Shock/Suprise...another GW price hike

[EZ mac]

Gw will be the cause of their own closing.

They raise prices so people buy from discounters online & not real concrete stores.
Stores go out of business or stop carying Gw- no sales.
Players have no where to play, so stop getting Gw all-together.
Gw goes bye-bye.

Gw is really too big to just die off like that, too many people already play to have everyone go coldturkey like that.

If GW really notices a trend of their stores loseing money and notice huge discounts online then gw will simply cut off the online places from who they sell to, just like that. It's not like any online place MAKES the minis they simply are a storefront who get the same deal us lgs do (we make 45% on gw same as them) they just do not have overhead past the cable at their moms house (it's a joke!) so can eat the 20% less in order to sell more.

Pluss there will always be someone ou their to buy their stuff, we have the military here in Monterey and every first and third Friday we run out of gw stock (military payday=win!). Other then that our locals wil pick up about $100 a month in gw stuff (if they are veteran guys) or the kids who really really really want to start and get their parents to get a Aobr set and $200 in paint then poof their gone (about 6a month of them) and finaly the 'ohhhh shinney' crowd who see something like the new blood angel crack and instantlY get $250reserved. These people spend the same amount no matter how much it costs they simply will just get less stuff so if they want more then they will buy it at a later time so will spend $300 instead of $250.

The only thing that the price raise will do to lgs's is that it alienates(sp?) the old school gw players and new (non mitary) crowd because of sticker shock.

But eh, I have my 3ish space marine companies and other armies, I think I'm fine for a bit to paint.

[carmachu]

Gw is really too big to just die off like that, too many people already play to have everyone go coldturkey like that.

Not really. ALot of people have "quit" GW to cause issues, like most of bartertown's folks. Your not here to buy at full price, now are you?

I got 5K-7K in orks, 98% gained in trade here or dakka or elsewhere. I'm converting and building it and will be playing shortly. GW loses out on money, so did the local FLGS, but I'm still playing.

Pluss there will always be someone ou their to buy their stuff, we have the military here in Monterey and every first and third Friday we run out of gw stock (military payday=win!). Other then that our locals wil pick up about $100 a month in gw stuff (if they are veteran guys) or the kids who really really really want to start and get their parents to get a Aobr set and $200 in paint then poof their gone (about 6a month of them) and finaly the 'ohhhh shinney' crowd who see something like the new blood angel crack and instantlY get $250reserved. These people spend the same amount no matter how much it costs they simply will just get less stuff so if they want more then they will buy it at a later time so will spend $300 instead of $250.

The question then becomes, can the shiney people sustain GW, when many of us have decided GW's prices are not worth the cost($50 tanks come to mind). You can only cut costs, license IP and play currency games to gain money so much. If you dont actually sell more(which their not), then sooner or later you wont be able to stay in the black.

[EZ mac]

GW is really just overinflating their price at a bad economic time and not ever lowering it (with very few exception). If they did this before the recession then it would be gravy and no one would really care past the initial shock.

They are trying to sustain the same profits each year with a consistent percent for profit (which is normaly the sign of a very strong company) but they havent come up with a decent plan on how to do this, they decided a while back that price hikes would still have the same amount of people play or if nothing else the percent of people who drop out would not outweigh the price hike.

GW really does not care about you, thats the sad truth, as long as someone is still buying their stuff they will continue to do this. The gw thinkers dont really know how much is being traded, sold here, or some other none retail number backed information so they just dont care. Pluss anything that gets traded is still baught by someone in the world, its not like its new.

If gw really cared theyed hire a real editor to write the rulebook, faq (when the book is released) and fix the majority of the cruddy things that 40k has going for it.

Trust me here, I really like 40k fluff and minis.... the rules not so much (the basic stuff is ok but the interaction in a few things nope no likey). I buy at a discount 24/7 already but yeah ill still feel it and Im not happy about it.

[GMMStudios]

The question then becomes, can the shiney people sustain GW, when many of us have decided GW's prices are not worth the cost($50 tanks come to mind). You can only cut costs, license IP and play currency games to gain money so much. If you dont actually sell more(which their not), then sooner or later you wont be able to stay in the black.

Yes and they have been for about 3-5 years. If I had to put money on it I would say 60-75% of sales are "shiny people."

Which in turn causes GW to cater to them, as we have seen. People like me and you who are veterans and in it for the long haul still carry a large portion though which is why black library exists, and they arent as blatant with power creep and scale creep as they could be.

Thats why you see "flavor of the month" but at the same time they will never mandate a game size or straight up make each new codex 25% more powerful than the last. 40k is overall book to book balanced. All the way from Dark Eldar up to the new Blood Angels. Blood angels havent been out long and I guarantee they have lost a lot of battles already to dark eldar. These are all proof to me that we are indeed on GWs mind.

[carmachu]

Yes and they have been for about 3-5 years. If I had to put money on it I would say 60-75% of sales are "shiny people."

Judging by the last finacial report, I'd put it more at either "maybe" or more likely "not really".

Looking at their profit, once you strip out things like cost cutting savings, currency exchange games, IP licensing and look at things like unit sales.....the picture isnt pretty. They're not really moving units, and they keep moving less over the last decade, all the while the prices keep going up.

Its hard to gain new customers when your gateway box(ABOR) has gone from $50 to $75 and now jumps to $90. Thats a barrier.

[GMMStudios]

No, I'm positive a good chunk of their sales are to impulse buys.

Price rises effect them the least. They dont know an AoBR box was $50.

Its hard to gain new customers when your gateway box(ABOR) has gone from $50 to $75 and now jumps to $90. Thats a barrier.

Dont forget $90 being "expensive" is all perspective. Not everyone thinks exactly like you, or me, or MM, or whoever. Some people might think it is a good deal. Just saying. If AoBR started at $90 no one would be complaining right now, and the consumer base would have been out that much more money. Funny how that works.

[GMMStudios]

Also I believe AoBR was initially a huge loss leader (meaning they lost or made no money on it).

Consider at $50 what comes in it. Not only that they sell it to retailer for $25. I dont believe that they were doing AoBR at $25 with the books, the dice, the models, the templates, the packaging, etc AND making a profit at $25. So more than likely at $90 they are making money and have decided AoBR doesnt need to be a loss leader.

Also consider similarly priced kits. A tank is $50 (or 25 for them). I dont think anyone can believe that AoBR was making them money at that price when you can assume a tank with so much less in it was just making a profit.

[carmachu]

No, I'm positive a good chunk of their sales are to impulse buys.

Price rises effect them the least. They dont know an AoBR box was $50.

Dont forget $90 being "expensive" is all perspective. Not everyone thinks exactly like you, or me, or MM, or whoever. Some people might think it is a good deal. Just saying. If AoBR started at $90 no one would be complaining right now, and the consumer base would have been out that much more money. Funny how that works.

No its not. Not in the current economic climate. If ABOR started at $90, people might not complain(because there's no 50-75-90) but I would bet hard money they'd sell alot fewer. The consumer base would not be out more money, because they'd sell alot less.

Just like its been happening pretty much over the last decade, barring a lsight bump in 2004. But unit sales, once you strip out a bunch of stuff, arent rising.

[MagickalMemories]

Also I believe AoBR was initially a huge loss leader (meaning they lost or made no money on it).

Consider at $50 what comes in it. Not only that they sell it to retailer for $25. I dont believe that they were doing AoBR at $25 with the books, the dice, the models, the templates, the packaging, etc AND making a profit at $25. So more than likely at $90 they are making money and have decided AoBR doesnt need to be a loss leader.

Also consider similarly priced kits. A tank is $50 (or 25 for them). I dont think anyone can believe that AoBR was making them money at that price when you can assume a tank with so much less in it was just making a profit.

I don't know, man... I hear what you're saying, and I don't have an effective argument AGAINST you, but GW is sending more and more crap to China, from what I hear. It truly would NOT surprise me if they could produce that in China and still make a profit.
Not that it would be MUCH of a profit... but something...
I just would not be surprised.


Eric

[Gaijin18]

It's everything made in china now?

Does anyone remember way back when,before they built the factory here in the US and how that was supposed to drop prices and what not? laughs

I really don't think the price hike yet again,,,mutters,,,will effect older/veteran players much as we either have steady jobs and can budget for things or save up for them,but as Ive recently started going regularly to the store I started gaming at I have noticed that there are hardly any younger players anymore.
When I started you had all age groups,,,young kids,teens(shudders) older teens and older people,,now its either mid 20's+ I don't know how many times I have over heard parents and their kids talking bout how cool the models are till they look at the price and NO is repeated several times before rushing out.

If there aren't new players being brought in the game will die,which is rather sad.

[EVIL INC]

Well, if you can produce a product cheaper by outsourcing to a country where you can pay workers pennies on the dollar to produce the product as well as get the resources to make it for less, you make more money. Car, computer and other producers learned that years ago. So yes, while if AoBR would cost $25-$30 to produce in the U.S. and only cost $10-$15 to produce in China, it only makes sense that they would make it in China and put the rest into profits.
What they don't seem to realize is basic economics.
If you sell a product that costs $15 to produce for $90, you are making a huge profit on ti. $75. But if you are only able to sell 100 items of the product, you are only making $7500.
Now, if you sell the same item, at the same production cost for $50, you may only be making$35 profit on each one. Not a huge profit, but still a VERY respectable one. Now consider if your lower prices cause you to sell three times as many of them, your total profit is $10500.
Not only are you making $3000 more but you are also creating a larger player base who will buy more of your other products and also making your customers happier and more likely to want to support you.
That is why GW was so successful in it's earlier years and became such a big name. That is how they operated. It was not until they started going away from that and headed down the road of overinflated prices that they started having trouble.
I gotta agree, you see les and less younger players every day because even rich parents are starting to reach the limit at what they will pay for "lil Johnny's toys". Also, older players are becoming disgusted and moving on. What you are seeing now are the young (in the 20s) people with high paying jobs. Which means they are a transient customer base and GW is just digging the hole deeper. Were they to move back towards their original methods, I can bet you they would start seeing the company become more successful.

[fitterpete]

Do you guys honetsly believe it cost them $25 to produce a $50 tank? C'mon I bet it's more like $10.The Leman Russ used to cost $22.50 and they made money.Do you really think production cost have gone up that much?

[carmachu]

Do you guys honetsly believe it cost them $25 to produce a $50 tank? C'mon I bet it's more like $10.The Leman Russ used to cost $22.50 and they made money.Do you really think production cost have gone up that much?

Somewhat. INcrease in production costs- they opened a new facility in teh US, no? Had to pay for that. PLus they have other costs. But no I dont think production costs justify year after year increases.

[EZ mac]

Ok so for the whole blackreach set thing. it has 1x dred ($40) , 10x tact ($37.25), 1x comander ($20), 5x terminators ($50), 1x warboss ($17), 5x nobs ($25), 20x boyz ($49.50), deff coptas ($45? theyre the same as bikes?), 1x rule book ($57.75)

so in all if the stuff was not in aobr it would be around $324.50 in stuff nib in its regular packaging. Because its doesnt come with all the options say its half value so $162.25 in stuff, so how is that not a good deal at $90 now? heck even say that its only worth 1/3 of the actual price and its still $107.09 pluss tax. 1/4 maybe? hey now its down to $81.13 is that better? The aobr is the best deal gw has ever done and them selling it at $50 hurt stores because we could not sell anything from it in their own box (like tactical squads and shooty termies), even at $75 its still smarter to buy the aobr set and then trade away whatever you do not want. Them raising this price is honostly to help lgs's out so WE sell more.

any games workshop thingy they sell is sold to the store at 55% valu, so a aobr set comes out to $49.50 with the new value. this $49.50 needs to cover the shipping charge, the plastic, the moulds, the CEOs, the warehouses, the sculptors, the painters, the people on the phone, the ard boyz prizes, and all the other jazzyness that GW needs money for.


Here is gamesworkshops balance sheet. on page 24 its were they get into the numbers.
investor.games-workshop.com/downloads/.../gw_year_end_09.pdf

look through it and then compare it to any actual big company like Mc Donalds, Nike, or Wizzard

[carmachu]

Sorry, but that rule books isnt worth the $57.75 price tag you put on it. 1/3 maybe. You cant compare a hard cover book at that price with whats in the ABOR.....Nor can you claim the dread and tactical squad at full pop since you dont come with all the options in the squad and vehical boxes(same with the orks and nobs).

Still not a good deal at $90. For you or maybe me that wants to flesh something out, sure, maybe- keep in mind the dread I think only has one weapon and the marines(lets assume that thats the army you want to play) arent the best nor multi-post. But that aside, its not about being a good deal, its about being an entry into the game. At $90 thats a pretty high barrier to new game, that you have to put together. At $50 it was a great price to grab folks and drag them in.....$75 is pushing it. At close to $100 for entry that you will still have to buy more to actually play a full game it seems like a deterret then a gateway.