Games Workshop Pricing Feedback Thread

[Shimmergloom]

Finecast resin is way better then metal. You also assume that it saves them money, based on what people on the internet (who also have no idea) assume. This makes you look like an idiot.

Yes, I'm an idiot for seeing that other companies switch to resin or resin/plastic without price raises or with even price DECREASES and don't just assume that switching to resin was more expensive.

Why not just switch to silver or gold minis GW? Since you apparently like throwing money away by switching from that cheap, cheap, cheap metal to the super expensive resin.

[Imp of High Noon]

Finecast resin is way better then metal. You also assume that it saves them money, based on what people on the internet (who also have no idea) assume. This makes you look like an idiot.

Actually, as a professional modelmaker i consider myself extremely qualified to know the ins and outs of casting in a variety of mediums and that resin is indeed cheap. 1kg of silicon will set you back around £25, you'll get a number of good quality multi part moulds out of this, depending on the silicone being used a mould may produce 40 - 140 casts before degradion. A 2kg kit of polyurethane fast cast resin will cost around £35 inc VAT from a supplier such as Alec Tiranti, this will produce around 100 28mm (heroic) scale human sized miniatures at a base cost of £0.17.5 per miniature. These figures of course only apply to the layman who is not procuring materials for use on a mass production scale, whereupon they become cheaper. I do hope this helps, or perhaps I could supply some helpful links and perhaps a CV....

Edit: Taking the above information into account, if Deathmaster Snikch costs £10.50, Gamesworkshop is making a profit of 5900% on that sale. Note that this only takes into account the cost of the resin in use as I don't know the volume of silcone being used in the moulding process.

[Trasvi]

GW said on their latest financial report that Finecast is very labour intensive. Look at most other companies who produce models. In general, if they are producing large volumes, they go for metal or plastic. Metal costs more per model and per mould; plastic costs vastly more per mould, and less per model. So why do other companies (and GW themselves) use these methods? Because they can be easily automated, and moulds do not need to be replaced. Eventually, metal or plastic production wins out when you get to high enough volume - and GW is still producing the largest volumes of miniatures in the world.
I believe the reason GW went to resin is the possibility for better quality. "Games Workshop make the best model soldiers in the world." - their mantra. But other companies are creeping up on them, so GW upped the ante, going to a material which offers the potential for better models. If there hadn't been the colossal screwups with miscasts, this might actually have worked.

[thoughtfoxx]

Hm. Actually material cost has very very little to do with the price of the product. [its almost incidental in fact]. The major overheads that need to be paid for are GW employee salaries - it takes a great deal of time to design miniatures and make molds. Building rentals and exec bonuses must be factored in. Shareholder dividends come out of profit.

[iamfanboy]

YOu know, about resin being more labour intensive than metal, and needing more QA, and being best for smaller batches... is that tacit admission that in fact they are NOT such a high-volume seller any more?

*shrug* Food for thought.

[eldargal]

Doubt it, I think the problems with Finecast QC comes from the fact they are tryingto do large volumes in a labour intensive material.

[Wintermute]

Doubt it, I think the problems with Finecast QC comes from the fact they are tryingto do large volumes in a labour intensive material.

I tend to agree and I have heard this reason from GW staff as well.

[Gir]

Yes, I'm an idiot for seeing that other companies switch to resin or resin/plastic without price raises or with even price DECREASES and don't just assume that switching to resin was more expensive.

Why not just switch to silver or gold minis GW? Since you apparently like throwing money away by switching from that cheap, cheap, cheap metal to the super expensive resin.

I didn't assume anything. Nowhere did I say it was cheaper, more exensive, or the same cost. I don't have access to GW's costs and expenses breakdown, so I don't know.

Actually, as a professional modelmaker i consider myself extremely qualified to know the ins and outs of casting in a variety of mediums and that resin is indeed cheap. 1kg of silicon will set you back around £25, you'll get a number of good quality multi part moulds out of this, depending on the silicone being used a mould may produce 40 - 140 casts before degradion. A 2kg kit of polyurethane fast cast resin will cost around £35 inc VAT from a supplier such as Alec Tiranti, this will produce around 100 28mm (heroic) scale human sized miniatures at a base cost of £0.17.5 per miniature. These figures of course only apply to the layman who is not procuring materials for use on a mass production scale, whereupon they become cheaper. I do hope this helps, or perhaps I could supply some helpful links and perhaps a CV....

Edit: Taking the above information into account, if Deathmaster Snikch costs £10.50, Gamesworkshop is making a profit of 5900% on that sale. Note that this only takes into account the cost of the resin in use as I don't know the volume of silcone being used in the moulding process.

So you based the cost purely on a similar material. Completely ignoring the acutal costs of mass production, which are:
Rent
Wages
Utilities
Marketing
Transport
Storage
Shops (more rent, utilites and wages!)

But you know, GW are making a massive profit on their models, because the raw material cost is £0.175 (based on a different material) a model!

[EmperorNorton]

So you based the cost purely on a similar material. Completely ignoring the acutal costs of mass production, which are:
Rent
Wages
Utilities
Marketing
Transport
Storage
Shops (more rent, utilites and wages!)

And they had to cover all those costs before when they made their models from metal, so the point still stands that producing in resin is most likely cheaper for them.

[shelfunit.]

So you based the cost purely on a similar material. Completely ignoring the acutal costs of mass production, which are:
Rent
Wages
Utilities
Marketing
Transport
Storage
Shops (more rent, utilites and wages!)

But you know, GW are making a massive profit on their models, because the raw material cost is £0.175 (based on a different material) a model!

Well, original rent is out (other than on shops) because they own their manufacturing facilities, they don't do marketing, so that's out. Out side of their shops GW have no different costs than every other manufacturer, and due to their "all in-house" production and increased volume = decreased cost of their sales and purchasing have far less costs. The only drain on their resources are their shops, and these should be covered by the fact they're not losing out with independent trade discounts - everything sold at a GW shop is earning them 40%+ more than the same bought at from an independent shop. One of their biggest drains is the top 3 employees taking home over £930k (total) in wages and benefits - not bad for presiding over a fifth straight year of falling sales.

[Trasvi]

The point is that you can't say 'the materials cost is minimal therefore they should sell the models for $1 each.' The fixed/operating costs are also factored into the production.

All in all resin as a material is cheaper than metal; as a production method, it is more expensive.

[Zink]

But why switch to a more expensive, more labour intensive method requiring massive restructuring for poorer end results? GW was producing good quality minis before finecast. Why waste all the time and money and destroy your reputation. Why thow out established equipment and replace it with something poorer? I asked it in the finecast thread but never got a reply. What did GW expect to achieve with finecast? What are it's advantages over traditional materials and methods? I'd really like to know the reasons for doing this if there was no advantage to GW or their customers in cost or quality.

[f2k]

I've heard that the price of resin does not usually fluctuate as much as that of metal. If so, that might explain the move.

But I'm no expert on the pricing of resin so I might be wrong...

[violenceha]

But why switch to a more expensive, more labour intensive method requiring massive restructuring for poorer end results? GW was producing good quality minis before finecast. Why waste all the time and money and destroy your reputation. Why thow out established equipment and replace it with something poorer? I asked it in the finecast thread but never got a reply. What did GW expect to achieve with finecast? What are it's advantages over traditional materials and methods? I'd really like to know the reasons for doing this if there was no advantage to GW or their customers in cost or quality.

Have a look at what other manufacturers have been doing and why, GW is completely hush hush, but many others are quite open about the advantages and disadvantages.
Take Mantic, they offer an explanation the exact opposite of Trasvi/GW for the resin switch. Others have been using resin for longer. There are pros and cons, research will get you a better explanation than our opinions.

[eldargal]

Yes, plus the price of resin is not likely to increase by 500% over the next decade as metal could conceivably do, as it has in the past decade. I have heard, from within GW*, that they are hoping to avoid yearly price rises now. Yes, I'm sceptical too, but let us wait and see.

*Though not necessarily from a well placed source when it comes to pricing.

I've heard that the price of resin does not usually fluctuate as much as that of metal. If so, that might explain the move.

But I'm no expert on the pricing of resin so I might be wrong...

[xxRavenxx]

I love the idea that a model costs 5p to make.

I'm going to reverse engineer this.

Lets shrink the size of GW to a basement business with one person doing each job. It allows us to think in a scope which we can actually wrap our heads round.

1.We have a sculptor, who makes the model. He gets good wages.
2. / 3. We have a pair of men who are prepping, mixing resin, filling moulds, and pulling the set models. (Its a two man job).
4. We have the quality control guy.
5. We have packing, who boxes up the set of models.
6. We have a sales rep, who takes the order.
7. We have shipping, who pulls items from the warehouse and sends it out.
8. We have UPS guy, an external guy who delivers it, for a fee to the company.
9. We have the shop guy, who sells it to the public.


So thats 9 people having their hands on the model immediately. Add a manager to keep the group working properly, and a designer to make rules for the model.

The designer and sculptor will *eventually* stop being paid for. (I wonder when that is in terms of wages vs. output.)


So, with that in mind, the shop guy gets 40% of the overall money. Which is either because he's an evil business entity himself, or because he needs money for frivolous things like food :P

So of £8. only £4.80 makes it back to GW.

I'm going to assume that on a 2 man casting operation, they could do... 40 models an hour, from a couple of moulds. So thats £192 in pure profit. (assuming they work for free).

Assuming everyone is earning minimum wage, £47.44 vanishes from the pot, leaving £144.56 left.

Resin is apparently 17.5p a miniature, so we'll work with that, and assume that 10% of models are writeoffs (I bet the real quantity is substantially higher). £7.70 vanishes per hour in materials.

So their company makes £136.86 per hour in profit. Compared to the £320 placed in the till of the retailer.

Thats 42% profit from the rrp of each item sold. Which I think is interesting.


Now obviously to apply this to GW as a larger company would be silly, but it gives a rough idea. And hopefully helps with the dismissal of the idea that it costs gw 5p to make a model, with £7.95 going to line the coffers of an evil manager. :P

[EmperorNorton]

Now obviously to apply this to GW as a larger company would be silly, but it gives a rough idea. And hopefully helps with the dismissal of the idea that it costs gw 5p to make a model, with £7.95 going to line the coffers of an evil manager. :P

Nobody was honestly believing that anyway.

Still, the ratio between material cost and final price point seems simply not right.

[Imp of High Noon]

I'm sorry if anyone feels misled by my previous posts, I was of course posting what it costs me to produce my own miniatures. I chose a fairly high end resin which is more suitable for the reproduction of fine details on a small scale, standard fast cast resin won't necessarilly catalise on a small scale as there simply is enough material to cause a sufficient chemical reaction. The fact does remain though, they can still do it cheaper than I can.

And I don't expect to buy a miniature for a £1, I understand business to know that so small a profit wouldn't be worth the setup cost unless you knew you could move tens of thousand of units a week, which is unlikely to happen as this is a hobby as opposed to an actual 'need'. When I started the hobby my first purchase was a blister of three lead alloy Marauder wizards, for £3, in the 80's that was still a bit on the pricey side for what you were getting (in a market outside of GW I mean), but lead actualy was expensive. then they switched to a cheaper safer alloy which didn't contain lead, and then there was a price hike. And now they've changed to a cheaper slightly toxic material and given us another price hike, dressed up in a load of bs about how wonderful the new material is and how close to the original master they can now get, which some people eat up with a spoon.... Seriously? If your casts are not coming out identical to the master, then your Mould is inferior not what you are pouring into it. Any perceived difference is a result of a matt finish, if you undercoat identical resin and metal models and don't touch them you will not be able to tell the difference.

I apologise again, this was not meant to be a rant.

[Tymell]

The point is that you can't say 'the materials cost is minimal therefore they should sell the models for $1 each.' The fixed/operating costs are also factored into the production.

I haven't seen anyone asking for such a price.

But the fact is that when you factor in everything you need to calculate the costs and savings of switching to resin, it -must- be cheaper overall, otherwise why make the move in the first place?

I think any suggestions that GW makes 99% pure profit on a model are nonsense, of course, but again I don't think that's what was originally being put forward.

[Shimmergloom]

Yes, plus the price of resin is not likely to increase by 500% over the next decade as metal could conceivably do, as it has in the past decade. I have heard, from within GW*, that they are hoping to avoid yearly price rises now. Yes, I'm sceptical too, but let us wait and see.

Whew. I guess that means that those metal rulebooks, metal starter sets and metal plastic kits will stop getting yearly(plus hidden) price rises now that they switched to resin.