Games Workshop Pricing Feedback Thread

[orik]

I figured I may as well ask this hear, rather than starting a new thread,

why are GW prices so high in AUS?

[Melkanador]

why are GW prices so high in AUS?

Because they can.

At least it seems GW reached its tipping point (= losing more sales than gaining through the price rise) in Australia as GW didn´t raise the prices this year in Australia.

Edit: Of course this is just an assumption, maybe GW just forgot to raise the Australian prices or the Queen asked them not to or a heart breaking letter from little Timmy in Australia made the CEO cry. Who knows?

[simonr1978]

£65 is for the limited edition version.

The normal version will be the same price as the current AoBR

So for £3.5 you get a limited edition plastic mini

And how do you guys get to a 41% price increase?

The AoBR came out at a retail price of £50. At a £61.5 pound current price, that is a 23% increase over 4 years. Seems pretty close to inflation in the UK to me.

Inflation's been running at under 4% for quite a while. According to this site: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/b...nged-1900.html total inflation since 2008 has been 8% making that £54 now, considerably less than the 23% you've quoted.

[gutsmaka]

I figured I may as well ask this hear, rather than starting a new thread,

why are GW prices so high in AUS?

the "official" reason is shipping prices

[Wintermute]

the "official" reason is shipping prices

Plus exchange rates and various taxes and import duties.

Exactly the same occurs with kits which are imported to the UK from Japan and China ie the prices are much cheaper in the country of manufacture compare with the prices charged in the country they are imported to.

[AlexHolker]

Plus exchange rates and various taxes and import duties.

Taxes and import duties that don't exist, mind you.

[Comrade Wraith]

Realistically, will Games Workshop ever lower their prices (or equivelent, maintaining prices but increasing miniature count)? I remain quite perplexed as to the true reasons for their current prices because there are so many bounced around.

I'd love to get back into games workshop, but at the current prices I could only justifiably afford to build an army one box at a time, by which time the newer, more expensive army book will be released. In short, I can't afford to keep up with each new edition. There is always ebay, but many bargains are OOP or not useful in new editions.

My attentions have long since been grabbed by other games (and writing some of my own), but I was just wondering if a more informed type might be able to give me some hope.

[jack da greenskin]

£65 is for the limited edition version.

The normal version will be the same price as the current AoBR

So for £3.5 you get a limited edition plastic mini

And how do you guys get to a 41% price increase?

The AoBR came out at a retail price of £50. At a £61.5 pound current price, that is a 23% increase over 4 years. Seems pretty close to inflation in the UK to me.

It came out at £40 in 2008.

[gutsmaka]

Taxes and import duties that don't exist, mind you.

as said; "official"

[Reinholt]

Let's not BS about Australia. The answer is "because they can".

The remaining question is if customers will buy or not.

[Finnigan2004]

Actually, Reinholt, the answer is a little more nuanced I think. It's "because they think they can". Their ridiculous price disparity, coupled with their ill planned embargo and a new edition with bigger armies, have pretty much killed Warhammer Fantasy in the interior of British Columbia. I travel to many parts of my province, and shop in about ten different gaming stores. Other than Vancouver's GW, you can't get a game of fantasy on most nights at most stores. It must still be played in some people's basements-- in fact, I have a couple of buddies who still hold out with me and play the odd game. When we go down to the store though, we pack our Privateer models because we seem to be the only people interested in Fantasy in town, while warmahordes tourneys pack 'em in. Even for my buddies and I, the amount of money that GW makes is not significant. We buy the rules and the odd new army book, but seeing the lack of opponents, our hobby money pretty much goes to Privateer these days. It's a strange phenomenon because we probably like GW's games and minis as much or more.

Warhammer 40k still limps along as possibly the third most popular system at our LGS, but it's dropped precipitously in participation over the last five years. These are the results of a business plan that amounts to a blank sheet of paper. If GW really wants to survive in many areas of the world, they have to come up with a coherent pricing strategy. So far, I see no signs of it.

[Trasvi]

I figured I may as well ask this hear, rather than starting a new thread,

why are GW prices so high in AUS?

Its been hashed out a number of times before, but the short of it is:
GW is not unique in charging inflated prices for products sold in Australia. Try ordering books, clothes, electronics, software... The main reason that all these other companies charge so much, is (as said above) because they can.
This is mainly because up until 2007, we were accustomed to the old prices, which were relatively good against the world exchange rates. But there has been a significant shift in exchange rates, and a significant increase in the public acceptance of buying online, and people are now angry that the prices haven't changed immediately to reflect the new prices. It might happen eventually, but probably not.
GW now claims that they are paying for shipping and 'luxury goods' taxes. If they're paying luxury goods taxes, thats a level of stupidity so high they don't deserve your business. There will be some taxes (10%) but not significant enough to affect prices much at all.

[strewart]

I still don't think GW products can be compared favourably to the higher prices of everything else in Aus compared to other countries. Most of the discrepancy is, as said, simply due to the Aus dollar being really strong in the last 5-6 years and prices not changing to reflect that, retailers are getting a much larger profit margin now than pre-~07, and simply choosing not to pass savings on. However, in terms of the actual Aus dollar shelf prices, everything else is pretty much remaining steady or in many cases becoming better value as time goes on (games, clothes books they're all the same price they were 10-15 years ago). On the other hand, GW keeps jacking up the prices and not improving value for money at all. Almost the exact same tactical squad I bought 12 years ago for $32 is now over $60 for example, and many have become even worse than that especially WHFB in dropping from boxes of 20 models for $32 including a unit base and metal command (10-12 years ago) to boxes of 10 for $45, sometimes up to $70 for elites. That is NOT just the same case as most other things being comparably more expensive because of exchange rates, but still being about the same AUD value.

Interesting, when I came onto WS today and checked my subscribed threads this is the only one that is related to GW, all the others are for other manufacturers/games which used to be rare if there was even one. Looks like GW has lost me as a customer and veteran as well. Their loss.

[therisnosaurus]

Uhhh... what? http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/ca...d=prod1670022a

AU$102 for 5 Centigors...

And how the hell is anyone supposed to afford a regiment of these guys? http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/ca...d=prod1670030a

And AU$41 for this? Are they withdrawing the urine? http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/ca...d=prod1670024a

Though this is not strictly related to price, something tickled me here. Here is a portion of the swordmasters description linked:

"Sword Masters are not only experts with a blade, but they also learn to fight with their bare hands or with any other weapon they can reach, especially their finely balanced ceremonial great swords.

Each of the Sword Masters of Hoeth carries long swords, which are decorated by gemstones. They all wear elongated helmets featuring a long, hair-like plume, long robes, as well as decorative chainmail and armour."

you know, with the prices they're charging, you'd think they'd be able to hire someone with a firmer grasp of description and grammar to write their product descriptions. There are so many little things wrong in those few sentences...

[Hellebore]

Though this is not strictly related to price, something tickled me here. Here is a portion of the swordmasters description linked:



you know, with the prices they're charging, you'd think they'd be able to hire someone with a firmer grasp of description and grammar to write their product descriptions. There are so many little things wrong in those few sentences...

Are you kidding? We're living in the renaissance of Wardian script. From purple prose to rinse and repeat phrases - I lost track of the number of times in the necron codex he said 'and so'...

That's practically shakespearean given GW's current 'literary' 'quality'...

The AUD prices just keep going up, their writing keeps getting worse and I spend my time on more worthwhile things.

Hellebore

[logan054]

I can see the point, but then I have to ask: will they have problems selling this box because of the non-generic marines? Had it been generic marines I might have bought the box (depending on the final price), wanting to get the book and treating the models as a nice bonus. But now I’ll try to grab the book of eBay instead, as I don’t want to pay money for something that I cannot use.

I guess it depends how quickly the release the DA codex, of that is out to go along with the box set then I really doubt they will have any problem selling, how many people are going to but it just for the chaos models? Hell, I will be looking ebay for the chosen with bolters to make my standard chaos marines, I've looked at that box and it just screams alpha legion to me which is something I have never done, you may even find some chaos players will use the DA as fallen DA? Honestly I can't see any issue with sell it, I doubt it will take much work to pass the DA models off as normal marines, just some filling down.

But if you talking about kids buying it, they won't care, they will just paint them badly as whatever chapter they want, I still wonder if part of the reason is to put people off buying the set to bolster marine armies on the cheap, well, it wont be working on me like I said, it really seems perfect for my Blood ravens, it will just add a 4th terminator squad to my army lol! (well unless I sell them, I do still like the space hulk termies).

[loveless]

You'd be surprised how easy is it to scrape detail off of GW plastic.

That said, I don't mind the DA - I'll probably paint them up as a successor and call it good. The price of GW's September releases bothers me less and less...I'm not even sure why. They may have actually hit the right mix of quality/cost on Dark Vengeance...but I'll have to wait until I see the product in person to be sure.

[Schmapdi]

Yeah - I'm a bit disappointed by them being DA as well. I have a small SM force (basically, AoBR + some assault marines). And I always thought "well, I'll expand them the next time the starter kit gets updated."

But GW foiled my plans again! I don't think the DA stuff would mix in that well with the plain marines.

[TheMav80]

My Chaos army is already a mix of power armour types from chaos marines, space wolves, berserkers, tactical marines, and chaos fantasy bits. So I look forward to using the whole box to make up some more power armoured dude mans.

I won't be using the actual bikes though. I will use the bits that make up the riders, but I think bikes are dumb.

[Gertjan]

You'd be surprised how easy is it to scrape detail off of GW plastic.

That said, I don't mind the DA - I'll probably paint them up as a successor and call it good. The price of GW's September releases bothers me less and less...I'm not even sure why. They may have actually hit the right mix of quality/cost on Dark Vengeance...but I'll have to wait until I see the product in person to be sure.

Actually, I found myself thinking "Hmm, seems pretty decent value" aswell. I wasn't planning on buying the whole set, just the booklet off ebay but I think I might just get the set and swap out the chaos for more DA and add a tank and an attack bike and call it a day, another army done.