Pricing Update

[Joe]

As announced during the downtime; a pricing update of 6% is being applied to certain product lines. Most of us expected this to happen regardless of the changes to trade account discounts that happened recently.

[Bryan Blaire]

Still a bummer - guess GW gets even less from me, and I had already halted almost all purchases.  Now it may just be a one off here or there, but definitely no new armies for me.

[The Yncarne]

2 minutes ago, Bryan Blaire said:

Still a bummer - guess GW gets even less from me, and I had already halted almost all purchases.  Now it may just be a one off here or there, but definitely no new armies for me.

 

Same. OTOH, maybe my old stuff will fetch a higher price. 

 

Who am I kidding?

[Emperor Ming]

Gw the 40k ferangi

 

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only price increases

[Matcap86]

Understandable in the current economic climate but especially FW stuff is getting way out of my comfortable price range with this.

[MARK0SIAN]

Death, taxes and GW price increases!

 

It was expected but after the previous huge FW price increase it feels a bit much that they’re getting one too. The FW stuff has reached an unjustifiable level for me personally, I think I’m officially priced out of resin.  

[Ahzek451]

I've had to back down considerably in the last couple years, so shifting gears will be small, but this change will make an impact for my habits. I used to have that "oo shiny" habit and collect whatever looked cool. Pretty much down to only supporting 2 40k armies, 1 sigmar, 1 heresy for future releases. This will further hammer the nail in the coffin for recently deciding to stop expanding my 40k space marines. No hate to GW, just is what it is. 

Edited February 9, 2023 by Ahzek451

[infyrana]

My only question iss .. will the Typhon, Cerberus and Jet Bikes be available to pre-order before this.  Will make a massive difference to how much I may buy or not.

[Brother Christopher]

I can't shake the feeling that there are way too many MBA people in charge of GW. Parallels between their business model and and the worst of trends in exploitative mobile games become more and more apparent. Let's see how the whale-oriented economy will work for GW in the long run, while they price out regular and potential new customers. The global economy is bad, sure, and everything is getting more expensive but I can't find any sympathy for GW,  especially given their results in the previous years. I'm sure others do, though.

[USNCenturion]

They don’t need to keep jacking these prices though, that’s the thing. It makes it seem like they have to do this to keep the lights on, but for a company with straight profit year after year, it’s insulting and underhanded. They don’t have to keep doing this, and every year it happens people bend over backwards to justify it. 
 

It took 24 years, but this arbitrary number this year finally priced me out. I simply can’t justify 60+ bucks for a box of plastic (core unit no less) for a game system in as much flux as this one. 
 

They had their annual price increase, I get my annual bellyache post. This one finally seems like enough is enough. 

[Captain Idaho]

Wait didn't they up the price not so long ago?

[DesuVult]

1 minute ago, Captain Idaho said:

Wait didn't they up the price not so long ago?

Are you referring to their wholesale price increase a few months ago or the MSRP price increase a few months before that?

[Arikel]

Eh. It’s less expensive in comparison to groceries than it was before. I just came back in a big way so doubt this will stop me, bit it’s never a time for rejoicing when prices go up.

[Burni]

25 minutes ago, infyrana said:

My only question iss .. will the Typhon, Cerberus and Jet Bikes be available to pre-order before this.  Will make a massive difference to how much I may buy or not.

Well I’ve got good news for you on the jet bikes at least!

 

Pricing is now well past the level were I find it acceptable to ask family members to buy me a box for Christmas or birthdays. Just too embarrassing to say ‘yeah just spend £40 on that box of 5 tiny space men’.

[LameBeard]

Little bit of UK context for anyone interested.

 

General price inflation is running at around 10% in the UK - obviously that’s not even across all sectors, energy and food prices going especially high. Private sector wages are increasing by about 6% on average, and public sector wages less than that.  Economy is predicted about to go into recession.

 

So if you are on a low income you would probably have to think about cutting back on space marines even with a price freeze. However, there is evidence that in a recession, spending on “little luxuries” goes up. People on middle incomes  might not go on holiday, and might delay the new car/bathroom, but treat themselves to that extra lipstick or box of chocolates. Space Marines might be in this category.

 

I certainly think a price freeze (with some fanfare about it) would have been a shrewd move by GW. But when some lines are selling out anyway, distribution is still uneven, and demand might be going up, you can see why a public company chooses to follow inflationary trends.

[Tymell]

It's not like GW ever needed an excuse for gross price hikes anyway, so I can't say I'm remotely surprised. Last time I actually sat down and ran some calculations (which admittedly was a while ago, but I doubt they've slowed down much since), they were well outpacing (UK) inflation already.

[Sothalor]

24 minutes ago, Arikel said:

Eh. It’s less expensive in comparison to groceries than it was before. I just came back in a big way so doubt this will stop me, bit it’s never a time for rejoicing when prices go up.

 

This is true, but I can eat my groceries. I can't eat Space Marine miniatures.

 

I know which one I will prioritize when all the prices go up while my income stagnates.

[Subtleknife]

This would be OK if when UK inflation drops we see a drop in prices for GW. I do not think this will happen however. I am slightly peeved at GW over this

[Kastor Krieg]

So they raise all prices by 5-10% within the last 3 months or so. 
Then they cut the rebates we can get from the FLGS by messing with the trade discounts.
And then they raise prices by 5-10% again?

And people still go "it's understandable, inflation exists", as if poor GW was on the brink of bankruptcy and had their feeble hand forced by anything else than the unwavering shareholder greed.

I guess it's time to resort to buying second hand and rescuing minis from eBay.

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by Kastor Krieg

[Captain Idaho]

GW will never drop their prices even if inflation drops. I'll bet my bolter shells.

 

Thing that annoys me is they're maintaining their distorted profit margin, which most companies get at much reduced proportion to price. They could take the hits and still be massively profitable.

 

Still, when my new place rolls up I'll just get that 3D printer I've had my eye on and then GW will truly get a fraction of my money (sometimes you want the official products after all)

[Orange Knight]

I understand this was coming but it does make me consider my purchases even more.

 

Last year I wouldn't have even blinked at GW prices, but due to a house project I've been working on, and various other expenses I find myself pretty broke for the 1st time in many years...

 

I'll put some money aside for the Brutalis and Desolator boxset, but aside from that I'll limit myself to gradually saving up for an Astra Militarum army.

[SkimaskMohawk]

People understand that companies increase product prices for inflation to maintain their required profit growth right? Like, this is a hugely marked up product that could remain profitable at a much reduced price, but the company needs to report increases over the previous years profit, so everything is driven to that end. 

 

Plastic crack is unforgiving to the wallet; the company gouges us hugely and never passes on manufacturing savings to the customer. Remember finecast being cheaper to make than metal minis? Or the dorn missing the bottom and being £55, while the more sprue, complete, sicaran was £47.50? Or one Primaris marine character costing more than half of 20 heresy tactical marines? They're here to take as much money as they possibly can. 

[Starfarer]

While these things are always annoying, I jokingly say buying GW plastics is a better investment than stocks or crypto.

 

My pile of shame is about to go up in value 6%. That's better than most of my investment portfolios over the last year. 

[DesuVult]

In the US it feels like the community is nearing an unsustainable point for drawing in new players.  The push to competitive play means 2,000 points starting is increasingly expected.  New players are really not coming in as much, a lot of people are turning their nose up at the barrier to entry. 

[The Unseen]

Captain Idaho is going personal printer? Damn, I knew the community was becoming more and more leaning towards that with the frankly absurd prices (especially of the FW stuff) , but damn. Not disparaging, if I didn't live in an apartment with a girlfriend who has asthma I'd have bought one myself by now; but I don't have a good way of setting it up and the fumes are a concern, with no easily accessible windows or vents.

Anyone defending this as anything other than pleasing shareholders needs to get their head checked. Yeah, inflation exists, but GW is one of the most profitable companies in the world from a cost/profit ratio, they definitely don't need to raise their prices right now, after they've already done so several times very recently. They just can, and have calculated that enough people will still buy it compared to the few that stop. I'd almost say they're trying to squeeze as much out of selling models in the next few years before 3d home printers become so ubiquitous that the model side is going to contract significantly. Right now enough new people are funneling in that the rate of grognards leaving is less than the new blood, so price increases are basically printing money. With the failure of the GW app, definitely feels like they're behind the ball, when I know I myself would happily pay GW for an official games-workshop style app with properly updated codex+rules, and an in-built roster editor. And at this point if GW wants to keep making money off of model designs they should be looking at selling licensed STL files, since its clear that plenty of people will make them for themselves and distribute them for *free* on a lot of websites. Sure, it will make people wanting to not buy the official product jobs easier, but people already do it, and plenty of others would buy the official ones if they were a reasonable price. Currently people who scour the internet for free/cheap stl files to replace GW products are worth $0 everytime they print something, may as well sell them the stl and make some.