frankly, Maidel, I think your comments were rude, not just to the pepole they were directed towards, but to everyone who feels the same way.
> 
> @Maidel: When you express your personal opinion rudely, and then try to excuse it by calling it "truth", you are not excusing anything. You're just being an arrogant prick.


So telling someone that they are being irrational when they themselves admit they are being irrational is rude?

Telling someone to stop moaning and leave with a bit of dignity (if that is what they are doing) is being rude?


Seriously people need to step back and look at themselves before levelling that sort of response at me because if you read back you will notice I have not name called, I have not insulted anyone beyond what I wrote above (which isnt insulting!) and I think you will find it is me who has had people be rude and insulting to me.


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## Djinn24 (Jan 12, 2008)

I really wish more people would actually LOOK at the spread sheet before posting. Not all that many prices are going up and most of the prices raises are targeted at the codexes and battalion box sets. They are seriously just brining all the box sets in line with others of simular sizes.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

@Djinn24-I have looked at it and it appears that Marine kits are getting a 8-12 increase(accept for the SM commander kit). I won't stop buying but I will buy less and more on secondary markets.


@Maidel- I think trying to be the voice of reason and calm is great. But you have to understand some people are just plain upset. This is an emotional response and whether or not it is rational is besides the point because it is thier personal opinion. They might not be able to articulate those feelings in a meaningful way to you. So basically neither you nor they will be able to convince the other to their side. I say just let everyone..including me(a little) continue to vent. Venting is healthy and will relieve stress an angst over this move.

Now lets start a movement to get them to re-release Space Hulk!!!

Doc


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> @Maidel- I think trying to be the voice of reason and calm is great. But you have to understand some people are just plain upset. This is an emotional response and whether or not it is rational is besides the point because it is thier personal opinion. They might not be able to articulate those feelings in a meaningful way to you. So basically neither you nor they will be able to convince the other to their side. I say just let everyone..including me(a little) continue to vent. Venting is healthy and will relieve stress an angst over this move.
> 
> Now lets start a movement to get them to re-release Space Hulk!!!
> 
> Doc


I've never been big on 'public venting', I think protest marching and striking should be illegal because it never solves anything and just makes people's lives miserable... Maybe that's just me 

But damn right with space hulk, although I'm pretty certain they said they broke up the mold after they finished the run.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Maidel said:


> But damn right with space hulk, although I'm pretty certain they said they broke up the mold after they finished the run.


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! it is to expensive on ebay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Doc


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## Inquisitor Aurelius (Jun 9, 2008)

Maidel said:


> I've never been big on 'public venting', I think protest marching and striking should be illegal because it never solves anything and just makes people's lives miserable... Maybe that's just me


I'm fair certain the former British colony of India would like to (peacefully) disagree.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Inquisitor Aurelius said:


> I'm fair certain the former British colony of India would like to (peacefully) disagree.


No, no, that is a fair point, and immediately after typing it I heard a radio news about Egypt and syria. I will amend my statement to exclude genuine protests about human rights, suffering and hardship.

Specifically I was thinking about firefighters, train drivers, students, lecturers and the BA cabin crew all of whom caused untold hardship, pain and in a few instances led to people's deaths all over tiny amounts of money.


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## Hellgore (Jun 19, 2008)

Maidel said:


> There are two things wrong with that statement.
> 
> 1) They barely pay out any divident and on top of that they have said that they wont be paying a divident accept from profits - its in the financial review they released - it basically says 'dont expect much of a dividend from us'.


0,30 pounds per share. Officially anonounced.



Maidel said:


> 2) Large shareholders are often the directors of companies, it tends to go hand in hand with owning large numbers of shares. GW is a business, businesses are in it to make money, shareholders invest in companies to make money. Thats a fact of life. I cant believe you would get so upset about the board of GW making relatively small amounts from their share divident (£100,000) when you consider the big screw balls who have directorships and large numbers of shares in companies like BP are taking home £10s of millions in dividends from their shares, and they are one of the biggest causes of inflation at the moment.


Of course are businesses in to make money. And I don't blame them. But as a basic rule your customer should be willing and able to buy your products. GW hassles retailers, keeps raising prizes arbitrarily, provides faulty products (intellectually faulty as in messily written rules) and ignores complaints of its customers in order to take care of these errors. GW keeps losing marketshares to competitors like battlefront or privateer press and their sales are dropping year by year. So, how is this a positive direction again?



Maidel said:


> That sort of process doesnt work for a company like this. If you buy up a company that has big assets and slowly split them up and sell them off, then that makes sense - GW simply doesnt have that. It has its IP and it has its stores - thats it - if you kill the stores and kill the gamers, then you kill the value of the IP - no one will buy a dead system with no players, and thus driving away the players devalues their IP and thus their investment.


Oh, you certainly can drain a company off its money this way, seen it in my home area time and again. It's a fairytale that you have to slowly split up a company to squeeze out more money than being healthy.


I wonder if you really read the final halfyear report... 

Six months to Six months to Year to
28 November 29 November 30 May
2010 2009 2010
£000 £000 £000

External revenue
Sales businesses
Northern Europe 16,999 18,250 36,769
Contin. Europe 17,514 17,756 35,974
North America 14,520 14,840 31,270
Australia 5,032 5,159 10,795
Emerging Markets 
and Japan 1,647 1,857 3,416
All other sales 
businesses 4,323 4,677 8,287
------------- ------------- -------------
Total external 
revenue 60,035 62,539 126,511


And this despite the fact GW had a price increase EVERY YEAR!

Yeah, but just keep on defending this management, you so obviously know just everything about GW...

I qoute again:
"Sales were down largely as a result of shortfalls in Northern Europe and North American retail following staffing changes in Games Workshop Hobby centres to reduce overheads. Continental Europe made similar staff reductions in retail a year ago and that territory is in growth in the first half.
The emphasis is now on customer service training to deliver like for like sales growth in all territories. A net 16 new Hobby centres under the low cost format were opened during the period. Sales through independent retailers grew in Northern Europe and North America. Elsewhere the picture for trade was mixed although both Italy and Japan have delivered a steady increase in new account openings. The Web business has performed satisfactorily as it settles into its normal trading patterns following a major upgrade last year."

As I already stated: the independent retailers like my FLGS, that by GW report are the only areas where sales grew, are being bullied with inacceptable demands of what to stock while not getting access to the whole product range. And these smaller shops WILL someday make the decision to not sell GW products anymore. If you can't make a profit out of it, why should I provide it for GW? Their margin is covered. 

Once again: I'm not one of those "I quit the hobby"whiners. I will continue to play, but where I invested somewhat 5000 Euros in the past years I will now very carefully pick the stuff I buy in the future and I will certainly not start a new army or invest significant amounts in my existing ones. And I know I am not alone with this point of view.

Yes, it is an expensive hobby. But GW shouldn't forget that there are other tabletop wargames as entertaining as 40k with a better company support and a better price/value-ratio. It's not that I have to compare it to say playing Computer games or an instrument. I can buy an army of 1750 points for flames of war for about 250 euros. If I start a new 40k-army I must invest more than 500 Euros right now (in this case a competitive SM army, can be much higher if you don't take the posterboys). 

I would wish GW would rather try to improve their sales than keep alienating their customers with their current policy. I like the minis and I basically like the game, would do more so if it wasn't so flawed. 

You can just go on dancing before the GW-altair and pray to the golden calf of economics.
:dunno:
:bye:

Edit: argh, won't display the numbers although I formatted them


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Hellgore said:


> 0,30 pounds per share. Officially anonounced.


And that aint much of a return in comparason to investment.

And you failed to read the front of the document where it clearly states that dividends are pretty much at an end:

_Where does that leave us? Pretty much where we have always been: a small, steady-growth company that will pay a dividend when it has the cash. The difference now is we are not going to make promises about the dividend - once bitten, twice shy. Shareholders who look* for a predictable dividend on their shares* might want to look elsewhere._



> Of course are businesses in to make money. And I don't blame them. But as a basic rule your customer should be willing and able to buy your products. GW hassles retailers, keeps raising prizes arbitrarily, provides faulty products (intellectually faulty as in messily written rules) and ignores complaints of its customers in order to take care of these errors.


What GW does with its independant stockists pails in comparason with how supermarkets like tescos treat their producers - they basically buy up all their stock, give them nice contracts, and then once that producers is entirely dependant on them for their business, they rip it out from under them and offer them shocking terms which they are forced to accept or go out of business - GWs business practices are nothing in comparason to those sharks.



> GW keeps losing marketshares to competitors like battlefront or privateer press and their sales are dropping year by year. So, how is this a positive direction again?


Who said anything about a positive direction? The problem is you assign the loss of business to their competators solely on GWs price increases and bad business practices, when infact you should look at GWs competators and simply ask 'how comes everyone else for 30 years did such a bad job at competing with GW that these guys now look good'.



> Oh, you certainly can drain a company off its money this way, seen it in my home area time and again. It's a fairytale that you have to slowly split up a company to squeeze out more money than being healthy.


Again - it totally depends on the business - if they can earn more from the company in dividend and pay checks than it cost to invest, then sure - I somehow in this case think not. A good example of that practice was the phoenix group that bought Rover for £1. That meant that irrelavent of the debts and costs associated with running the group, they could pay themselves £millions for a few years, let the company slowly die, and come out in profit. Anyone who has shares in GW has NOT been in that situation, they had to buy the shares with real money and you wont get that investment back without selling the shares for more than they bought them for.



> I wonder if you really read the final halfyear report...
> 
> Six months to Six months to Year to
> 28 November 29 November 30 May
> ...


Where did I ever say I had - but judging by my quote above that you appeared to have utterly missed, I fear that you are not practicing what you preach...

What were you trying to show with these figures - you have quoted them, but not explained what it was you were trying to achieve. Thanks.




> Yeah, but just keep on defending this management, you so obviously know just everything about GW...


Please let me make one thing utterly clear - I am NOT a GW appologist - I do NOT think that GW makes all the right decisions, I do NOT agree with everything that they have done - however I do think that yearly price rises, especially at this point in time, are entirely justified.

To give some examples of the things I DONT agree with:

LOTRs - that abomination should never take up space in white dwarf and should never have been made (although its money bubble did improve things on the plastics front so it has had a positive effect in some places)

WD becoming nothing more than a big advert with a battle report in it.

Stopping selling individual metal parts and individual plastic sprues (thank the lord for bitzandkits...)

The utter disregard for specialist games that people forked out a lot of money for and were then promptly dropped like they never existed.

and various other things I cant remember right now.



> Once again: I'm not one of those "I quit the hobby"whiners. I will continue to play, but where I invested somewhat 5000 Euros in the past years I will now very carefully pick the stuff I buy in the future and I will certainly not start a new army or invest significant amounts in my existing ones. And I know I am not alone with this point of view.


Good - an utterly sensible and logical response - I have utterly no issue with this - and everything you wrote there matches with my feelings as well.


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## Vinci76 (Sep 12, 2008)

Wusword77 said:


> Gas is rather quickly approaching $5 a gallon (USD) and people are wondering why prices are going up?
> 
> Prices don't exisit in a vacuum guys. GW is raising prices because they need to maintain a certain profit margin to remain in business.
> 
> ...


all of what you say is correct, but GW is going over board with the increases, they don't follow natural inflation, and at what point does a plastic 28mm model or a box of 5 or 10 of them become ridiculously over priced.

GW for years have been manipulating the codex lists to squeeze more and more from the hobbyist, in 1989 i paid £12 for 30 plastic space marines and £15 for 8 Metal Terminators, since then the price has obviously gone up but over the last 4 years the price rises have been ahead of inflation while the codex cost for a marine (or other choice) has dropped allowing more space in a 1500 pnt army for more models.

18 months ago you got 18 or 20 guardsmen in a box, now its only 10, but the price didnt go down, it actually went up... 

basically the price has risen, the amount of models you get has dropped massively and the list cost has dropped so you need more of them to fill a 1500 or 200 pnt army... 

that is a company ripping the piss out of its customer base. :suicide:


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

I am continuing to complain because somewhere Maidel or was it Djinn24 said they would eat there cat if people where complaining in a month...lol


Doc


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> I am continuing to complain because somewhere Maidel or was it Djinn24 said they would eat there cat if people where complaining in a month...lol
> 
> 
> Doc


That was me. And as I said it had to be people not just a person.


And I just changed the rules to say you don't count


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Now Wait that isn't fair...I am a forum member... I should count and I will mobilize more so we have a group.:sarcastichand:

Doc

P.S. I have cats also so I won't let it get to the 30 day mark...lol


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

Vinci76 said:


> at what point does a plastic 28mm model or a box of 5 or 10 of them become ridiculously over priced.


when all people stop paying it, but as FW prove time and time and time again we are nowhere near that point yet, they are asking £32 for 5 resin heresy assault troops and people will happily hand over the money.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> P.S. I have cats also so I won't let it get to the 30 day mark...lol


Really? If you had cats like mine you might well do so simply to put me out of my misery!


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## Cypher871 (Aug 2, 2009)

bitsandkits said:


> when all people stop paying it, but as FW prove time and time and time again we are nowhere near that point yet, they are asking £32 for 5 resin heresy assault troops and people will happily hand over the money.



...and if they have any sense will invest in some RTV and resin and make themselves shit loads more...fuck 'em!


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## Shandathe (May 2, 2010)

The price hike on Assault on Black Reach is the one I truly have a problem with.

True that FW charges more, but that's for people who are already deep into the hobby and want to take things a step further. In the end, the lifeblood of the game is that new people join, and GW - at least in my eyes - is slamming the door in their faces.

Other than local clubs providing armies/troops to play with/borrow, where the hell is the entry point? Start off with 2 x Troops and 1 x HQ choice to begin a basic army. Looking at the GW site for the posterboys, that's 2 x £23 for two Tac squads and £13.80 for an SM commander. 

Almost 60 pounds. And that's before adding a rulebook, the specific codex, templates, dice, and paint.

This IS the designated beginner set to get around the price issue somewhat - A not entirely usable starting point on 2 armies for £56.50. The point is that it's desperately important the price for that, at least, doesn't go up, but it DOES go up by 10%.


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## Cypher871 (Aug 2, 2009)

Shandathe said:


> The price hike on Assault on Black Reach is the one I truly have a problem with.
> 
> True that FW charges more, but that's for people who are already deep into the hobby and want to take things a step further. In the end, the lifeblood of the game is that new people join, and GW - at least in my eyes - is slamming the door in their faces.
> 
> ...


Traditionally, starter box sets have always included two basic forces to game with, both 2nd through to latest edition box sets for 40K and WHFB.

I have always thought that a better way to go would to be to produce themed box sets that contain a specific army starter set, dice, rulebook, templates and Codex for that army that could then be complemented by the appropriate Battleforce box set.

For entry level players that would make a smart introduction in my eyes. The A3 size rulebook that started in Battle for Macragge and continued with Assault on Black reach was quite a neat touch and it's forward thinking like this that would make the game easier to access. That said they would need to pitch the price at the right level.


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## CursedUNTILLDEATH (Apr 25, 2010)

Some of that isn’t too bad, but really, wtf on the boyz and the guardsmen. How many of those do I need to form my army base? I fucking lot.

I’m done with 40k for the moment, going over to fantasy as it doesn’t look like it got hit as hard (well, my armies didnt). 

On second thought, GW...just go die. I will be ordering my Flames of War army shortly.

Edit: I feel for marine players...thats not even funny...

Edit again: ARE YOU KIDDING! I cant by from discount sites any more?! Go shove it you basterds, I wont be buying jack shit from you for quite some time now. I really feel like crying... i cant afford your shit anyways, now i cant buy from Darkshpere? Rasing your prices is one thing, but taking away my only source to buy your products had just cost you any business your going to get from me in the future.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

CursedUNTILLDEATH said:


> Edit: I feel for marine players...thats not even funny...
> .



In the future could you be specific and state Ultramarines.....We need some people to feel for us because we get no love.


Also that's the spirit people...STay mad and continue to post!!! If we keep this up Maidel will have to eat a cat!!

Doc


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> Also that's the spirit people...STay mad and continue to post!!! If we keep this up Maidel will have to eat a cat!!
> 
> Doc


Ive told you before, and ill tell you again - you dont count.

And ill add to that that people who respond to you're 'taunts' also wont count :so_happy:


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Maidel said:


> Ive told you before, and ill tell you again - you dont count.
> 
> And ill add to that that people who respond to you're 'taunts' also wont count :so_happy:


You don't play fair and have now ruined my plan for he next couple of weeks to occupy my internet time. There isn't much going on in Iraq for me besides trying to get some dude to eat his cat...lol:laugh:

Doc


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> You don't play fair and have now ruined my plan for he next couple of weeks to occupy my internet time. There isn't much going on in Iraq for me besides trying to get some dude to eat his cat...lol:laugh:
> 
> Doc


Oh how we miss use our armed forces... (well obviously not 'our' as in the UK because quite evidentally you dont work for them!)


But I am glad to give some 'purpose' to your currently dull life :biggrin:

All you have to do now is work out a way to indirectly egg people on and you will be winning.


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## Shandathe (May 2, 2010)

docgeo said:


> In the future could you be specific and state Ultramarines.....We need some people to feel for us because we get no love.


Two words:

Matt. Ward.


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## Firewolf (Jan 22, 2007)

>> I know I'll probably get called a cock/prick/cunt/arsehole etc etc, but here We are again. If people are being honest with themselves, they probably bitched 6/12/18 months ago with the price hikes that GW sucked and they were never gonna buy anything from them again EVER, but still buy their minis now, and probably still will. Its a business, and GW, like all other businesses are about making money. They dont care about the consumer, even thougn they may make out they do. I bitch and complain about price rises everytime GW bring one cos Im a consumer, and Im entitled to, cos its my hard earned cash GW want. Perhaps, as others have said, the big nobs at GW will realise they are pricing themselvesd out the market, but until that day, shit will stay the same. So We just gotta suck it up and get on with it. Agree/disagree, the choice is yours.:victory:


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Firewolf said:


> >> I know I'll probably get called a cock/prick/cunt/arsehole etc etc, but here We are again. If people are being honest with themselves, they probably bitched 6/12/18 months ago with the price hikes that GW sucked and they were never gonna buy anything from them again EVER, but still buy their minis now, and probably still will. Its a business, and GW, like all other businesses are about making money. They dont care about the consumer, even thougn they may make out they do. I bitch and complain about price rises everytime GW bring one cos Im a consumer, and Im entitled to, cos its my hard earned cash GW want. Perhaps, as others have said, the big nobs at GW will realise they are pricing themselvesd out the market, but until that day, shit will stay the same. So We just gotta suck it up and get on with it. Agree/disagree, the choice is yours.:victory:


Well if that makes you a c*ck/pr*ck/c*nt/*rs*h*l* then it makes me one doubly so.

You arent wrong and this will all blow over until the next time GW do a price increase.


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## presc1ence (May 23, 2010)

Sorry , but all this whinging has confused me.
So everyone is kicking off that the now have to pay a similair price to what we are payignin the UK?????
Instead of getting it cheaper than we can. When we actually live and work in the country it is produced in.

Don't seen any problem at all.

Or am I not getting summin here?


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

What the issue is is that for years they were getting it at the current exchange price by simply buying it from a UK or US distributor and paying for shipping.

Now they have to buy it from a local distributor and pay the mark up based on the value of their countries average earnings (give or take) which is making them nearly twice the price they could have been bought for before in some areas.

However this has been coupled with an actual price increase in all areas and the switch to resin which is increasing the prices.

So they are now paying the prices they should have paid before AND having a price increase meaning that in some areas they are paying over twice what they used to.

Sucks to be in those areas, but GW is basically just clamping down on some loop holes that shouldnt have been their in the first place.


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## boreas (Dec 4, 2007)

Maidel said:


> Now they have to buy it from a local distributor and pay the mark up based on the value of their countries average earnings (give or take) which is making them nearly twice the price they could have been bought for before in some areas.
> 
> However this has been coupled with an actual price increase in all areas and the switch to resin which is increasing the prices.
> 
> ...


Once again, I'll have to correct this idea... The cost of Life in Toronto (most expensive Canadian city) is about 20% less than the cost of Life in London. So, basically, on average, everything costs about 20% less if you figure the whole package of what an average consumer buys. Yet, my GW products are 33% more expensive? I'm not trying to snipe at you Maidel, but their is no going around it: GW, like a lot of major companies, is justifying their use of foreign exchange as a profit leverage by using the "cost of salaries" or "helping local businesses". Car makers, Electronic makers and lots of other companies have been there in the last 3 years (since Canadian dollars has reached parity with th US dollar) and all of them have been shot down by consumer advocacy groups.

Phil


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

boreas said:


> Once again, I'll have to correct this idea... The cost of Life in Toronto (most expensive Canadian city) is about 20% less than the cost of Life in London. So, basically, on average, everything costs about 20% less if you figure the whole package of what an average consumer buys. Yet, my GW products are 33% more expensive? I'm not trying to snipe at you Maidel, but their is no going around it: GW, like a lot of major companies, is justifying their use of foreign exchange as a profit leverage by using the "cost of salaries" or "helping local businesses". Car makers, Electronic makers and lots of other companies have been there in the last 3 years (since Canadian dollars has reached parity with th US dollar) and all of them have been shot down by consumer advocacy groups.
> 
> Phil


hang on, hang on - that was me talking about australia - very very different circumstances there.

Canada is just basically getting screwed sideways for having its currency out of wack with the USA.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Maidel said:


> hang on, hang on - that was me talking about australia - very very different circumstances there.
> 
> Canada is just basically getting screwed sideways for having its currency out of wack with the USA.


Ohhh Great!!! :ireful2:Its the USA fault again....really...we have price increases also and the GW board of directors aren't American

Doc:sarcastichand:


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> Ohhh Great!!! :ireful2:Its the USA fault again....really...we have price increases also and the GW board of directors aren't American
> 
> Doc:sarcastichand:


What it actually is is that outside of north America we simply think of all Canadians as basically slightly more intelligent Americans who speak French...


Ps - I would like to state that I have family in Canada and I'm not actually some British snob who doesn't understand the world.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Maidel said:


> What it actually is is that outside of north America we simply think of all Canadians as basically slightly more intelligent Americans who speak French...
> 
> 
> Ps - I would like to state that I have family in Canada and I'm not actually some British snob who doesn't understand the world.


Wait isn't speaking french and being more intelligent an oxymoron?:wink:

Jk
Doc


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

docgeo said:


> Wait isn't speaking french and being more intelligent an oxymoron?:wink:
> 
> Jk
> Doc


No no no. It's being BRAVE and speaking French that's the oxymoron 


Oh the sweet irony in all these statements if people new my real name...


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## Chubbles (Apr 28, 2011)

I have a question, sorry if this has been addressed. What happens to the current models that will be pulled off the shelves and replaced with the newer models? Will they be sold at a discount to various retailers or simply just taken out of circulation and put in some storage unit somewhere?


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Chubbles said:


> I have a question, sorry if this has been addressed. What happens to the current models that will be pulled off the shelves and replaced with the newer models? Will they be sold at a discount to various retailers or simply just taken out of circulation and put in some storage unit somewhere?


If you are refering the the old metal models? I assume they will be melted down and the metal sold off - its probably more valuable to them doing that than 'flooding' the market with cheaper alternatives than their own new models.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

Maidel said:


> No no no. It's being BRAVE and speaking French that's the oxymoron
> 
> 
> Oh the sweet irony in all these statements if people new my real name...


good thing i failed toronto French manditory classes then back in highschool XD


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## Chubbles (Apr 28, 2011)

Maidel said:


> If you are refering the the old metal models? I assume they will be melted down and the metal sold off - its probably more valuable to them doing that than 'flooding' the market with cheaper alternatives than their own new models.


True, I guess that makes the most sense


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

Using the spreadsheet as an example a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce will rise 22.5% thus it will rise from current price of $150Au to rounded up to $185Au or $192USD.


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## Diatribe1974 (Jul 15, 2010)

Achaylus72 said:


> Using the spreadsheet as an example a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce will rise 22.5% thus it will rise from current price of $150Au to rounded up to $185Au or $192USD.


Ouch. That's pretty brutal. Ebay still works for Aussies, yes? Or is that being shot down as well as a means to bypass the mass arse-ramming ya'll get in terms of prices?


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord (Apr 17, 2009)

Diatribe1974 said:


> Ouch. That's pretty brutal. Ebay still works for Aussies, yes? Or is that being shot down as well as a means to bypass the mass arse-ramming ya'll get in terms of prices?


Not much GW can do about Ebay. It's still more expensive than Wayland & Maelstrom, so we still get a bit of gentle arse-ramming.


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## kriswithak (Mar 31, 2010)

Maidel said:


> What the issue is is that for years they were getting it at the current exchange price by simply buying it from a UK or US distributor and paying for shipping.
> 
> Now they have to buy it from a local distributor and pay the mark up based on the value of their countries average earnings (give or take) which is making them nearly twice the price they could have been bought for before in some areas.
> 
> ...


Ohh the sound of total and utter ignorance. Its beautiful. Not the blissful kind. The ironic kind.
Wages and living costs between the UK and Australia are almost 1:1.
Thats BEFORE the currency exchange.
When the Australian currency was weak... like 3+ years ago, the pricing was to compensate for the fact that the Australian dollar was worth 35-40p.
Since then its worth has basically doubled, and is remaining strong and steady, with alot of analysts saying it may go higher.
The product started cheaper in the US for a variety of reasons, when I started the hobby the US was a much weaker market for them.

So firstly your claim about country earnings is just wrong. Not a little bit wrong, but hysterically stupidly wrong. Especially when you consider that a portion of the people supporting this game are students, also meaning that any attempt to define earnings needs to probably be reduced by anything from 30-60% to equate for younger wages. Thats even before you define the target audience, which sadly CANNOT be targets purely on income. It would be nice to try, but this is the year 2011, any marketing company using purely income related demographics will be laughed out of business.

Then you need to consider how much stronger the Australian dollar is. Its basically doubled in worth vs the pound in the last few years. Depending how large the actual costs of running the shops and staff are here we should have seen a massive drop in prices. Akin to what happened with TVs and similar.
You have to keep in mind that the same infrastructure they pay for here, they pay for everywhere else meaning you can't just claim that the cost of running stores suddenly needs to double the price of a product.

The problem exists because in the past if you wanted to import from the UK you saved maybe 5-10% because the internet stockists gave a small discount, and your shipping ate into that, plus the exchange rate kept the cost of models here to the UK roughly equivalent. Fair really.

Now this isn't the case. If anything running costs should have dropped due to massive issues with small business profitability, in many areas rents had to drop to ensure that companies didn't simply fail, and we avoided a recession. Especially with shops now running 1 (maybe 2) staff, instead of the previous 3~.

Luckily the british currency has dropped as well as the USD, otherwise it is likely that the prices in the US would have had to change to more closely reflect the pricing here, when our dollar was so cheap.

The matter remains however that now the pricing is unfair, and there simply is no justification. Looking at previous years figures Europe has been a money sync, that we could argue Oceania has paid for.
If the sellers truly are causing such a loss of profit for GWS then it simply proves the point that the pricing structure needs to be reassessed and fixed.

A small difference, even 10-15% in price would mean that Australians would buy here for convenience. 50% is a joke, and its no wonder that people refuse to buy big orders from local shops.

Its just sad to see such ignorant fellow consumers who seem to revel in the suffering of other gamers, perpetuate the stupid and utterly false rubbish sent out by GWS about how they TRY to justify cost differences.
I guess in the end however Australian's will have the last laugh since America's economy has nowhere to go but down.

The GWS Motto could be: "When people hear our name they may not know what we sell or produce, but they ALL know we are bloody expensive"


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

I'm sorry, all of what you have said is utterly unsourced. I did my research, I have posted links to my findings in numerous threads. 

If the cost of living in Australia was in fact 1:1, then they are far far better off than they are under my workings as australians earn many many more dollars than we earn pounds.

Do some research, post links and prove me wrong, otherwise you are just arguing for the sake of it.


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord (Apr 17, 2009)

kriswithak said:


> Ohh the sound of total and utter ignorance. Its beautiful. Not the blissful kind. The ironic kind.
> Wages and living costs between the UK and Australia are almost 1:1.
> Thats BEFORE the currency exchange.
> When the Australian currency was weak... like 3+ years ago, the pricing was to compensate for the fact that the Australian dollar was worth 35-40p.
> ...


What he said.


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## kriswithak (Mar 31, 2010)

Maidel said:


> I'm sorry, all of what you have said is utterly unsourced. I did my research, I have posted links to my findings in numerous threads.
> 
> If the cost of living in Australia was in fact 1:1, then they are far far better off than they are under my workings as australians earn many many more dollars than we earn pounds.
> 
> Do some research, post links and prove me wrong, otherwise you are just arguing for the sake of it.


Tell you what.
We'll pretend that you have had university education. So just provide some referencing to back up some FACTS.
The difference between your generalizations and mine is that mine actually have a backbone of truth.
There is a good reason many Australian's used to move to the UK to work. Same dollars earnt, except when they came back the exchange rate would almost triple their money.

Also if you don't even recognise that the initial pricing difference is based upon the major currency differences in the past then I'm sorry for your mental disability. I won't continue further as it would be unfair. For you.


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## Rathios1337 (Jul 2, 2010)

Edit 

Cant read


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

kriswithak said:


> Tell you what.
> We'll pretend that you have had university education. So just provide some referencing to back up some FACTS.
> The difference between your generalizations and mine is that mine actually have a backbone of truth.
> There is a good reason many Australian's used to move to the UK to work. Same dollars earnt, except when they came back the exchange rate would almost triple their money.
> ...


Seems the Internet ate my first response.

1) use the search function, search for my posts, there are two that are fully referenced.

2) I have 2 degrees, work full time and am working on my msc.

3) have I personally insulted you or anyone else on the forum? No. In fact I don't even swear, I always self bleep. Having said that cut out the fucking personal insults.


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## docgeo (Jan 8, 2010)

Maidel said:


> Seems the Internet ate my first response.
> 
> 1) use the search function, search for my posts, there are two that are fully referenced.
> 
> ...


:goodpost:

I am not sure if Maidel is correct or kriswithak is with their facts and assumptions. I will add though that maidel does always present his facts and side in a professional manner that encourages dialogue and debate. Personal attacks are usually out of frustration which is understandable given what is going on but remember we all as a community support you all "down under" and feel terrible about what is going on.

Doc


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

A research thinktank called The Australian Institute recently published the current mark-ups on Australian Retail Prices from their international counterparts. Toys (GW products are classified as toys under import regulation and insurance charters) are marked up by *75% to 125%* above their international counterparts.

Just to make it clear that i stated using the spreadsheet comparison that a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce will be getting a 22.5% increase to $185Au, well that ain't true, i have been told it will be a *30% *increase, making a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce $195Au which at current exchange rate is $206.60USD.

So what is the mark-up of the *Australian RETAIL* price over the US price, well it is *87.5% *mark-up over the *US RETAIL* price. This is consistant with the Australian Mark-Up of between 75% to 125%.

Think yourselves lucky America and Britian, imagine you paying a further *87.5% *on top of what you are paying after the upcomming price increases.


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

Achaylus72 said:


> A research thinktank called The Australian Institute recently published the current mark-ups on Australian Retail Prices from their international counterparts. Toys (GW products are classified as toys under import regulation and insurance charters) are marked up by *75% to 125%* above than their internation counterparts.
> 
> Just to make it clear that i stated using the spreadsheet comparison that a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce will be getting a 22.5% increase to $185Au, well that ain't true, i have been told it will be a *30% *increase, making a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce $195Au which at current exchange rate is $206.60USD.
> 
> ...


Ide a quit GW years ago if I was being charged that kind of insanity


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## increaso (Jun 5, 2010)

Achaylus72 said:


> A research thinktank called The Australian Institute recently published the current mark-ups on Australian Retail Prices from their international counterparts. Toys (GW products are classified as toys under import regulation and insurance charters) are marked up by *75% to 125%* above their international counterparts.
> 
> Just to make it clear that i stated using the spreadsheet comparison that a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce will be getting a 22.5% increase to $185Au, well that ain't true, i have been told it will be a *30% *increase, making a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce $195Au which at current exchange rate is $206.60USD.
> 
> ...


Whether fair or not, doesn't this prove that it is normal to pay a 75%-125% mark up on 'toys'?


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

increaso said:


> Whether fair or not, doesn't this prove that it is normal to pay a 75%-125% mark up on 'toys'?


Yes, and it conclusively proved why Australians are becomming very savvy about buying on the internet.

Like some clothing lines sold here in Australia are marked-up by 152% comparible to the same item in the USA in the same chain of stores.

I'll use this as an example XYZ Jeans are sold by Kalathumpian Clothing in the USA for say $80.00USD retail, here Kalathumpian Clothing sells XYZ Jeans for $206.60 (taking into a dollar for dollar exchange rate), many Aussies are now finding that they can buy XYZ Jeans on the internet for $80.00Au, and with say 10% postage charge it makes for a very cheap purchase.

There has been a call within the clothing retail sector to bring in a mandatory fitting charge, retailers have woken up to the fact many go into stores to try on clothing to find out what size they are, and using that they purchase overseas, making poeple pay to try clothes on is an avenue to reclaim lost revenue.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

@Achaylus72

To be fair the fashion market is far more competitive.

That hypothetical pair of jeans likely costs $5 to produce and maybe another $5 to ship once it has made its way around the world from what ever sweatshop made it. (I'm not endorsing the sweatshop mind you.) So the mark up even for wholesale on those jeans is pretty obscene. 

And unlike GW, there is a vital well distributed market for producing and marketing jeans. Many clothing retailers recently have been reducing prices to draw customers (in the States), not the snootiest ones, but pretty much everyone else.

GW controls the chain of their product to the end retailer. Not that they control the end retailer, but they manufacture and sell it wholesale and retail - essentially without competition. If there were other major companies mass producing GW spacemen then we might have a clear analogy.

@kriswithak - That was a pretty snarky reply, and the tone was pretty far outside the civil discourse we have thus far had on this topic. Vitriol can be reserved for GW's actuaries, not our members. 

It is certainly possible you might be correct, and if you are I'd like to see some supporting proof. It would vindicate a lot of our members who feel taken advantage of. However, so far our investigation has only partially borne out your assertions. Thus far it seems like the operating cost in AU is generally higher based on our outside understanding of AU wages and shipping costs to AU. But with the changes in currency valuation, that GW's profit margins in the AU market could skyrocket if they successfully kill internet vendor sales to AU. 

As far as I understand it, after production costs GW would earn the following per unit:

(wholesale price profit margin + retail markup to RRP) - (taxes + import costs )

And if the RRP remains the same or increases after the change in currency valuation, then the net profit on any unit increases proportionally to the strength of the AU dollar.


. . . I wonder how much of this comes down to no competition in a market? Since there is or will be, no outside sales source then there are limited alternatives to giving GW that difference in currency valuation.

Cheers,
Kreuger

p.s. - Who in their right mind pays $80 for jeans in the States?


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

@Kreuger

p.s Who in their right mind pays $80 for jeans in the States.

Paris Hilton, oh wait you said in their right mind, right?


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## increaso (Jun 5, 2010)

GW have priced the product in geographical regions at a price that they think will sell. The method for the pricing may be precise or bonkers or somewhere in the middle. When you sell a product it is for max profit for minimal cost (with the additional task of growing the business).

GW have also taken steps to prevent internet sales from one 'cheaper' region to a more expensive one. I can understand that this is to protect sales.

The way I see it (and I don't mean this to sound awkward) GW are well within their rights to do this and it is not 'unethical' per se.

In my view, the awareness and availability of a (no longer available) cheaper opportunity is why this matter has been aggressively opposed. As Maidel has said elsewhere - it is not the up to 25% hike on RRP that has annoyed Australians, but rather then the +80% hike via the change in the trade account selling agreement. 

GW have either done their maths and will make their sales in Australia. Did you know 8% of the global sales (by value) in the last half were made in Australia? I assume those GW stats can only consider local sales rather than EU traders to Aus.

The proof will come in the next 12 months. If Australia sales go up and EU sales go down then they have done it.

However, I think most intelligent forumites will either vote with their wallet or find uncoventional means (i.e. not illegal) to obtain discount products from Europe.


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

increaso said:


> GW have priced the product in geographical regions at a price that they think will sell. The method for the pricing may be precise or bonkers or somewhere in the middle. When you sell a product it is for max profit for minimal cost (with the additional task of growing the business).
> 
> GW have also taken steps to prevent internet sales from one 'cheaper' region to a more expensive one. I can understand that this is to protect sales.
> 
> ...


8% by value, this is because we are slugged 87.5% mark up of what you pay would you be so confident if we actually see that in the UK that overnight a Chaos Space Marine Battleforce rises to 96.00BP.

Also because of the 87.5% mark-up this is a false figure if overnight we paid the same as you in Britain the Aussie sales value to the overall global position is reduced to just 1% of sales value, you just don't see this.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

Achaylus72 said:


> Think yourselves lucky America and Britian, imagine you paying a further *87.5% *on top of what you are paying after the upcomming price increases.


The thing is, thats just not the case.

Ive posted all the figures before and Ive found them:

Average wage in australia: $64,641 *http://www.emigratetoaustralia.org/a...australia.html*

Average wage in UK: £25,800 (harder to pin down its somewhere between 18,500 and 25,800) *http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/best-paid-jobs*

Conversion of Auz to UK: *http://coinmill.com/AUD_GBP.html#AUD=$64,641*

Australian average salary in the UK = £42,337.80


So its not quite double, as the UK average salary appears to have gone up a little bit since I found the figures but it is 1.65x the uk average salary.

You are saying that in australia they have an 87% mark up on prices - well australians have a 60% mark up on their salary over UK counterparts and then if you consisder shipping costs you are looking at only a 10-15% mark up really.

PLEASE - someone PLEASE find the fault in my reasoning based on those numbers - I actually WANT to be proven wrong because no one agrees with me - but no one seems to want to refute the numbers, just shout at me.


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## increaso (Jun 5, 2010)

Maidel said:


> PLEASE - someone PLEASE find the fault in my reasoning based on those numbers - I actually WANT to be proven wrong because no one agrees with me - but no one seems to want to refute the numbers, just shout at me.


The only variable that has not been considered - and I consider the available data to be too limited - is the actual value of disposable income that each country has to spend on non-necessities after tax and bills.

Once you have sifted out the tax, rent (or equivalent) and utilities you are left with a number of factors.

Is a car a necessity? What are the fuel price variables? Maybe a car is more necessary in one country or another. That is just an example. Is it necessary to have two cars?

What you want to know is how much money, on average wage, someone has to spend of leisure items.

Maidel, you might be able to figure this out and conclude that actually Australians have the same percentage of leisure money as in UK (so that we equate to £ x 1.65). I did point to some date on this the otherday that revealed that leisure funds in UK and Aus were equal by %, but I can't vouch the the accuracy of it.

The problem in Australia is that they (and again, I don't mean this is a bad way) have seen how good people have it in the UK (or how bad they have it) and as a consumer they are annoyed that they are paying double-ish what they paid before, that is, if they choose to keep buying the stuff.

I can understand the frustration to some extent because I have a car that is made in Malaysia and in the UK most car fuel filters cost £20-25. The one for my car is £70+ and it cannot be bought in the UK from anyone but the dealer. I know it's not the same exactly, but it the same point of 'buy from one manufacturer and get lumbered with their local pricing'.


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## Maidel (Jun 28, 2009)

increaso said:


> The only variable that has not been considered - and I consider the available data to be too limited - is the actual value of disposable income that each country has to spend on non-necessities after tax and bills.
> 
> Once you have sifted out the tax, rent (or equivalent) and utilities you are left with a number of factors..


Oh I 100% agree - its not an exact science. I have said in many places in many threads that because the average wage is 1.65x higher, then it is most likely that EVERYTHING will be between 1.5 and 2x more expensive, thus they do not earn 1.65x the amount earnt in the UK and then have the same living cost as in the UK.

The living costs are going to be in proportion, or slightly higher than in the UK (due to many things being imported long distances).

This does not detract from the fact that when they purchase direct from the UK they are in fact buying at a MASSIVELY decreased rate - akin to us being able to purchase a box of marines for about £15 as apposed to 25.

I have used this example over and over again - this is not confined to australia - this happens the world over. I buy Itunes songs at 99p, wherease they are 99c in the US, which is about 60p.

This will not change. What GW is doing is NORMAL for companies. Australians have had a very cheap ride purchasing from the UK with their higher earnings and currency conversion rates. Its finished now, welcome to the real world that everyone else has been forced to live in for the last 5+ years.

This sucks. I dont take any pleasure in it, I dont enjoy this in some sort of weird 'ahaha its your turn now' way, its just a fact.


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