Getting Priced Out

[Saxon]

On 10/20/2020 at 6:32 AM, JackStreicher said:

Here we go again:

The new Warcry set costs 160€ (120-125GBP - that‘s about one billion AUD by GW‘s conversion rate 🤣

Agreed. The page before this comment i was praising Warcry and how much fun our group had playing it the other week only to see GW slap on a massive price tag for the new box which has instantly put us all off.....

[Kramer]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

Agreed. The page before this comment i was praising Warcry and how much fun our group had playing it the other week only to see GW slap on a massive price tag for the new box which has instantly put us all off.....

haha I was getting friends excited as well... Now to hope they forget that one game I mentioned that one time fast 😂

[Saxon]

On 10/20/2020 at 10:45 PM, zilberfrid said:

I get that it is described as satire originally, but the tone has become too serious. And too many of its players take it too seriously as well. It reads a bit too much as Schrödinger's jokes used by the utter right.

I really absolutely resent that the satire aimed at the dogmatic religious organizations around when 40k was created has come under attack from the woke generation who get mad at statues. 

I've seen criticism of the xenophobia of the imperium far too often in lets say the last 18 months in particular. It's upsetting that the people getting upset by this are too stupid to realize the intention of it and ironic that they can't see how silly they look trying to get rid of it 😆

[Joseph Mackay]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

I really absolutely resent that the satire aimed at the dogmatic religious organizations around when 40k was created has come under attack from the woke generation who get mad at statues. 

I've seen criticism of the xenophobia of the imperium far too often in lets say the last 18 months in particular. It's upsetting that the people getting upset by this are too stupid to realize the intention of it and ironic that they can't see how silly they look trying to get rid of it 😆

It’s because for some people, that xenophobia is reflected in the rules too, with imperium armies generally getting better rules than the xenos armies even when the lore supports it being the other way around. That probably has something to do with it 

[Saxon]

6 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:

It’s because for some people, that xenophobia is reflected in the rules too, with imperium armies generally getting better rules than the xenos armies even when the lore supports it being the other way around. That probably has something to do with it 

I think that's just a reflection of 1) how that game was made - centered around the imperium and its fight for survival and 2) the customers bases appetite. It's a heck of a lot easier to sell smurfs to teenagers than the complex world of the Dark Eldar..... 

[Beastmaster]

7 hours ago, Saxon said:

I really absolutely resent that the satire aimed at the dogmatic religious organizations around when 40k was created has come under attack from the woke generation who get mad at statues. 

I've seen criticism of the xenophobia of the imperium far too often in lets say the last 18 months in particular. It's upsetting that the people getting upset by this are too stupid to realize the intention of it and ironic that they can't see how silly they look trying to get rid of it 😆

I could imagine that the aim at religious fundamentalists fighting demons was at least in part making fun of the people who thought D&D would teach their kids to summon the devil.  😄

But.

With all those heavy themes, it’s really important how they are represented. For example, you don’t see environmentalists criticizing 40k for endorsing the building of industrialized megacities, while poisoning whole planets. Why is that? Because it’s shown as really detrimental to all inhabitants involved. The xenophobia is a bit more complicated, because it’s shown to be generally justified: Many, if not most of the alien species really are a danger to the humans and their imperium, the humans often „only defend themselves from the invaders“. In this day and age, those are arguments that sound all-too familiar, especially in the last 18 months. We should be very aware of that.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Beastmaster

[Sartxac]

16 hours ago, Beastmaster said:

I don’t know. A gaming console is a piece of pretty sophisticated electronic hardware (even though such things are easily mass-produced nowadays), while a Gargant miniature or two is basically a piece of pressed plastic (even though well designed etc.). In my mind, they should be priced on completely different levels for me to say „That’s a fair offer“.

I admit, I never understood capitalism. 

The price of the products is in order to recover expenses and obtain benefits.

The videogame has a potential sales of millions units while the gargant has a potential sales of hundreds or thousands units. Due to this, the margins of benefits for unit sold can be more smalls in videogames.

Maybe the mold have a cost of 11,000 ponds or more, you must pay designers (miniature and game) and the costs of the shops.

Edited October 22, 2020 by Sartxac

[Beastmaster]

The prices of molds can’t be that much of a problem, considering how many of them were created in the last years for some specialist game warbands, which were surely no big sellers, and which even were relatively reasonably prized individually.

[Enoby]

7 hours ago, Saxon said:

I really absolutely resent that the satire aimed at the dogmatic religious organizations around when 40k was created has come under attack from the woke generation who get mad at statues. 

I've seen criticism of the xenophobia of the imperium far too often in lets say the last 18 months in particular. It's upsetting that the people getting upset by this are too stupid to realize the intention of it and ironic that they can't see how silly they look trying to get rid of it 😆

I think the criticism of 40k's writing isn't because the so-called 'woke generation' doesn't get satire, but because 40k's lore is a mess and so sends multiple messages. 

There are no shortage of people who unironically think that the Imperium are the good guys (or at least justified), and that's partially down to the toning down of the Imperium's silliness (compared to Rogue Trader days). I don't think I have ever seen someone from the 'woke generation' ask for 40k to become more sanitised - in fact, I have seen quite the opposite. Most seem to wish that 40k would go harder on the Imperium's bad aspects (and lose any of the good) to hammer home that they are the bad guys too. 

As the books are written by so many different people, the message gets confused. It only takes one author to write "there are some nice and fair places in the Imperium" for certain fans to latch onto it and declare the Imperium isn't as bad as everyone claims. The best example comes from the Emperor, who I believe in Rogue Trader days was a malicious tyrant, who is now seen in the community as a wise and super-intelligent leader (all of his mistakes were either 5D chess or bad writing) who still resides in mind on the golden throne and wants the best for humanity (and would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for his meddling kids). Changing the Emperor from a mysterious skeleton on a chair that people worshipped and sacrificed innocents to for possibly no reason besides thinking it worked (a great microcosm of the Imperium), to a skeleton of an actual god (in 40k's terms) who can grant powers and does actually hold the astronomicon together as well as commune with his son was possibly the change that brought about the most confusion as it partially justified the Imperium's cause and made them look less stupid. When the 'god' they worship has been described by authors to have the best in mind for humanity and there's a massive book series describing how other people messed it up for him, as well as this god granting powers (living saints) I think the original satire of religious dogmatism gets lost. It's now not about humanity being hilariously wrong and corrupt, blinded by misguided faith to sacrifice to a rotting carcass on a chair but instead about worshipping an actual god who can do things - the faith is no longer misguided.

Judging from fan groups and lore discussion, there are those who (unironically) believe the Imperium is justified, that the god Emperor is a good person, that there are mostly nice places in the Imperium (we just see the bad places), that the Salamanders are good, that the xenophobia in lore is a good thing (ignoring the fact that the Imperium are just as bad as the aliens), and that there is no other way the Imperium could possibly operate. From what I've seen, it's not this mysterious 'woke generation' who doesn't understand satire...

[Saxon]

1 hour ago, Beastmaster said:

I could imagine that the aim at religious fundamentalists fighting demons was at least in part making fun of the people who thought D&D would teach their kids to summon the devil.  😄

But.

With all those heavy themes, it’s really important how they are represented. For example, you don’t see environmentalists criticizing 40k for endorsing the building of industrialized megacities, while poisoning whole planets. Why is that? Because it’s shown as really detrimental to all inhabitants involved. The xenophobia is a bit more complicated, because it’s shown to be generally justified: Many, if not most of the alien species really are a danger to the humans and their imperium, the humans often „only defend themselves from the invaders“. In this day and age, those are arguments that sound all-too familiar, especially in the last 18 months. We should be very aware of that.

The lore of 40k has more or less been consistent in its xenophobia from the start. It's tiresome that all of a sudden its bad to show good guys as problematically xenophobic. Hence my reference to statues. Fine until recently and now they're offensive. Please. 

[Saxon]

25 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I think the criticism of 40k's writing isn't because the so-called 'woke generation' doesn't get satire, but because 40k's lore is a mess and so sends multiple messages. 

There are no shortage of people who unironically think that the Imperium are the good guys (or at least justified), and that's partially down to the toning down of the Imperium's silliness (compared to Rogue Trader days). I don't think I have ever seen someone from the 'woke generation' ask for 40k to become more sanitised - in fact, I have seen quite the opposite. Most seem to wish that 40k would go harder on the Imperium's bad aspects (and lose any of the good) to hammer home that they are the bad guys too. 

As the books are written by so many different people, the message gets confused. It only takes one author to write "there are some nice and fair places in the Imperium" for certain fans to latch onto it and declare the Imperium isn't as bad as everyone claims. The best example comes from the Emperor, who I believe in Rogue Trader days was a malicious tyrant, who is now seen in the community as a wise and super-intelligent leader (all of his mistakes were either 5D chess or bad writing) who still resides in mind on the golden throne and wants the best for humanity (and would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for his meddling kids). Changing the Emperor from a mysterious skeleton on a chair that people worshipped and sacrificed innocents to for possibly no reason besides thinking it worked (a great microcosm of the Imperium), to a skeleton of an actual god (in 40k's terms) who can grant powers and does actually hold the astronomicon together as well as commune with his son was possibly the change that brought about the most confusion as it partially justified the Imperium's cause and made them look less stupid. When the 'god' they worship has been described by authors to have the best in mind for humanity and there's a massive book series describing how other people messed it up for him, as well as this god granting powers (living saints) I think the original satire of religious dogmatism gets lost. It's now not about humanity being hilariously wrong and corrupt, blinded by misguided faith to sacrifice to a rotting carcass on a chair but instead about worshipping an actual god who can do things - the faith is no longer misguided.

Judging from fan groups and lore discussion, there are those who (unironically) believe the Imperium is justified, that the god Emperor is a good person, that there are mostly nice places in the Imperium (we just see the bad places), that the Salamanders are good, that the xenophobia in lore is a good thing (ignoring the fact that the Imperium are just as bad as the aliens), and that there is no other way the Imperium could possibly operate. From what I've seen, it's not this mysterious 'woke generation' who doesn't understand satire...

I guess experiences are different. The last time I made the mistake of venturing into games workshop related social media there was a lot of opposition to how the imperium operates in the lore and how it apparently encourages right wing extremist views. 

Its one of the reasons I avoid the community on social media. My favourite part was when GW posted an inclusion statement but didn't post it on instagram and everyone lost their minds until new smurfs came out 2 weeks later and everyone stopped caring.

Keeping lore in any game on track has to be hard. Everyone has their own ideas and perspectives. 40k fans in particular are demanding and unforgiving. Id hate to be a black library author. 

The woke generation is not mysterious.... put a conservative opinion on social media and await the hate haha

[Greybeard86]

I guess we moved to a lore discussion. Well played, GW, well played :P

Honestly, both Fantasy and 40K started as a simple collection of scifi and tolkienesque fantasy tropes cranked up to absurdity, mixed in with some broader "ideas" of the era.  It was like to "geek culture" what "scary movie" is meant to be to horror films.

So no, I do not think it is a very well thought out "political satire" or anything like that. However, over the years that absurdity of scarcely veiled copy pastes from existing tropes has developed its own character. I do believe the tone is more serious now, which IMHO goes against the original spirit.

Of course, fascist themes and saviors and xenophobia, all very present in 40k, are at the center of the political debate now. No surprise that 40k "lore" becomes an extension of the traditional political battlefield. But I think it probably has to do more with what we project into it than what it was "designed" to be. That said, I do not think the original GW produced "lore" was very "minority" friendly at all, but I think this has to do with the source more than with GW's design. More recently, perhaps there is more of a concerted effort to "shape its own course" in GW. But it also coincides with a period in which I have been more detached from the hobby, so can't truly say much about it yet.

 

[zilberfrid]

8 hours ago, Saxon said:

I really absolutely resent that the satire aimed at the dogmatic religious organizations around when 40k was created has come under attack from the woke generation who get mad at statues. 

I've seen criticism of the xenophobia of the imperium far too often in lets say the last 18 months in particular. It's upsetting that the people getting upset by this are too stupid to realize the intention of it and ironic that they can't see how silly they look trying to get rid of it 😆

It may be a bias by small sample, but I think that there has been a shift from the comically fascist empire in Rogue Trader to a more understandable one more recently.

Though on the other hand, just today I read a few Regimental Standards, and they are quite funny in that "your lives don't matter" kind of way. The one equating grots and guardsmen while encouraging them to still think of themselves as better had me laughing out loud.

I like that depiction, but it's a challenging one to write long form fiction in.

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Sartxac said:

The price of the products is in order to recover expenses and obtain benefits.

The videogame has a potential sales of millions units while the gargant has a potential sales of hundreds or thousands units. Due to this, the margins of benefits for unit sold can be more smalls in videogames.

Maybe the mold have a cost of 11,000 ponds or more, you must pay designers (miniature and game) and the costs of the shops.

The cost of molds and designers would be a much better point if their pricing was on par with other mini companies who also need molds and designers (and GW's profit margin was lower).

[Saxon]

Just now, zilberfrid said:

It may be a bias by small sample, but I think that there has been a shift from the comically fascist empire in Rogue Trader to a more understandable one more recently.

Though on the other hand, just today I read a few Regimental Standards, and they are quite funny in that "your lives don't matter" kind of way. The one equating grots and guardsmen while encouraging them to still think of themselves as better had me laughing out loud.

I like that depiction, but it's a challenging one to write long form fiction in.

See i agree i love that kind of thing. The lore surrounding the seized of Vraks which was a meat grinder was cool. The 40k future is dark and bad. It may just be my circle but seeing people get upset at the way it's all portrayed just irritates me. 

I do recognise that being consistent for so long in writing style would be difficult. 

[Greybeard86]

1 minute ago, zilberfrid said:

The cost of molds and designers would be a much better point if their pricing was on par with other mini companies who also need molds and designers (and GW's profit margin was lower).

We have company level information about their margins, I just posted it. There is no need to speculate, they sell “expensive” for what it costs them to make it.  That consumers would refuse to belief the abundant evidence regarding the market power driven “high” prices GW uses is baffling to me. Why attempt to deny the obvious? Maybe the product is still worth the money to you and you buy (I do too, sometimes), but the prices are far above “competitive” prices and that’s GW using its position of dominance.

[zilberfrid]

1 minute ago, Greybeard86 said:

We have company level information about their margins, I just posted it. There is no need to speculate, they sell “expensive” for what it costs them to make it.  That consumers would refuse to belief the abundant evidence regarding the market power driven “high” prices GW uses is baffling to me. Why attempt to deny the obvious? Maybe the product is still worth the money to you and you buy (I do too, sometimes), but the prices are far above “competitive” prices and that’s GW using its position of dominance.

I agree completely. I just hope more people look beyond GW to other companies that could really use the clients.

[Greybeard86]

6 minutes ago, Saxon said:

See i agree i love that kind of thing. The lore surrounding the seized of Vraks which was a meat grinder was cool. The 40k future is dark and bad. It may just be my circle but seeing people get upset at the way it's all portrayed just irritates me. 

I do recognise that being consistent for so long in writing style would be difficult. 

See, the whole imperium is fascist bad won’t bother the so called woke (that empire is clearly evil to a ridiculous level). It is, I guess, some of the recent “lore” portraying the emperor as benevolent father doing what is necessary that seems more apologetic of the concept of the empire and fascism. If I had to guess that’s what bugs them.  But I’m still catching up on the new stuff.

[Beastmaster]

23 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

See, the whole imperium is fascist bad won’t bother the so called woke (that empire is clearly evil to a ridiculous level). It is, I guess, some of the recent “lore” portraying the emperor as benevolent father doing what is necessary that seems more apologetic of the concept of the empire and fascism. If I had to guess that’s what bugs them.  But I’m still catching up on the new stuff.

Which, of course, strikes a more sensitive nerve in a time where comparable narratives are actually endorsed in real-world politics by a growing number of voters. As much as you may try to keep a fantasy world apart from real development, it’s inevitably shaping the way people look at the fantasy. That’s just a fact.

[RuneBrush]

3 hours ago, Beastmaster said:

The prices of molds can’t be that much of a problem, considering how many of them were created in the last years for some specialist game warbands, which were surely no big sellers, and which even were relatively reasonably prized individually.

Last time we had any figures a normal steel mold was around £50k (probably 15~20 years ago) for a normal infantry sized sprue.  I believe when they took this in house some molds halved in price - however that was for pretty simple old molds.  I would imagine that the material cost and manufacture cost has bumped it back up by a chunk and you're probably back up to the £50k mark.

There are other ways to make molds which is quite prevalent in China, but the quality isn't as good.  If you think about the realm gate miniature, that's a good example of a cheaper mold.

[Greybeard86]

28 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

Last time we had any figures a normal steel mold was around £50k (probably 15~20 years ago) for a normal infantry sized sprue.  I believe when they took this in house some molds halved in price - however that was for pretty simple old molds.  I would imagine that the material cost and manufacture cost has bumped it back up by a chunk and you're probably back up to the £50k mark.

There are other ways to make molds which is quite prevalent in China, but the quality isn't as good.  If you think about the realm gate miniature, that's a good example of a cheaper mold.

I would say that the cost of molds is pretty irrelevant in itself, as what is important is the margin that GW has given their current scale and full cost accounting (which isn't only molds). Regardless of the high or low price of the mold, GW has a margin that is far above other industries (my post history can give you the relevant source). It is clear that they could sell more miniatures at a cheaper price, if they so chose, while still making profit. But they chose to sell at "high" prices because that results in a higher profit.

It is textbook market power, and it is quite obviously bad for the consumers. Not only those who buy have a lower consumer surplus, but some that could possibly buy are outpriced and hence cannot participate in the market. This is the fundamental justification for anti-trust laws and generally speaking attempting to curtail monopolies and "excessive market power", since we know that this market power is "bad" for "overall" welfare

This has nothing to do with turning GW into an NGO, or that companies should not attempt to "maximize profit". At this point, I cheer for Mantic and equivalent companies. Not because I may like their product better (in some regards I do, in others I do not), because it is clear that more competition can only help us. The more dominant GW becomes, the worse it will be for us.

[Sleboda]

23 hours ago, Overread said:

I don't think GW is aiming to become a media franchise power in the least. 

Yes they are doing media, but I get more of a vibe that they are using that to develop something they want to make which can also turn a profit and, most importantly, expose more people to their IP and thus help drive game sales of their core product. Its just the same as how they do their computergames, only instead of using 3rd parties, GW are doing the media a little more under their own umbrella. 

Shifting gear to try and become Marvel/DC/Disney is a VASTLY different ballgame and well outside of GW's comfort zone. 

In the end GW is in the miniature model business

Don't underestimate the influence of being a public company.

If their stock price would go up by shifting to selling cheeseburgers instead of toys, they would (and should) do it in a heartbeat.

 

A publicly traded company has exactly one responsibility: to increase shareholder value.  That's it. End of story.

If selling out 40 years of established lore by making a movie with Billie Eilish as a terminator captain would make $700MM at the box office, they would do it.

Even if it meant discontinuing the entire model range, but doubling stock price, that's the right thing to do for a public company.

 

GW is not a miniature model business anymore. They are a profit-for-shareholders (like me) business.

[Overread]

Shareholders are important, but I think that's a rather hyperbolic view. Also I find it interesting that when GW's management took their eyes off the shareholder tactics for profit and put them on their customers again they wound up topping the stock market; running out of stock because it was flying off shelves faster than they could cast, and a huge surge in customers. 

Basically yes shareholders are important, but at the same time GW is a miniature model company, if they don't serve that market their profits go down and their shareholder value goes down.

 

Also many of the major shareholders holding stock for GW aren't after fast growth profits. Many of them are firms that are after more steady investment growth. GW isn't a company of big swings. They've had an abnormal blip which highlighted how important their core customers are to them and the shareholders; but broadly speaking they are the kind of firm you invest in when you want your money to maintain rather than the kind you invest into because you think they are going to hit it big - then sell off before they slow down etc...

 

 

GW is a miniature model business. Being reminded of that at management level led to them improving their shareholder value. Also don't forget GW only invests its own money in itself; everything they have is bought and paid for by the sale of models (and IP licences - which relies on teh IP being strong which relies on models). They aren't taking out loans to increase their profits by offsetting expansion costs for decades

 

 

Shareholders are indeed important, but I think that GW has a more healthy attitude toward them and their relationship with the stockmarket today than perhaps they did in the past. And its a healthy relationship that benefits GW, Shareholders and customers. 

[Sleboda]

6 hours ago, Beastmaster said:

With all those heavy themes, it’s really important how they are represented. For example, you don’t see environmentalists criticizing 40k for endorsing the building of industrialized megacities, while poisoning whole planets. Why is that? Because it’s shown as really detrimental to all inhabitants involved

As is the religious stuff. One of the best things after 40K is just how clear it makes it that believing in gods is silly, silly, silly.

Go ahead. Put your faith in a dead man-who-claims-he-is-god.  See how that goes for you. Then look at how many other civilisations wage war in the name of a fairy tale dirty.

 

40K has been, and remains, an excellent exploration of the hideous evils that come from putting faith in the insanity of religious beliefs. If the galaxy would ditch that crud, there would soon be peace.

I get much appreciate the satire inherent in 40K lore.

[123lac]

I just roll my eyes every time I read someone say something along the lines of "but golf is so much more expensive!".

Yes, collecting antique Ferraris is also an expensive hobby, but that has absolutely nothing to do with whether Warhammer is overpriced.