8th Ed. Games Workshop increased prices again?

Been looking on the UK website and some of the box sets have had random increases in price, Is this going to be a new trend? the price increase doesn't make any sense.

 

Yep, it was their annual price revision. Which means rise. Not everything went up, but a lot of things did. They do it pretty much at the start of June every year. They've pretty much stopped announcing it.

Actually, this round got a massive amount of negative feedback all over the place, to the point that the CEO wrote a (crappy) letter and people were banned from the GW facebook page.

 

I've never noticed it before, I just didn't understand how they could explain how they are increasing certain sets when nothing has changed to them. I'm not surprised they have gotten negative feedback, it's already becoming ridiculous to collect certain things (for example 10 normal orcs are £18)

 

I am sooo glad I already have enough figs to field 3K+. Otherwise, I couldn't afford to finish my army. Seems like yachting would be a cheaper hobby right now.

 

Hey Arli, if you don't play GW tournaments where only GW models are allowed, check out the Mantic Undead. The zombies and ghouls are particularly beautiful models, and the skeletons are quite good as well. I bought a large Mantic Undead force to go with my already big VC force, and they fit in the same army pretty well, plus the prices pi$$ on GW; Liche King's Hell Horde for example has over 200 models for 150GBP. I'd hate to think how much the equivelant GW would cost, well over double.

Australian GW prices have really gone beyond a joke. A few particularly bad examples; Archaon (a guy on a horse) costs $83, the two Empire special characters (again guy on a horse) are $65 each, Blood Knight box is up to $165, a carnosaur is over $100, even TG are $69. Hell an army book is pushing $70, and a batallion $170.. And remember the Aus dollar is worth pretty much the same as the USD now, even a little bit more.

 

Wow... thats bad.. If you feel like it you guys can buy pieces from the U.S. and i'll ship them out because those prices are waaaaaaaaaay ridiculous!!

You'd think that to increase profits and to encourage more people to play the game that they would lower prices but I guess not.. -.-

 

Well strew I have an inkling that GW is trying to stop the hobby in Oz... What the hell man! That's bloody ridiculous!! How do they justify THAT?

 

Strewart, any chance of getting a link to that letter from the GW CEO? I'd love to hear how they're trying to spin this.

 

I can't find it at the moment.. Was on the GW website somewhere for a while. It was basically a paragraph only that said they set their prices on what they think the market can bare, and they believe with the quality of their models prices are appropriate.

On prices, I still don't know why the hell resin models went up in price from the metals.. Resin is a cheaper material, and lighter so cheaper to ship, the details seem no better to me and a large portion of models seem to have miscasts. To compare, when Mantic changes a product from metal to resin they either half the price or double the amount of models in the kit for the same price.

I did find again their letter in response to disallowing UK stores to ship to the rest of the world though. Thats right, I could order from the UK for ~50% of the prices here, which was fair, but last month they banned that too.

Yep, apparently the independents that are actively marketing products to me constantly via newsletters, attending shows and conventions, and have gaming tables in store are just freeloading. And I should be paying double the price to cover basic kid level painting advice in a GW store that I have NEVER used. Now, no one I know is buying models because of prices, despite their 'recruiting' in store so it has had the opposite effect of what they wanted, additionally, now I cannot recommend anyone start the hobby because the prices are so high, so they have not only lost customers but potential free recruiters. They've lost the plot if you ask me.

Of course, I still enjoy the game and I will definitely still be finishing and playing with the models I have (Lizardmen are my #1 priority now ), but I will not be buying from GW or suggesting anyone start. I know I've said a lot, but I really don't want to stomp around sounding bitter and posting this all over the place, I've really gone past the point of caring so I will not be shoving an agenda down everyone's throat here, or actively telling every new member to not waste their money, I'll just leave topics like that alone, I'm only posting in this one because its on topic.

I am looking forward to Mantic's sci-fi game later in the year, and starting to play Dystopian Wars, which is a great game.

 

Strewart,

Thanks for that. I really got a kick out of reading that letter. It's amazing to me to see how things end up costing us more but we get the same thing... I began this hobby in 2000 and I remember that a box of 10 space marines was $18.50 (USD). Don't get me wrong, of course they have changed the cast, made better molds of them and for that, I'm thankful... but are you telling me that all that has made the cost of these guys more than double?!? It's also true of their spray paint - 10 years ago I was paying $7 (USD) for a can... nowadays, it's the same thing - nothing new here. No new chemicals, no nothing. The same thing! And it now costs $15! It's just unbelievable to me. Because of this, I do not buy GW models. They are literally pricing themselves out of the market. I don't understand the justification of raising prices every year. I know that they have to change with the market and all that... but c'mon... they've been beating up the consumer for years now... I can't remember the last time I bought a brand new box set. I have now resorted to buying from other website, at a much lower cost, or finding some guy that started it, can't afford it, and now he's trying to unload it. I'm with you Strewart, I wouldn't recommend anybody trying to start playing this game right now. It's too freakin' expensive!

Same as Strew, I love playing, painting, modeling, and sculpting. The thing for me - now - is that I have had to resort to alternative methods to satisfy my "tabletop" hunger. I don't subscribe to White Dwarf anymore because of the same thing. $9 a magazine??? Anyways, don't mean to rant about this it just gets under my skin every time I look up and there's another price increase. Not to mention that I can paint much better than any person I've ever seen working in an actual GW... But that's a whole 'nother conversation. What happened to the good old days?!?

Ok, I'm done now. Thanks!

 

No one should be comparing prices from over 5 years ago, let alone over 10 years. Inflation, commodities, gas and oil prices, and raw materials are just a few of the markets that affect ALL businesses. 5 years ago, I could fill up a tank of gas in my car for $45, but now it takes over $66 for the same vehicle.
Don't get me wrong. I DON'T like the price increases. But at the same level and as a business owner, I can understand them. The great thing about a Hobby is that you have a choice to either buy and play or not. For now, I choose buy and play. For tomorrow... we'll see.

 

While I agree that you should not compare prices from 5 or 10 years ago, you should compare the difference in price between competetors similar products. In addition, the more a company sells, the cheaper they should become as the more the company sells, the less each individual sale has to offset the initial capital investment (i.e. the mold). So, take a look at the models offered by GW, and look at models offered by other companies (some already mentioned in this thread). And then buy (or not buy) whatever you feel like.

 

I agree ThakCo. Though my post was about GW models only, as a consumer it does pay to "shop" around. Personally.. you can get GREAT deals from E-Bay.. and on some things not, though I know that's a taboo word at most game shops. As a matter of fact.. I just purchased a $1 dinosaur toy that I plan on converting to a Steg so I wouldn't have to pay the high prices for the original.

 

Well you can look at how much they have changed over time, obviously inflation happens and most things increase in price (though I will debate that further down), plus their rent and wages go up etc. but for the vast majority of products, this is usually about 5% tops. In 2001 I could buy a regiment box for $34.95, they now cost $55. Thats nearly a 60% increase. For orc boys, its well over 100% since the exact same kit of 20 models back then is now a box of only 10.

Some worse examples, a unit of Temple Guard was $42 when it first came out 2 (3?) years ago. The same box is now $69. Its a 72% increase in just 2-3 years! THats absolutely unprecedented inflation, NOTHING has gone up that much. Not as bad, but stegadons have also gone up nearly 30% in the same 2-3 year period. Archaon was $50 when he first came out in 2004, so in just 7 years he has gone up a massive 66% and got no better.

Now, compare to the so called inflation of other industries. Games, when I was buying brand new games in the late 90's they cost me about $80. Today, I can buy brand new games for still about $80. Games have improved a huge amount in 10-15 years, but have not gone up in price. In fact, if you follow the price of a game over time, within a few months of release it has dropped from $80 to $60 or so, some drop faster than other but all games do drop fairly quickly in price. Yet the exact same sculpts for GW go up over time?

Actual hardware, a large flatscreen TV used to cost a couple of grand. These days, I can buy a new big flatscreen tv for only a few hundred. Big price drops. I paid $2000 for a 'fast' new computer in the late 90's, a fe months ago I bought a fast computer for just $800. Consoles plummet in price over time; PS3 was $1000 when it first came out, it is now less than $500. Even books start expensive and then drop in price once they have been out for a few months.

In fact, now that I think about it, I struggle to think of anything that has decreased in value over time rather than increased or stayed the same besides GW. A noticeable exception is petrol, which has gone up a lot in the last 10 years, but I can't think of anything besides that.

 

@strewart: Man, you took the words right out of my mouth. Inflation is going to happen, I get that... but at the rate these guys are inflating...? Unbelievable. Perfect examples that you threw out there, couldn't agree more. Some things I expect to go up, but the molds of GW (that haven't changed one bit since their initial release) doubling in just a couple of years? Yea, that's ridiculous. A few cents increase is fine and one that I can handle... but when you start doubling the cost of things for no good reason: BS! Nice follow up here Strew.

 

Thanks Strewart for your information. Though I agree on most of it, I dont' see how comparing prices of different industries (in your example - games/electronics - though I do agree on their stagnant pricing throughout the years) has any direct or indirect relationship to the IP. Other than a representation of a % difference, it has no bearing on the GW buisness model (more on that later). IMO, it's like comparing apples to oranges with the only common factor is they are both edible and fruit.
And yes, inflation, gas and oil, rent etc. all goes up each year and usually a small % by themselves. But when an industry is hit by several small % raw material and commodity increases the outcome is a much larger % increase which usually a portion of that is refected in the final price (not value). Inflation, historically, has an average increase of 11% every 10 years (based on my ecomics professor). Add to that the gas price gouging we've had here in the States (not sure of other countries so cannot address that), it's a ridiculous rollercoaster that affects everything here. And lately it's been an a weekly basis.
So, how much does GW truly need to increase their prices by? That depends on their business model. Yes, it's fair to compare their business model with other like-hobbies. And as consumers we always compare the final price or even the % increase of the price. Businesses can look at the final prices and compare that to their competitions, but their raw materials is where they look to see if they can get a better deal. If they can't, then they look at other ways to cut costs. Usually the last thing business *want* to do is to increase the cost of their product because they know that they could/will potentially lose their customer base. So, that comes down to their business model after all the other avenues have been looked at. And, IMO, GW's business model doesn't look to be in good shape.
So, yes. IMO, their % price increases on GW's models are really high. Do I like it. Heck no. From GW's standpoint, perhaps they "had" to. But like I mentioned. No business wants to increase their product's prices for fear of losing customer base... well... unless that company is run by greedy Dark Elves.

 

Games Workshop have admitted that they do not use a cost plus based pricing scheme but a market price scheme.

In a cost plus based scheme companies work out what direct costs there are (plastic, metal, cardboard), apportions overheads (moulds, shop staff rent, bosses) and adds on a bit for profit so the investors will let them keep on trading.

In GW's case the overheads are so large in comparison to the direct costs that cost plus doesn't make very much sense (it also invalidates virtually everything that GW has said about material prices causing prices rises!).

In market price scheme you use the power of your branding to charge a premium over generic competing products or the monopolistic power of your IP rights to remove/reduce competing products. GW use both these routes proting the quality of their brands while beating up and fightening every competitor they can find. Market prices are only limited by what the market will bear (what the mugs or the parents will pay!) or the long term damage the policy does to the size of the market.

GW has noticed that in the short term at least the demand for models is inelastic (i.e. the demand stays the same when the price goes up). This is understandable as the extra amount on one model is small in comparison to the amount already invested in buying (and assembling/painting) the rest of the army.

The danger in GW's strategy is that demand only remains inelastic in the short term. GW survived the carnage that the gaming industry sufferered in the eighties/nineties by providing the shops to keep new players coming in to the scene. If they can keep that going and keep surges of interest like LotR happening then they can keep the market large enough to support them.

I don't like their pricing policy but I understand why they do it.