How have Gw price rises affected your purchasing habits?

[flemingmma]

I bought a 3d printer and now i only buy specific sets from gw that i really like the aesthetic of, eg. the wurmspat

[Rodiger]

Well since I started this topic back in October, I have only bought a Blood Bowl team and the Almanac, and I got some paints for Christmas. I've stopped impulse buying and I completely skipped Beastgrave as well as many other releases I may of bought before.

I don't think this price rise is well timed, even though this is more a 'luxury product' many people will be feeling an economic pinch and how much you need some plastic models might fall quite far down on your list of priorities. I wonder if it is pandemic related, I would have thought it was planned before the pandemic. Maybe they thought a single price rise of 5 pounds on a unit was too much in one go and if they did it twice in a year it would ease the blow. But it could be a reaction to the current situation, I have no idea.

As Valenswift says, we all have one thing we are a little crazy about, I was riding a bike with a friend and told him one year I'd spent over 1000 pounds on GW stuff, he was shocked, I asked him how much he had spent doing his bike up, he told me well over 1000 pounds, mine cost 200.  A lot is how much you value it, I know if I go out drinking I can spend much more than the new unit I want and all I usually have to show for that is a bad head the next day, if I did buy the unit instead, at least it would still be sat in my cupboard unopened ha ha. 

[Ravinsild]

Not gonna lie I don’t buy GW models but I do buy their paint because I love their app and their system of paint and it’s just easier to follow their own tutorials with those paints than to figure out the closest thing in Vallejo or whatever. Also I get their brushes cuz it’s just like why not. They’re kind of disposable. 
 

it’s more like the tertiary hobby stuff from GW I get and it seems reasonable to a degree. But I don’t buy paint all the time either or brushes or glue or like hand drills etc. 

[zilberfrid]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

My point was not so much that we must feel obliged to pay for models to keep GW around for that sake alone - they are not a charity.

It's more that if you are going to play Warhammer with warhammer models then you should be putting money into the hobby not into the hands of recasters leaching money out of the hobby. It's the same as how many hobbyists are keen to buy products cheaper online from online stores, but will also still buy models from their local game store if they play there. Again its about understanding that our spending has an impact on the world and if we want certain things to hang around we have to sometimes not look for the cheapest option. If we want that local game store to survive and remain a place where we can game and where new people can come into the local gaming groups and where we can pop in for a chat with other gamers etc... then we've got to be part of the process that helps put money in the store's pockets and food on the staff's tables. 

And if you don't want to pay GW prices there are loads of 3rd party and other companies to buy models from. Smaller firms putting their time and money into design work to make new models for us to game with. It's perfectly valid and great to put our money into their pockets. Just not into recasters who are only leaching off the industry in general. Because for every "overpriced gw model" they can copy, they can also likely copy-cat a Creature Caster model for much less too. We don't want to feed the recasting industry, it only leaches money out which means less in the pot for new models, new ideas, new games, gaming centres etc... 

Yeah. I get that you don't like paying their prices and it's fine to not buy their products. There are a LOT of other model designers that deserve more recognition.

Some of them are clearly designed to be compatible with GW designs, which sometimes is toeing the line between a different design or a variation of GW's design. I don't really like that.

What's not fine, is simply stealing GW designs.

As an example, Titanforges steampunk dwarves would be very compatible with Kharadron (Thryng especially), but are clearly different. No issue there.

Kromlech makes stuff that is hardly distinctive from GW stuff at first glance. That's not as nice.

[Fairbanks]

I have been under the long belief that GW prices are already too high. Taking store experience of watching a new couple come in, look over everything, pick up a box, turning it over to see the price, and putting it right back. Makes me sad.

But I've been saying they're too high because I see that EVERY online store has a 15% discount.

When the online stores are willing to forgo half of their potential profit to get the business, business gained when there are added shipping costs from point A that is hundreds of miles from the final destination, something is wrong.

[Ravinsild]

6 minutes ago, Fairbanks said:

I have been under the long belief that GW prices are already too high. Taking store experience of watching a new couple come in, look over everything, pick up a box, turning it over to see the price, and putting it right back. Makes me sad.

But I've been saying they're too high because I see that EVERY online store has a 15% discount.

When the online stores are willing to forgo half of their potential profit to get the business, business gained when there are added shipping costs from point A that is hundreds of miles from the final destination, something is wrong.

Before any recent price changes way back in 2018 my friends were absolutely adamant they wouldn’t be getting into this hobby and now a days it’s a definite hard strong “****** no.”  

so I’ve made new friends. I still have my old friends of course. I’ll just never get to play Warhammer with them ever  

but I did join a gaming club 😎

[The Cranky Dwarf]

I would say I just buy a lot more used models and convert characters than I would if they were a bit more affordable. My new purchases are limited to get started collections and the occasional lower costed box. Heck it's been years and I still can't convince myself that an ogor butcher model is worth 40 bucks. While I understand that we are paying for quality the rising prices kinda kill any impulse purchasing for me at least.

[Baron Klatz]

37 minutes ago, Fairbanks said:

When the online stores are willing to forgo half of their potential profit to get the business, business gained when there are added shipping costs from point A that is hundreds of miles from the final destination, something is wrong.

Online stores can afford to because they don't have anywhere near the upkeep that GW have to shoulder as both makers and movers of the products rather than simply the movers with a fraction of the expense.

Not that it really hurts, GW brand loyalty outshines the discounts and is a reason hobby stores don't push their products as hard when a GW store comes to town.

Recent Example:

"Shop stopped selling GW, and had a 50% sale. All this for around 400 euros. I am set for life haha!

 

Kantha:

Nice haul! I really gotta wonder though, what kind of shop stops selling GW? Is there just no local scene at all?

 

Oyta15:

I asked him and he noted that the GW-shop really put a dent in his Warhammer sales, despite his 10% discount. He couldn't beat their customer loyalty, and he barely made a profit off of his Warhammer sales. Otherwise he's a board-game / MTG shop, so he decided to focus more on that and make some local customers really happy."

Edited May 23, 2020 by Baron Klatz

[zilberfrid]

17 minutes ago, Ravinsild said:

Before any recent price changes way back in 2018 my friends were absolutely adamant they wouldn’t be getting into this hobby and now a days it’s a definite hard strong “****** no.”  

so I’ve made new friends. I still have my old friends of course. I’ll just never get to play Warhammer with them ever  

but I did join a gaming club 😎

I'd suggest a miniature agnostic wargame with your old friends. You can get models really cheaply, like 15 euros for a complete Frostgrave warband with wizards from their own soldiers box (you can build at least two, probably three warbands with one box) and a bit of D&D minis (for the wizard and apprentice, handily packaged in a box).

Don't let a system get between you and your friends.

Warhammer is one the premium options in wargames, you can get two people a Frostgrave warband as well as the rulebook AND a good collection of enemies for the MSRP of one Kharadron start collecting.

Now Frostgrave is not as deep in rules, nor as diverse and not updated as well as AoS, nor are the models as intricate, and they are more mainstream.

In a sense, you get what you pay for.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

8 hours ago, NauticalSoup said:

Also I'm curious because you've said it a couple times - what do you mean by easier to build?

While my primary purchase was Battle for Skull Pass I also purchased some other units at the same time in the hope of building towards a full army (as FLGS owner was honest that I’d struggle to find other players interested at just playing at the smaller scale of the box set, which was primarily thought of as a tutorial).  So I had experience with putting together metal models.  (In my second go I’ve also had a lot of experience trying to repair broken metal models...). Also, while a lot has converted over to plastic obviously there are still a lot of resin models in AoS and 40K so I’ve spent plenty of time washing, smoothing down, softening up, green stuffing and otherwise assembling those.

Again, others’ experiences may be different and I’m sure there are better and worse plastic model designs out there.  But in my experience at least, after he got one lesson on building at the FLGS I can hand pretty much any recent plastic kit to my (now 9 year old) and he can assemble a very nicely done model whereas resin (nonetheless metal) wouldn’t work out.

Sorry to hear about your local gaming scene.  Have heard similar stories but again, lucky to be in a thriving and growing scene personally.  The last time I talked about the AoS 1.0 debacle with someone who lived through it (an all metal I believe Seraphon player) was at the local tournament where to my understanding the number of tables dedicated to AoS (while still less than 40K) had doubled over the last few years and there was still a waiting list to get in.

Maybe today’s announcement will reduce the churn in 40K as at first blush they do seem to be learning some lessons from what has made AoS so much more successful in my area at least. 

[VBS]

I wouldn't consider prices to be the reason that made me stop buying GW products, but it is a factor. A minor one probably. There are more minis/hobby/wargaming companies than ever (a true golden age) and it gets to a point that others are doing more interesting things than GW (imo, of course). So I'm more inclined in buying non-GW models simply because I prefer them way more. If they are cheaper (which is the case 99% of the time), well that's a sweet bonus. Same goes for gaming systems: I find other games to be more enjoyable and don't require constant book recycling (some of them are even in free-pdf format, great!).

I guess my purchasing habits just evolved along my tastes, beyond what GW offers, which is no longer worth it for me. The price is more of an underlying annoyance that deters things even more but not a deal breaker by itself (I have other hobbies that are waaay more expensive...).

 However, I do draw the line of pricing for painting material. If I can get pots that cost less and have more quantity than Citadel products, yet have similar quality (or sometimes even better), no point in giving money to geedub in that department.  Never liked brand loyalty for anything.  

[chord]

For me its a combo of things.  Moving to a new area of the country where a focus is on competitive play only and leaving my narrative gaming group behind.   When you combine competitive play and power creep my two main armies are pretty much non-competitive.  Throw in power creep and price increases on top.  Just not very motivated to spend money on GW

[Vasshpit]

I simply don't understand the reasoning... I mean I can buy a bulk set of plastic utensils, weighing the same amount, for a tiny fraction of the cost amongst many other plastic products. 

I do understand molds cost money, artists need to get paid, etc, but it simply can't be that much. 

Also with access to mainstream 3d printing becoming increasingly accessible with as good and in some cases better quality basically right around the corner it just seems like greed. 

One last thing, if I'm expected to shell out the kind of cash they're asking then I'd expect some kind of well thought out and professional rules that make said model worth using and not just a pretty thing on a shelf that never hits a table. 

I dig their products and I'll buy things I like but my level of customer support will become less. 

Like others have mentioned, it may be time to hang up this hobby or try out other games. 

[Martin87]

Noticed on eBay what looks like 3d print models people are selling that they have printed themselves 

[Sleboda]

11 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

This hand of James Workshop tends to bite though. One should rather not buy GW products for a few months to make a statement to show our „friend“ James workshop‘s ever hungry wallet (while he already swims in money like Dagobert Duck) that enough is enough and the hobby + hobbyists should be more important than the dividend paid to his shareholders.

First, as a shareholder, I am happy to see the success GW is enjoying, part of which translates into share price. But, both as a shareholder and observer, I know that this success/share price is linked to people liking what GW is selling them, and that takes into account price.

So, it's not that shareholder value is more important than the hobbyist - it's that the two are intimately connected. I am a happy hobbyist and that is increasing the value of my holdings. Win/win.

 

Second, it would be really great if people accepted that we, as hobbyist, are not one voice. Boycotting tickets for sports teams never works because sports fans do not act as one or speak with one voice. Same for fans of the hobby.  We should drop the pipe dream of organized movements/boycotts against our favorite hobby-makers. It will never, ever work.

[Dorn Jr]

To be honest price increase announcements usually just mean I buy the rest of an army I was going to buy anyway to save that $38 sooner than I was going to anyway. 

So it affects me in that I push up a purchase like 6 weeks and was happy to have at least got that heads up. Other than that not much. 🙂

Edited May 23, 2020 by Dorn Jr

[Kramer]

Last time this discussion came around I posted about me reducing the amount I buy. Not because I don’t think it’s worth the money. It truly is worth it in my mind. 

but it has two things that create a negative perception for me. On one hand they raise prices while on the other hand they report record profits. Personally that’s not a big issue but it stings a bit. 

The bigger thing is I’m a long time player, and the nature of the hobby leads to a lot of long time players. So the raise of the start collecting prices has killed me purchasing them. The big models same thing. I already think they are a bit too expensive and now it’s getting even worse. 
Absolutely still value for money. But in my perception the big models are already are two times my monthly hobby budget. And the start collecting all ‘feel’ too expensive for every euro over €65,-  

All in all, I keep postponing getting big models, start collecting price keeps me from a small orruk army, stopped underworlds, and slowly moving away from GW paints. 
still spending the same on the hobby. Just buying less products and spending less at GW. 
 

 

edit: good point by @Dorn Jr, gw do deserve props for letting people know in advance. 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Kramer

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

Second, it would be really great if people accepted that we, as hobbyist, are not one voice. Boycotting tickets for sports teams never works because sports fans do not act as one or speak with one voice. Same for fans of the hobby.  We should drop the pipe dream of organized movements/boycotts against our favorite hobby-makers. It will never, ever work.

I'm not saying boycotting, just that people shouldn't buy something they are not comfortable buying.

[Overread]

7 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

I'm not saying boycotting, just that people shouldn't buy something they are not comfortable buying.

Very true and I know that myself and most others would never think to force others to buy models they don't want. This is a hobby not a charity. 

The passion to support GW comes from the fact that this is a forum built around a GW game and franchise so the overwhelming majority of members are keen gamers currently engaging with GW games and models on various levels. So most are keen to support and remain supporting of the game if they can. 

It's also good to remind people that there's value in buying models from local game stores and gaming sites and such and not just hunting the internet for the cheapest cheap prices we can find. 

 

 

In the end they are our armies and our hobbies - we can populate them with GW models; 3rd party models; cardboard cutouts whatever.

 

[EccentricCircle]

On 10/26/2019 at 5:10 PM, EccentricCircle said:

I pretty much don't buy things when they release, but wait a while to see what ends up in start collecting and battleforces sets. However as the price of those goes up, that is proving to be less useful a source of discounts. I had been considering getting another FEC battleforce to build a zombie dragon, but shelved that idea when the price went up. It didn't even go up very much in that case, but I decided I had better things to focus on.

I think I need to not get a new army next year, just focus on adding the odd set to ones I'm already using. That's not just down to the price rise though. Its just generally a very expensive hobby.

Its quite interesting to check back in on this new years resolution. I'm still not a fan of buying things on release, and prefer to wait for them to be reduced a bit. I made an exception for the aether war box, since I expected that to sell out quicker than it did, in practice I could probably have waited. 

I did end up getting that start collecting set in the end, but not until I got a better paying job a couple of months back. I still don't plan on starting a new army this year, although I've ended up expanding my Chaos army more than I had originally planned when I wasn't sure I was going to have much of a hobby budget. (my group deciding to give Warcry a go helped on that note too!)

The price rise won't stop me buying GW stuff, but its certainly annoying. A lot of the models they are bumping the price on are ones which I already felt were overpriced, £20 heroes and £70 centrepiece models really don't need to go up. I'd be a little more forgiving if it were more £17 troop sets going up to 20, since they have a bit more value for  money in them. I've bought a few things in the last week, partially in order to get them while they're cheaper, but its mostly stuff I was planning to get when the lockdown eased up anyway. I don't expect I'll be getting much more for a couple of months now, excepting any made to order runs that pop up. I've got plenty of Ghouls and Chaos cultists to keep me busy, and plenty of much better value for money frostgrave models.

 

[godhand]

well, of course the pricing affects everyone in a different way - for me personally, once i decided to go with a certain faction i get all the models i want for my lists from the cheapest sources possible. Since i am playing mainly AoS on a competitive level, plenty of factors come into play here too naturally,  but at one point i compare the investment when buying different Faction Army's as a whole and when i notice substantial price gaps, i simply go with the cheaper one.

In the long run i might end up with one or two army's less in both Systems than initially planned. As long as i enjoy the hobby, i can overlook that a record profit company is raising prices on a more or less regular basis, because thats how it works when you own the market with such a popular system... there is an abstract pivot point tho, and should e.g. pricing go thru the roof one day or quality vs price would be off in my opinion, i would switch to something else hobbywise completely simply.

[NauticalSoup]

8 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

Not gonna lie I don’t buy GW models but I do buy their paint because I love their app and their system of paint and it’s just easier to follow their own tutorials with those paints than to figure out the closest thing in Vallejo or whatever. Also I get their brushes cuz it’s just like why not. They’re kind of disposable. 

Damn dude, you're the target audience. This is why GW always wins - because so many of y'all respond to an anti-consumer practice buy buying more product. Also, you want disposable brushes buy literally any other brand.

@Beer & Pretzels Gamer

I mean I'm glad your community sounds like it's flourishing. And I'm not gonna die on the hill that pewters are somehow better - I know grognards sometimes prefer them. Probably it's more nostalgia than anything. I can get behind a nice solid chunk pewter character, but anything with more than two pieces is a HARD no. My counterpoint to the the move away from pewter being a benefit to the end-user is that GW bladed us all with Finecast which they sold as a cheaper alternative to pewter, and then they promptly solid it at a higher pricepoint. Also the quality was garbage, 1st generation GW finecast minis legitimately look like counterfeit minis they're so bad. I have a Finecast Sanguinor I never finished that looks like he ate a face-full of buckshot, and that's the better one I got after returning one whose wings had basically disintegrated beneath flashing. And finecast isn't gone, lots of minis across the range are still resin and still expensive and still have poor quality control. The fact that we'll eventually have everything in plastic isn't even much of a relief when it's nailed to yet another price markup. So along the road from annoying pewters to all-plastic we have a highway strewn with wreckage, bitter fans, waves and waves of markups and plenty of jettisoned miniatures.

The anecdotes don't really get us anywhere though, basically it's just me venting because I've seen GW blade players again and again and again and there's always new players without the history to know someday they'll be in line to get offed for a buck. GW is a publicly-owned corporation, they are a 'make number go up business' and couldn't care less about anything that isn't their bottom line. GW doesn't care about you, and will squat your grandmother for a nickel. I play their game because I enjoy it and because, ultimately, they won so it's the only game in town. Doesn't mean they're forgiven though. There will always be room in the Dammaz Kron for more dastardly deeds by James Workshop.

[zilberfrid]

45 minutes ago, NauticalSoup said:

Damn dude, you're the target audience. This is why GW always wins - because so many of y'all respond to an anti-consumer practice buy buying more product. Also, you want disposable brushes buy literally any other brand.

@Beer & Pretzels Gamer

I mean I'm glad your community sounds like it's flourishing. And I'm not gonna die on the hill that pewters are somehow better - I know grognards sometimes prefer them. Probably it's more nostalgia than anything. I can get behind a nice solid chunk pewter character, but anything with more than two pieces is a HARD no. My counterpoint to the the move away from pewter being a benefit to the end-user is that GW bladed us all with Finecast which they sold as a cheaper alternative to pewter, and then they promptly solid it at a higher pricepoint. Also the quality was garbage, 1st generation GW finecast minis legitimately look like counterfeit minis they're so bad. I have a Finecast Sanguinor I never finished that looks like he ate a face-full of buckshot, and that's the better one I got after returning one whose wings had basically disintegrated beneath flashing. And finecast isn't gone, lots of minis across the range are still resin and still expensive and still have poor quality control. The fact that we'll eventually have everything in plastic isn't even much of a relief when it's nailed to yet another price markup. So along the road from annoying pewters to all-plastic we have a highway strewn with wreckage, bitter fans, waves and waves of markups and plenty of jettisoned miniatures.

The anecdotes don't really get us anywhere though, basically it's just me venting because I've seen GW blade players again and again and again and there's always new players without the history to know someday they'll be in line to get offed for a buck. GW is a publicly-owned corporation, they are a 'make number go up business' and couldn't care less about anything that isn't their bottom line. GW doesn't care about you, and will squat your grandmother for a nickel. I play their game because I enjoy it and because, ultimately, they won so it's the only game in town. Doesn't mean they're forgiven though. There will always be room in the Dammaz Kron for more dastardly deeds by James Workshop.

Sorry, I can't agree here. From what I can gather, they have made a choice to keep primary production in the UK when driving it offshore was the norm, their customer support currently seems quite good, and things like announcing this price adjustment is something the GW of a few years ago would not have done. And as far as I can see, they were quite good at putting the safety of their employees (and coincidentally, their customers) before the bottom line in the COVID thing.

There are a lot of things GW does I do not like, but I don't rank them among venture capitalists.

I say this not as a fan, but as someone who's leaving GW's offerings because I don't like their design direction, not because of their whole company deal.

Edited May 23, 2020 by zilberfrid

[Moldek]

17 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Sorry, I can't agree here. From what I can gather, they have made a choice to keep primary production in the UK when driving it offshore was the norm, their customer support currently seems quite good, and things like announcing this price adjustment is something the GW of a few years ago would not have done. And as far as I can see, they were quite good at putting the safety of their employees (and coincidentally, their customers) before the bottom line in the COVID thing.

There are a lot of things GW does I do not like, but I don't rank them among venture capitalists.

I say this not as a fan, but as someone who's leaving GW's offerings because I don't like their design direction, not because of their whole company deal.

I agree with you, although I understand @NauticalSoup ‘s point. 
I am saddened by some of their design directions that seem in part influenced by business; stuff like the disappearance of homemade terrain in photographs, the lack of characters that aren’t models you can buy in illustrations, the loss of some uniqueness in their aesthetic. All this affects me more than the price of the minis itself.

On the other hand this does seem to be the tough law of business. There aren’t many wargaming companies that survived half as long as GW, and it is probably due in part to having some ruthless business execs running their commercial strategy. I wish they were a little less ruthless, but when you see the business practices and design decisions made in a lot of other entertainment franchises in comics, movies, videogames and such, they appear to still have a decent ethos. An uncomfortable balance between the need to provide fun, creativity and excitement, and the need to feed the hungry capitalist hippos.

But maybe I drank the kool-aid 😅

[NauticalSoup]

30 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

There are a lot of things GW does I do not like, but I don't rank them among venture capitalists.

I don't understand the venture capitalist comment. They aren't venture capitalists, they're a publicly traded company whose sole accountability is to the shareholders - ie their bottom line. Perhaps you're using this term to mean something else?