2024 Pricing Update

[DemonGSides]

Also, at least as far as the paint is concerned, you're at least getting a product that feels like it's worth the price, or at least close to it (Some of the bigger pots are getting close to "Cmon now, really?" levels but not quite there yet), whereas $40 for :cuss:ing Ursula Creed is a legitimate joke.

[Wolf Lord Duregar]

26 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

Also, at least as far as the paint is concerned, you're at least getting a product that feels like it's worth the price, or at least close to it (Some of the bigger pots are getting close to "Cmon now, really?" levels but not quite there yet), whereas $40 for :cuss:ing Ursula Creed is a legitimate joke.

 

Yeah..! Sadly not a joke but should be..

 

1 hour ago, Redcomet said:

GW sell a lot of paint because it is convenient to buy some paint when you pop into the shop for some minis. Also a lot of people look at Gw painting guides and just get the paints mentioned. 

 

I feel guilty on both accounts. But i also frequent two independent stores that stock vallejo, AP and AK as well as Tamiya (which i airbrush, not brush paint mind you). So I am slowly replacing some, not all. As the other lazy part of my runs with the guides with Base - Layer etc. But a little effort, looking at paint charts should sort that as well.

 

but GW has more competition with paints for sure! Would be nice with more competition for models too. That is what is needed, some old-fashioned and "working" capitalism..

[Nova-V]

The thing GW paints have over other brands is accessibility.  I live in one of the largest cities in the UK the only paints I can get without having to make a special trip is Citadel paints.  The only paints I can get physically with a special trip are Vallejo from a model railway shop.  All other paints have to be bought online which has two main disadvantages.  First being it's pot luck if the paint you buy actually matches what it looks like on the retailers website.  Second is postage, Citadel may be more expensive than other brands but buying a single pot I just ran out of is still far cheaper than any other brand plus £4-5 postage.  

 

It is a market were GW has competition but I don't think that competition (other than Vallejo) is as much of a threat that people deep in the hobby space think.  In the UK I have never seen a bottle of Army Painter for sale outside of online for example.  Where as Citadel can be found in Warhammer shops, LGSs, toy shops, hardware shops and many others.  Vallejo being the exception as they also cater for scale modelers so do turn up a lot in hobby shops to capture both markets so do have some physical presence.

 

Obviously I'm UK biased so i may be way off the mark for other countries in terms of what's available.

 

I think lack of price hike may be as simple as the company who makes the paint for GW hasn't raised their prices so GW can't justify it.  

[Wolf Lord Duregar]

That is interesting - not mirroring the situation here where I live (Sweden). The only store having Citadell only is - GW´s Warhammer store. And then there is atleast three other physical hobby stores with a mix of vallejo and some others. AK and Army Painter is present for example.

There are actually more stores, I just haven´t visited them or for some time (one of them is nisched against mainly model aircraft and have more of the airbrush-only paints like Mr Hobby (Gunze -Sangyo), Mr Paint and Tamiya (enamel and "acrylics" - maybe even their laquer).

 

There is also a couple that sell only online but youmight pick stuff up still, there. With some hassle.

 

I have no problem physically picking up any brand. But the "best" store with the most variation of acrylics for brush painting is the furthest from me (but not really far, I still take my bike now and then).

 

So sounds different -but you probably have a point. But I´ve rarely seen a store here that atleast don´t have Vallejo and/or Humbrol as well. As the stores are often hobby stores with other stuff as well (model kits) or pretty specialized gaming/hobby stores and they do have quite a few different manufacters.

 

And even if others are only availble online, I would recommend people to try other brands. As they are often not just cheaper but atleast as good and have better bottles..

[Redcomet]

GW paints are a generation behind many others. Two Thin Coats, AK, Army Painter Fanatic, Vallejos new ranges are all more modern paints than the current GW range. The only place where GW paints are still up there, are contrast, where they paved the way and where actively ridiculed when they came out. 

[phandaal]

5 hours ago, Nova-V said:

Obviously I'm UK biased so i may be way off the mark for other countries in terms of what's available.

 

Yeah I think this is a UK situation. In the US, Citadel paints are only available in your FLGS or GW store, not hobby/craft shops or hardware stores. Never once seen a pot available in any other kind of store, and I have lived in and traveled to many different parts of this country over the years. Citadel has been around for decades, of course, but never in a dominant way like the situation you describe in the UK.

 

Speaking from more recent experience, all of the local stores in my city have full racks of non-Citadal paint lines, and the stores that do not specialize in selling minis will usually have more of other companies' paints than Citadel, if they have any Citadel stuff at all. Vallejo, Scale75, Army Painter, Pro Acryl, Duncan Rhodes' new stuff, etc.

 

So yeah, my thought is still that any lack of price rise in Citadel paints is due more to the competition than anything else.

[twopounder]

Let me break down the real issue here with pricing.

 

Let's start with a harsh reality - North America, specifically the US, accounts for about 40% of GW's total revenue. That's nearly half of all the money GW has every year coming from America. - https://www.statista.com/statistics/994065/games-workshop-sales-worldwide-region/

 

Now lets look at the future of this revenue. 37% of all buy now, pay later accounts are being missed. That's 1/3 of the total US accounts estimated to be delinquent or missing payments https://www.reuters.com/technology/buy-now-pay-later-surges-third-us-users-fall-behind-payments-2021-09-09/. The big issue? 61% of consumers have used this for FOOD. Yes, food. Not luxury items, but necessities. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/consumers-use-buy-now-pay-later-apps-pay-food-gas-basics-klarna-affirm-rcna25101

Since 2019, incomes have risen 20% on average, but rent has increased 30% on average, so people are seeing 10% less income just from rent.

Car loan defaults are at a 29 year high with record 14% average APR. I have a perfect driving record and my insurance has gone from $300/yr in 2019 to $1300/yr in 2024. I called my insurance company and they confirmed they are raising prices again on everyone and shopping around didn't net me any lower plans. This is huge in the US. Car ownership and the auto industry is a significant part of US culture. Many families own multiple cars, sometimes 5 or 6. This is no exaggeration, so when you see dealers slashing trucks from $110k to $84k and have models sitting in a lot for 3 years, its signals a serious issue with the US economy.

The top companies with high wages laid off 53,000 workers so far this year with 191,000 let go last year. That's 250,000 high wage earners that are in financial distress from the tech sector alone. Its not just the tech sector. Not going to list everything out, but there is major disruption across the board.

We're spending $1 Trillion every 100 days, or about $3.5 Trillion in new debt per year on primarily government expenses that do not provide any future revenue or growth. This is driving up inflation and will require higher taxes or a payment default.

McDonalds is rushing out a $5 menu because their sales crashed at the $18 burger point. Wendy's is releasing a $3 combo meal. Target is releasing a completely new line of goods that will be under $10 and is already cutting prices on most of their items https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/target-unveils-dealworthy-brand-costing-10-less-rcna139210. In other words - other retailers are currently in a panic to reduce prices because people have simply stopped eating out and buying stuff in the US. We can't afford it. Period.

So consider the above and ask yourself "Is it okay to send the kids to bed without food so you can buy a $40 primaris lieutenant"? I'm betting 40% of GW's revenue is going to say no. At the end of the day, GW sells plastic toys to use in an ever more stale game. When people are borrowing money to buy food and defaulting on the loan, how many $300 FOMO boxes do you think are going to sell?

Lets not pretend GW exists in a vacuum. I hear a lot of "its a niche hobby". Okay, sure. But they're also not a luxury brand. Rolex advertises success when you wear it. Its always going to hold value and act as a status symbol. Nobody knows or cares what little plastic men mean. They just don't. So GW can try to go mainstream with Amazon, movies, etc. The problem is that they will now have to compete with Playstation. They simply can't. You can buy a new playstation for $300 and get 5 years of playtime. You're not going to get a 2500 point army for $300. Not one that is going to win. So then you have to buy another $150 in books every couple of years and hope they don't phase out 50% of your army so you have to replace it with new FOMO boxes. Assuming you can even get them off the website and don't need to pay 2x as much from scalpers on ebay.

The numbers just don't add up. This was fine in 2020 when there was a market resurgence and everyone had cash from selling their house for 4x its value. Now that's coming apart and the market isn't going to sustain these prices. Not for a niche game or a mainstream game. Retailers right now are going in the opposite direction, trying to make things more affordable for customers.

GW survived 2009 by shutting down a ton of stores and shifting to the single employee model. They can shut down stores, but they can't have less than 1 employee. And shuttering stores will eliminate they one advantage they have over other game studios - open air marketing. If the same thing happens again, how is GW going to cut operating costs to keep selling models and another 10% increase? Hard to do when families are getting foreclosed on.

If you want further evidence of GWs disconnect, you can look at their failed board game attempts. AI was a board game. You literally played it on a mat. It came with a small paper rulebook. It was meant to be a simple copy of x-wing. The problem was the $120 price point that also required glue, paint, primer and assembly. X-wing and armada came prebuilt with more miniatures for a lot less money. Sure, people in our hobby like to build and paint, but this was a board game. It failed because people who play board games saw bad value and we as table top war gamers didn't want a board game. As a result, it failed. HeroQuest worked because it had single part models that snapped onto the base back in the late 80's early 90s and was priced as a board game. Every other company in the world would understand that they have to compete at the set price point or offer something intriguing to justify a higher cost. GW effectively said "We're GW, we are worth the extra money because we are us and like high revenue". Yeah, that didn't pan out. The board game market continues to thrive but GW had to give up and I've been able to snag their board games at 75% off from book store clearance shelves. This should have been an obvious signal that something wasn't quite right.

So yes, we can use empirical evidence to suggest that GW is very much making a big mistake with its pricing.  And even if you can afford to play it, you can't afford to fill in for the multi-billion dollar market cap ($4.13 billion as of this month) and float the company if it loses 30 - 50% of its revenue. At this rate, people are simply going to move on and that will cause GW to crash hard, likely being purchased by another company that will part out its IP. It has avoided this in the past by extreme measures (shuttering stores and forcing single employee model).

If you want to know how that works out, look at the Battletech saga and how it ended up being owned by 3 different companies and then on loan to a company that just reprints a 20 year old rule book. Another interesting take is Cabela's and how a hedge fund got rich by forcing a sale to Bass Pro Shops and effectively firing the entire town that depended on it for income.

The price changes matter, more now than when GW had a smaller market cap and smaller investors.

 

Hopefully this helps explain why a lot of people are worried or just plain can't afford the hobby anymore.

Edited May 27 by Lord_Ikka

[Lord Marshal]

Anecdotally I've only ever seen Citadel, Army Painter and sometimes Vallejo stocked in dedicated LFGS here in the UK. There's one local store which tries to stock P3, but they're clearly a rare exception (due to having one of the country's last holdouts of Warmahorde players) since finding them online in the UK is very hit and miss with limited restocks.

 

Conversely, Tamiya paints are extremely common in non-miniature craft stores here in the UK and have been for decades, which apparently isn't the case in the US. It's actually easier for me to get hold of those offline than any other brand (even Citadel) because places like RC/train shops and the big arts/craft chains tend to stock nearly all their offerings.

 

With the internet, so long as you don't mind paying for shipping, I've found you can otherwise get pretty much every major brand in the UK without much grief. ProAcryl was trickier but they seem to have gained enough popularity that a lot of the bigger online stores stock them on the regular now. P3 I've already touched on, but aside from those Reaper seems to be the only big paint line I've not been able to find here (not that I make much of an effort to seek them out). Scale 75 I've never seen stocked in-person, but I've never struggled to get hold of them online, same deal with AK Gen3 and Two Thin Coats in recent years.

 

Edited May 25 by Lord Marshal

[LittlePlasticHomies]

I live in Utah, virtually all of my local shops stock Citadel in addition to a cornucopia of other brands. Interesting how different paint stocks seem to be by region.

[sitnam]

2 hours ago, twopounder said:

If you want further evidence of GWs disconnect, you can look at their failed board game attempts. AI was a board game. You literally played it on a mat. It came with a small paper rulebook. It was meant to be a simple copy of x-wing. The problem was the $120 price point that also required glue, paint, primer and assembly. X-wing and armada came prebuilt with more miniatures for a lot less money. Sure, people in our hobby like to build and paint, but this was a board game

 

AI, X-Wing and Armada are not board games. I play Warcry and Kill Team on a game board, that does not make them board games. All three are miniature wargames. AI released with a $90 price for 8 planes.  X-Wing came with 3 fighters for $40. Armada came with 3 ships for like $90. Never mind the fact AI minis were of a higher quality. AI was actually very affordable for a GW product, it's a horrible example for the point you are trying to make

 

Blackstone Fortress was a board game and it was very popular even for it's price point.

Edited May 25 by sitnam

[ZeroWolf]

44 minutes ago, sitnam said:

 

AI, X-Wing and Armada are not board games. I play Warcry and Kill Team on a game board, that does not make them board games. All three are miniature wargames. AI released with a $90 price for 8 planes.  X-Wing came with 3 fighters for $40. Armada came with 3 ships for like $90. Never mind the fact AI minis were of a higher quality. AI was actually very affordable for a GW product, it's a horrible example for the point you are trying to make

 

Blackstone Fortress was a board game and it was very popular even for it's price point.

Yeah, Cursed City and Blackstone Fortress are the best examples of boardgames from GW, along with the other little boxed games like the recently released Dark Tide or Space Marine II or the one with the Ambull (not to mention Blitzbowl). Can't comment on how well those are doing as not many are on sale in the UK 

[Wolf Lord Duregar]

I regard Blood Bowl as a boartd game.. With models.. As well as those mentioned.. Not sure it matters though.But aren´t they more board game than table top games? Like the way I regard 40k..

[01RTB01]

10 hours ago, sitnam said:

 

AI, X-Wing and Armada are not board games. I play Warcry and Kill Team on a game board, that does not make them board games. All three are miniature wargames. AI released with a $90 price for 8 planes.  X-Wing came with 3 fighters for $40. Armada came with 3 ships for like $90. Never mind the fact AI minis were of a higher quality. AI was actually very affordable for a GW product, it's a horrible example for the point you are trying to make

 

Blackstone Fortress was a board game and it was very popular even for it's price point.

In fairness to xwing, with 3/4 starfighters each you could play a game. It was relatively cheap. Not so much now. 

 

Turrets killed it as a game, even when they changed them for 2.0 it wasn't enough. When you can badly fly a Ywing vs a well flown TIE D and the TIE loses, there's something inherently wrong with the game. 

 

AI also may have been relatively affordable but terrible balance.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Whether or not they're specifically board games or small scale TT games isn't really the take away from that post though is it.

People are getting increasingly strapped for discretionary spending monies.

And GW getting owned by other companies isn't ideal.

[Dark Shepherd]

I think we should upgrade 2 pounder to 4 pounder :)

 

When money is tight, what Ive found through my job, is people still want the big ticket items/experiences eg holidays, arena gigs and its the smaller discretionary items that get hit

 

So my hope for the hobby is at worst the spending patterns move to big boxes. And that GW cut costs by abandoning reboxing

[sitnam]

7 hours ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

Whether or not they're specifically board games or small scale TT games isn't really the take away from that post though is it.

People are getting increasingly strapped for discretionary spending monies.

And GW getting owned by other companies isn't ideal.

i was addressing a single point that was incorrect. It wasn’t the take away from the post, but something so factually wrong from a post I otherwise agree with doesn’t help the main takeaway

[Tyriks]

=][= Since people are just back to bickering about things vaguely related to the price increase, time to wrap this up. =][=