20-50% price increase for forge world, even in the US despite now having a local store. FW deleting all criticism on Facebook.

[Ravinsild]

On 8/23/2018 at 8:46 AM, Dead Scribe said:

Well the net positive of all this is last night our store manager / owner has now banned Forgeworld from the store, so at least for us this won't be an issue.

Great. Guess I can’t play my entire 40k Army in your store because my 30 Berzerkers and 3 Chaos Rhinos as well as my 15 Havocs are all converted from ForgeWorld upgrade packs, Ryza Pattern Lascannons And extra Chain Axes I had to cut pistols off hand to fit so all my Zerkers can have 1 chainswords and 1 chainaxe each  

well at least my raptors and hellbrutes aren’t upgraded but on the other hand what if I did upgrade my raptors with World Eaters conversion kits? 

That would be dope right? 

[Nin Win]

I love the Forgeworld upgrade parts.  I have some for some ironhands with the ryza heavy weapons as well.

I found out I am finally going to see someone field some Forgeworld units rather than just upgrade bits.  I was all "Cool, I'll finally get to see first hand if the local opinion is based on anything.  That must have been pricey."

The response?

"I got them from some guy in Russia."

[Vhordrai]

2 hours ago, Nin Win said:

“...That must have been pricey."

The response?

"I got them from some guy in Russia."

Yep. Unfortunately hearing about people turning to the decent quality recasters out there is going to be even more common now as people get priced out by FW... It’s like they’re their own worst enemy. They are practically just daring people to compete with them when these days people can literally replicate their stuff and are actually willing to sell it at fair prices... We don’t want to buy illegal products GW, we want to support you- so why are you making it so hard to do that. 

[Dead Scribe]

I don't know how 40k works or if they'd ban upgrade parts for codex units.  If you were using GW codex units with some forgeworld conversions I'm pretty sure you'd be ok though.

[Thebiggesthat]

You wouldn't be banned from using them anywhere apart from one, and I don't actually believe it's actually real and not a childish tantrum on the internet ?

[Crimson customer]

Hi Guys,

 

I am new to this site but found the comments interesting about the new price structure from FW.

I am one of the worst hit as I live in Australia, I made an order 3 days before the prices changed and did the math, if I bought the same products under the new pricing regime it would cost me an extra Australian dollars. So something is wrong here as we pay about 30% and sometimes upto 50% more for GW models anyway, seeing as GW has a warehouse in the eastern states and a brick and Mortar presence through out Australia, I get it. but then again we Australians are paying upto 50% more for GW stuff, my mate just went to UK and got me 2 primaris miniatures after conversion was about 40$ per miniature, here in Australia each miniature is priced at 60$.

I love Forgeworld models and will use them in a 40K  game but I will never play them under their FW rules but instead I proxy the kit for one in the rules.  Thats a way around banning them all outright from games is a bit harsh.

 

My 20c worth because that is all a dollar is worth in Forgeworld.

 

Thanks all

The Crimson Fist

[Nin Win]

On 8/27/2018 at 5:42 AM, Vhordrai said:

Yep. Unfortunately hearing about people turning to the decent quality recasters out there is going to be even more common now as people get priced out by FW... It’s like they’re their own worst enemy. They are practically just daring people to compete with them when these days people can literally replicate their stuff and are actually willing to sell it at fair prices... We don’t want to buy illegal products GW, we want to support you- so why are you making it so hard to do that. 

I asked around about the anti-forgeworld sentiment locally and it turns out only a small portion of it is rules related.  The largest contributor is local non-GW stores reacting to the recasters.  There's no way for them to make money on Forgeworld, but the idea that people would come in with recasted miniatures and play on their tables really annoys.  People will pass on Forgeworld at it's previous and current prices, but once they are reasonable like how the recasters price, they're far more likely to compete with local sales of GW plastic.  Apparently most of the recasts are as good or better than forgeworld in quality and come in colours of resin that match what forgeworld has done in the past.  So they lead anti-forgeworld sentiment as a means of fighting against the normalizing of pirated miniatures.

Tournaments get prizes from these stores as sponsors, so they listen to such concerns to a degree.  Apparently those who play regularly with FW in their homes and at non-sponsored events all maintain that the distribution of good and bad rules is not that much different than GW, and if anything, most FW things are actually weaker than the same points spent on something else.  Apparently the real reason you don't see a lot of FW at events is that their stuff just isn't that strong.

For me, Necromunda made me really mistrust their rules team.  So I admit to being unfair to their AoS/40k rules because of that.

[stratigo]

On 8/24/2018 at 4:06 AM, tokek said:

The long term impact of Brexit is bitterly disputed, lets not bring that dispute into TGA community.

The medium term average exchange rates between the pound and the dollar have not really changed in 30 years. That means that GW is too young a company to have had to deal with significant and durable exchange rate movements in its major markets before; they have never needed to seriously change their policy before. Their finance people are probably scratching their heads about how they approach this but it would seem that they - along with most of British commerce and industry - are waiting to see what really happens next year before they decide what change to make.

  

Look into the people doing the disputing. You'll find one side has the lion's share of specialists.

 

Note that educated economists who support the brexit acknowledge that the pound will never be as strong as it was. They simply think this is a good thing as it will promote british manufacturing. A strong or weak currency aren't inherently a bad or good thing, though the ignorant will gut think that a weak currency is bad. It all depends on what your economy is set up to do.

 

On 8/24/2018 at 11:16 AM, hughwyeth said:

That's the only reason that makes sense. YOu might as well ban  nighthaunt and SCE's new battletomes- more warscrolls to learn!

that reason doesn't make sense either. GW stores aren't, actually, supposed to always show profit individually. A GW shop is more advertising and marketing. It's a place to play and paint and socialize so that you will have reason to buy models.

 

On 8/24/2018 at 3:24 PM, amysrevenge said:

It just seems like such a weird line to draw.  Any number of Battletomes are fair game, but one half-way faction and a couple dozen warscrolls is somehow unbearable.

The "if you can't buy or order it from this store it's not allowed" argument to ban FW is one I disagree with but can understand.  "The warscrolls are too inconsistent in power, and the points are way off" is another argument that I disagree with, but can understand.  The "memorize" argument just doesn't make any sense at all, and out of all the times in my life, in all the iterations of Warhammer back through the years, where folks have made arguments or policies to ban FW, "these particular rules are too numerous to cope with" is an argument I have literally never heard anywhere before.

When people whine about forge world, it's pretty much always from 40k perspective. Forgeworld is notoriously poor on balancing its 40k offerings. There were some early 8th tournaments dominated by forgeworld units. And they were rapidly nerfed. I do think the issues with forgeworld are based around the old legacy of never getting rules updates except for new editions. People are still stuck in the mindset that if something is too strong or too weak, it'll stay that way for 5 years. But egregiously overpowered units will get nerfed fast. It's underpowered stuff you're usually stuck with for a while.

 

On 8/24/2018 at 6:32 PM, Vhordrai said:

Unfortunately they did not wait as you say though and implemented the local currency change immediately, ****** over the international community to a high degree.  

Assuming that it's even based on the long term average- taking an outdated average after we've already changed to a vastly/ distinctly different situation economically is arbitrarily opportunistic.  This is not what we've been paying for models. I came into the hobby last year and it was obvious even with those prices that forge world's were unnecessarily high (for people in the UK as well), now I can no longer even financially justify a purchase.

I is also a foolish change. You're going to sell less

 

On 8/25/2018 at 4:36 PM, Arkiham said:

this sort of stuff happens everywhere. 

for instance, you get tv's cheaper, probably plenty of other stuff cheaper also. 

even if you knock vat off thats still a £70 or so increase for no reason. 

quite often see stuff like $50 console games cost £50.

the same TV in AUS $ is a 2000$ mark up. 

there's gotta be reasons EVERYTHING is marked up so much more than the basic  £ to $ conversion 
 

Australia has draconian and frankly dumb importation tariffs. Anything shipped to Australia is just much more expensive as the aussie gov is super beholden to local corporations and so craft laws to favor them.

 

 

[Girgutz StormStompa]

On 8/23/2018 at 2:46 PM, Dead Scribe said:

Well the net positive of all this is last night our store manager / owner has now banned Forgeworld from the store, so at least for us this won't be an issue.

Wow, what a silly rule. In my area the mere suggestion of banning FW gets raised eye brows. Here you talk to your opponents before the game and clarify any house rulings so to speak.

If I went to play and a store owner said to pack up my rogue idol but the ironjawz are fine  I'd just leave and never go back/support that particular store.

[PlasticCraic]

Re: the prices in Australia, I moved here from the UK a few years ago and I can tell you that while most things are expensive here (and wages are higher), nothing I have encountered gets close to the GW markup.  Some things are actually cheaper (for example I bought a Qashqai that was cheaper here than in the UK...despite being imported from the UK).

To move beyoned anecdotal examples, the concept that things generally don't cost exactly the same in each territory when you multiply out the exchage rates is known to economists as Purchase Power Parity (PPP).  This is tracked by the OECD and as you can see from the following link, the average for the past 5 years is GBP 1 = AUD 2.091:

https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm

So the typical product that costs GBP 100.00 would cost AUD 209.10

For example the Contemptor Dread with two weapons, which comes in at GBP 56.00, wouldc ome out at AUD 117.09

The actual price charged is AUD 150.00

So the FW price increase goes well beyond any concept of "everything costs more in Australia".

Beyond that, there are a few things to consider:

- This is a pure export, shipped from their existing warehouses, so there are no local market costs to take into account other than the cost of shipping (which is charged separately).  Therefore any price increase is purely going straight to their bottom line above and beyond what they get for selling to their customers in their home market, which is where I think a lot of the sour taste comes from.  

- Even when FW charged the actual price at the actual exchange rate, they were making a significant additional markup.  Reason being their UK prices include VAT, but you do not pay VAT on exports.  So they were effectively increasing their prices by 17.5% and pocketing the difference.  The new, additional price increase for overseas markets is in addition to that extra markup.

At the end of the day it's up to FW as a business to set their prices, and up to us as customers to buy it or not buy it.  But I do think it's fair and valid part of that discussion to recognise that overseas customers are being asked to pay over the odds.

[RuneBrush]

+++MOD HAT+++

Please can we reduce the amount of political talk and crystal ball predictions about what the future holds for things like exchange rates.  We don't know and even the experts can only guess.

[stato]

GW global pricing is just following the same principles as every other medium sized business exporting locally manufactured goods.   My other hobby is cycling, try buying a U.S. produced bike in the UK and you are paying $ price tags in £'s, much cheaper to buy from the U.S. and have shipped over (including paying tax), if you can that is, most stuff you cant. Hell, even U.S. brand stuff thats made in Taiwan is more expensive to buy in the UK (even when shipped directly to UK from producer) than it is to mail order from the U.S.  

[Lucio]

What I've not seen mentioned so far, is that the effective exchange rates on the Forgeworld site, appear to be predominately identical to those that the GW site has been using for years.

Yes, the overall change is painful if you live overseas, and no, it's not been done for your benefit other than making it easier to plan purchases in advance.

[Dead Scribe]

13 hours ago, Girgutz StormStompa said:

Wow, what a silly rule. In my area the mere suggestion of banning FW gets raised eye brows. Here you talk to your opponents before the game and clarify any house rulings so to speak.

If I went to play and a store owner said to pack up my rogue idol but the ironjawz are fine  I'd just leave and never go back/support that particular store.

Well our local FLGS bans Forgeworld now and our local GW has banned Forgeworld for a couple of years now (their policy is that if they don't sell it in the store you can't use it in the store).  So where I am, it seems to be a common practice.  I guess it will depend on your area?

[Arkiham]

15 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

Re: the prices in Australia, I moved here from the UK a few years ago and I can tell you that while most things are expensive here (and wages are higher), nothing I have encountered gets close to the GW markup.  Some things are actually cheaper (for example I bought a Qashqai that was cheaper here than in the UK...despite being imported from the UK).

To move beyoned anecdotal examples, the concept that things generally don't cost exactly the same in each territory when you multiply out the exchage rates is known to economists as Purchase Power Parity (PPP).  This is tracked by the OECD and as you can see from the following link, the average for the past 5 years is GBP 1 = AUD 2.091:

https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm

So the typical product that costs GBP 100.00 would cost AUD 209.10

For example the Contemptor Dread with two weapons, which comes in at GBP 56.00, wouldc ome out at AUD 117.09

The actual price charged is AUD 150.00

So the FW price increase goes well beyond any concept of "everything costs more in Australia".

Beyond that, there are a few things to consider:

- This is a pure export, shipped from their existing warehouses, so there are no local market costs to take into account other than the cost of shipping (which is charged separately).  Therefore any price increase is purely going straight to their bottom line above and beyond what they get for selling to their customers in their home market, which is where I think a lot of the sour taste comes from.  

- Even when FW charged the actual price at the actual exchange rate, they were making a significant additional markup.  Reason being their UK prices include VAT, but you do not pay VAT on exports.  So they were effectively increasing their prices by 17.5% and pocketing the difference.  The new, additional price increase for overseas markets is in addition to that extra markup.

At the end of the day it's up to FW as a business to set their prices, and up to us as customers to buy it or not buy it.  But I do think it's fair and valid part of that discussion to recognise that overseas customers are being asked to pay over the odds.

Well structured responce. Nice read and informative. Ty

[Lemon Knuckles]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but will throw out two thoughts to consider...

1. GBP to USD is currently predicted to lose 9% of its value by end of this year, and 11% of its value by end of first quarter next year.  Some of the pricing increase may simply be a hedge against this movement.
2. It is possible that as a seperate P&L entity within Citadel, FW is being asked to rent or fund space from the new US store.  So those costs would be new, and any price increase meant to cover that particular cost would not accrue to the bottom line.  This one may be a bit of a stretch, but I doubt that GW would completely subsidize retail space and logistics for FW.

Again, although I really have no stake in this issue, I do believe the following: 

1. FW's Social PR team is making things worse by deleting criticism.
2. Ultimately, market forces will drive the best outcome.  Hysteria won't.  If sales drop to the point where it would be in FW's best interest to reduce prices, they will do so.  If the demand doesn't drop sufficiently to offset the additional margin from the increased sticker price, then those are the prices that the market supports.

[stratigo]

On 8/27/2018 at 8:46 PM, PlasticCraic said:

Re: the prices in Australia, I moved here from the UK a few years ago and I can tell you that while most things are expensive here (and wages are higher), nothing I have encountered gets close to the GW markup.  Some things are actually cheaper (for example I bought a Qashqai that was cheaper here than in the UK...despite being imported from the UK).

To move beyoned anecdotal examples, the concept that things generally don't cost exactly the same in each territory when you multiply out the exchage rates is known to economists as Purchase Power Parity (PPP).  This is tracked by the OECD and as you can see from the following link, the average for the past 5 years is GBP 1 = AUD 2.091:

https://data.oecd.org/conversion/purchasing-power-parities-ppp.htm

So the typical product that costs GBP 100.00 would cost AUD 209.10

For example the Contemptor Dread with two weapons, which comes in at GBP 56.00, wouldc ome out at AUD 117.09

The actual price charged is AUD 150.00

So the FW price increase goes well beyond any concept of "everything costs more in Australia".

Beyond that, there are a few things to consider:

- This is a pure export, shipped from their existing warehouses, so there are no local market costs to take into account other than the cost of shipping (which is charged separately).  Therefore any price increase is purely going straight to their bottom line above and beyond what they get for selling to their customers in their home market, which is where I think a lot of the sour taste comes from.  

- Even when FW charged the actual price at the actual exchange rate, they were making a significant additional markup.  Reason being their UK prices include VAT, but you do not pay VAT on exports.  So they were effectively increasing their prices by 17.5% and pocketing the difference.  The new, additional price increase for overseas markets is in addition to that extra markup.

At the end of the day it's up to FW as a business to set their prices, and up to us as customers to buy it or not buy it.  But I do think it's fair and valid part of that discussion to recognise that overseas customers are being asked to pay over the odds.

it's mostly your tariffs. Australians get screwed on imports because of your tariffs (And other fees imports have to pay that aren't technically tariffs, but are effectively tariffs).

 

Also geographically isolated and relatively sparsely populated raises costs.

 

18 hours ago, Lemon Knuckles said:

I don't have a dog in this fight, but will throw out two thoughts to consider...

1. GBP to USD is currently predicted to lose 9% of its value by end of this year, and 11% of its value by end of first quarter next year.  Some of the pricing increase may simply be a hedge against this movement.
2. It is possible that as a seperate P&L entity within Citadel, FW is being asked to rent or fund space from the new US store.  So those costs would be new, and any price increase meant to cover that particular cost would not accrue to the bottom line.  This one may be a bit of a stretch, but I doubt that GW would completely subsidize retail space and logistics for FW.

Again, although I really have no stake in this issue, I do believe the following: 

1. FW's Social PR team is making things worse by deleting criticism.
2. Ultimately, market forces will drive the best outcome.  Hysteria won't.  If sales drop to the point where it would be in FW's best interest to reduce prices, they will do so.  If the demand doesn't drop sufficiently to offset the additional margin from the increased sticker price, then those are the prices that the market supports.

Note that the prices Forge World are going to are the prices they've had in catalogue for years. They aren't raising prices to cover new costs. And indeed, their costs in shipping are going to drop. What is going on is that GW has a nasty habit of never EVER adjusting their prices down for any reason whatsoever. It is a foolish move when you're experiencing a boom in sales driven by a weaker currency. But it is a move well established by GW practices over the years.

 

GW has some real bad habits as a company, and this is pretty much the baddest one.

[ManlyMuppet88]

Yeah, I’m Australian so I’m pretty bummed about this. It was actually cheaper for us to buy a lot of the resin Horus Herssy stuff and have it shipped to the other side of the world than go to the local and buy the plastic option. Gonna miss that.

Realistically, we’re just seeing FW come up to the same pricing policy as GW so it was arguably inevitable but it still sucks.

The thing that really frustrates me is the “look at what we’ve done for you” speel when it benefits nobody except GW.

Long term I think this will hurt them as people won’t be able to afford as much of their product.

[stratigo]

yeah, their approach to this is what actually offends people. They're trying to milk praise for raising the costs of their products, and it doesn't look good.

[Kirjava13]

Agreed. The phrase, "Don't wee on my leg and tell me it's raining" (not usually phrased quite that tamely) springs to mind.

[Overread]

Yeah prices rises were never going to earn them fans ever - but the least they could have done was soften the blow before raising them instead of building up all the anticipation for lower prices I mean granted a future price rise would have resulted in a rush on orders; but that's better than  huge stall on orders that they've likely had from the international market. 

[Lemon Knuckles]

3 hours ago, stratigo said:

Note that the prices Forge World are going to are the prices they've had in catalogue for years. They aren't raising prices to cover new costs. And indeed, their costs in shipping are going to drop. What is going on is that GW has a nasty habit of never EVER adjusting their prices down for any reason whatsoever. It is a foolish move when you're experiencing a boom in sales driven by a weaker currency. But it is a move well established by GW practices over the years.

The biggest part of the problem here is poor communication.  They definitely should have anticipated that price increases would cause concern, and proactively addressed the changes in a mature and straightforward manner.  Worst case, they could have at least circled the wagons and put out such a message reactively after this blew up.  Doing neither is atrocious.

That said, I think there are some inaccuracies in what you're presenting.  Here's what we do know:

1. Costs have definitely increased:
   1. Product & Supply costs (direct costs):
      1. Production payroll costs increased £3.9M
      2. Warehousing costs increased £4.2M
      3. Inventory costs increased £7.7M
   2. Corporate Overhead costs (allocated costs):
      1. Employee profit share £4.8M
      2. Retail profit share £2.9M
      3. New facility CAPEX £9.0M
      4. Corporate ERP initiative (???, but definitely not insignificant)
      5. Increased investment in retail expansion (???, again definitely significant)
      6. Increased investment into leadership - 20 new department heads (???)
      7. Increased investment into Customer relations, online, social, etc (???)
2. I don't think it's fair to say that FW has experienced a "boom" in sales.
   1. Online sales of Citadel are up by 52%, but FW is only up 4%

I take away two things from all of this.  

1. FW is a niche product line for a niche part of the customer base, and it struggles to keep pace with the growth and development of GW as a whole, and as a result is likely becoming increasingly dilutive to the overall value of GW.   There are two possible responses:
   1. Improve operational efficiency.  Listening to someone like Rob at Honest Wargammer laugh at the fact that FW has an AoS manager on staff who has literally done nothing for a year suggests that there is at least some slop to clean up here.
   2. Increase prices. 
2. Citadel is thriving.  Production costs do not scale linerally with increasing sales as a good chunk of those costs are fixed, and the variable portions benefit from some level of economies of scale.  From this they can absorb their share of the increased corporate allocations without losing value which should bolster R&D, help future-proof the company and improve the product and the IP, and increase shareholder value. 
   1. I think the real scandal here is not that FW increased their pricing (which on the surface at least makes some sense), but that some of the new citadel pricing seems outrageous ($45 for 10 GGR for example).   I am having a lot of trouble reconciling this to their stated policy of only increasing the prices of new releases to reflect the necessary investment in product quality.  If that is in any way the result of Citadel subsidizing a failing FW product line, I am more than happy to see FW prices go up.