Hobby Hate Peddling: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/eJp5lMWSnKedcWg.html

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Deadzone 3 is out soon 😉

@Discourse Miniatures: I am fairly certain, that GW switched their plastic prue production to China. 8th Edition Indomitus boxed set actually came from China, and was only packaged in the UK. Same with the Codexes these days. So GW makes everything in China for cheap, then packages it in the UK to be able to print a "Made in UK" label on it.

@@h2835 EU certain allows a company to assemble boxes in a resident country and therefore apply the "Made in X" label, so presumably that still remains the case in the UK. That said the vast vast majority of their plastic is manufactured in the UK according to their own annual reports.

Capitalism ohoy!

Space Mace 69 Rules!!!

Grimdark future and Onepagerules in general is amazing. Definitely the proper choice.

In the dank grimness of the 69th millennium there is only conflict.

As a supporter of OPR, I have to say- the prices OPR charges for resin prints of their own models is pretty bad... $3-4 per mini is pretty gnarly. Its almost like they're using GW as a baseline and generating pricing just under that level, hoping that we will buy in as an alternative.

When it's up they're up! When it's down they're up! Highs and, erm, highs.

@@DiscourseMinis I think they're just high on all that resin dust.

If they are even its the inflation.

Though I only buy oop recasts because oop you can buy prefect recast heavy intercessors for £11. The temptation is strong when I look at my fiends 20+ imperial knights plus Titans and not a single FW knight cost over £40…

Yeah, and there's a real lack of customization and bits too :(

I've switched over to Malifaux so can't be too salty about monopose. I am salty that Templars got an Amazing upgrade series and Blood Angel one is poop

Their pricing practices are why there are so many lost opportunities for new customers and also why many have taking to sailing the high seas.

@@darrenbarlow1826 I know right. What specifically is "Blood Angels" about the chainsword and pistol arms???

@@darrenbarlow1826 Not only the upgrade sprues. But the facts that there are new primaris types specifically for the BT, and yet they couldn't do the same for the Wolves or BA

You don’t understand uhh… pewter model ACTUALLY COST MORE WITH INFLATION THAN RESIN ONE

Same here. Quit around the end of 3rd Edition, got back into it with Warhammer Conquest and Indomitus. When plastic Cadians were released they were 30€ for 20 Models. Now it's 35€ for 10. For 10 guardsmen! Absolute Madness. Playing guard was expensive back then. With the prices I noped right out of the idea to restart the army.

Careful guys, Discourse pointed out that the inflation argument does not apply to price spikes in more recent box sets. Midwinter Minis made a pretty good video about how GW prices as a whole have not increased all that much over the decades, at least not on average. Certain things like character models certainly have but other things have not, or even gotten cheaper. The video makes a good point about how GW prices are extremely inconsistent across their range though. Additionally, one could always make the argument that models should simply get cheaper over time because of evolving production and market contexts. The production must have gotten cheaper over the years, unless GW are the least efficient manufacturer in the world. They are also competing in a diverse market now, unlike during the 90s and 2000s when they held a monopoly position in the fantasy tabletop hobby.

@@Hopesfallout It might be true that on a model-by-model basis, Games Workshop hasn't become that much more expensive. But honestly, that's somewhat irrelevant... The real kicker is the buy-in cost. That's where Games Workshop has a real problem. 40K has turned into a mass-combat game, yet it's still priced as though it's a skirmish game.

Same with me, I got back into the hobby 2 years ago and buy in price for GW and constant changes requiring new codex books etc put me off. I have spent £1000’s on systems that offered better valve compared to GW.

I do like to buy the leader models then work from there! That said, with Beastmen it's like GW don't want to sell you a leader!

@@DiscourseMinis I could understand paying a LITTLE more for the old build-a-bear style space marine kits that were on two sprues, but thirty dollars plus for a character to get a tabletop buff that might not survive the next FAQ is, well, no wonder folks call it "plastic crack".

Hey... *opens up his trench coat* Heard of the hottest new... 3d printers stranger?...

@@striderfox71 I wonder how big their piles of shame are. I already have a hard time buying faster than I can paint.

@@bopaintsminis Well it can go both ways I think. One side you may go on a mad printing spree excited for a new project and only being limited to time and how much resin you can print. On the other side you only print what you need at anytime instead of feeling like you need to pre purchase whole box loads of minis from new releases that you may miss out on do to artificial shortages.

it's a sad cycle :( I'm not sure if it can contineu forever

You are correct.. I have been to a couple of the meetings and most only have the stock because their hedge-fund manager sees growth and adds it.. So not only do a majority of stockholders not realize what they have, neither do the fund managers.. If it wasn't so sad it would almost be comical. So I believe everyone should not buy GW products, and every month they should buy a little stock at a time.. then when they get a healthy portfolio, they can cash in some dividend and buy products that way.. usually after a split, so that way their original numbers of shares don't go below the initial investment. Farq them at there own game.. Also remember all the money they are making leasing the IP for all the Android/Apple games for wireless devices.. yes they get a huge chunk of that, especially if it's "Freemium" games

I'm in the same boat except in that 25 years I worked at a store for about 4 years and watched the prices go up at least 3 times in that span. I could've kept up with that with having kids and becoming an engineer, but instead I bought a boat and then started collecting whiskey. Lol

Better off investing in a 3d tesin printer

Yeah, it's an intentional pricing model to position themselves as a "boutique" brand but that really hurts the miniature wargaming hobby as it puts casual hobbyists off (as GW seek to draw cash from the deeply committed players) because they can't take the constant price increases, and there might have been something they were really into!

@@DiscourseMinis right, but I guess my point is that I don't think GW wants "more" gamers, just more profitable ones. Something that's always baffled me is GW's manufacturing - primarily, their insistence on sticking to one main factory. About ten years or so ago, I got to tour GW Memphis here in the states. At the time, GW did some manufacturing at Memphis, but it was (IIRC) four machines to do plastic kits. Metals still had to be shipped in from the UK, and the most puzzling to me was that GW refused to make duplicate sets of master molds so that each site had one. Instead, they'd switch between the locations and physically ship individual master molds back and forth. There was a rumor that the original master mold for the plastic Daemon Prince kit was lost in shipping, which delayed its release for over a year or some such. Anyways, point being - GW US was originally HQ'd near Baltimore, but they moved it to Memphis ostensibly because Memphis is a relatively large transportation hub for air, trucks, and rail, yet when they built a manufacturing site, it was limited to a handful of molds that had to use shared masters with the UK, limiting production capability even more. If GW wants more gamers, why aren't they building more manufacturing around the world? Especially in places like Australia / NZ where a local factory might help bring down their severe costs? As such, I guess I'm just not convinced that GW has every really wanted true hordes of new players entering the hobby. I'm reminded of how my college openly strategized student recruiting: first and second year college students tend to be the most profitable here in the US, because they tend to live on campus (paying the school even more money for room and board), have less scholarship money than third and fourth year students, and can be taught with cheaper staff (since more of their courses are intro/basic level courses). So a lot of US colleges intentionally enroll first year student numbers that if they all made it to their last year, the school literally wouldn't have the capacity to teach. But they have no intention of teaching them all four years - the goal is to milk as much money out of them for two years and make schooling difficult enough that they drop out until the remaining numbers are manageable enough for their final years at school. I think GW has the exact same mindset. Milk profits off the initial start up costs, keep making profits off the x % that become fanatics and stick around, and willingly walk away from the rest that get priced out. If you take AoS, there are ostensibly two skirmish games (Underworlds and Warcry) that should function as lower cost entry games to help get people into the hobby that can't afford or wouldn't be willing to drop the higher up front costs of AoS proper. Yet...Underworlds not only has gone through the price increases you mention, it was also designed from the start as a card collecting and card chasing game, baiting players into buying everything just to get the handful of cards they need to stay competitive. And while Warcry is fairly decent price-wise if you stick with the game-specific war bands, the game also encourages creating war bands from the AoS armies - but each of these typically requires a few models from at least 3-4 AoS units to assemble, so a typical Warcry war band can ultimately run $200 or more (compared to $50 for a Warcry-unique war band). Same with Kill Team. Same with Adeptus Titanicus, which has almost as many rule books as models to buy. I just don't think GW wants to entice or enable more gamers into the hobby. Not that they're indifferent, but that they actively don't want it. They seem to instead target some sort of niche balance between maximum profit per customer and a fair number but not too many of them. IE it's a "boutique" product only made in one spot in the world, that filters out certain 'types' on the sly by making the cost of entry prohibitive for a lot of economic class levels, and maximizes profits by selling itself as 'elite' to new customers and maximizing FOMO/brand loyalty from existing ones.

Milk the whales

Yeah I keep setting out with every video to make it shorter, but then there's just so many points to touch on! Yeah, so many people have been pushed out of the hobby, wish it weren't the case :(

@@DiscourseMinis I have two 3d printers, one FDM and one resin. I can say that it is still far from being more "house friendly". It takes a while to get the hang of it, and it has its drawbacks. FDM can catch fire (what almost happened to me once), and resin is toxic to handle, so it forces the user to have a special place for it. Quality is really good, I've printed models and I'm still amazed at the level of detail and the technology involved, but it is still really far away from the regular user. Think about the CD, when it started going around, I had a friend that had a cd writer. It was complicated and expensive to get into, but he did the effort and actually made a lot of money selling copies of music CDs. Nowadays a DVD-Writer is something easy to get and use, a few clicks, a few minutes and done! I hope someday 3D printing gets really user friendly so more people can actually get into the hobby their own way.

@@WisePenguin007 well, resin has at least made great advancements :) Water and bio resins, flex mediums and much better printers. I am not up to date on FDM but I can at least see that it is easier and cheaper to get a good printer now. Its actually a bit scary how fast they have evolved. I wonder what they will be like in ten years...

@@KrullMaestaren Yeah, a few years ago the resin printer seemed sci-fi to me. Looking at that platform going up from the liquid and forming the miniature was mind blowing. I use water washable resin, and it's a good improvement over the regular one, but it's still very toxic and difficult to handle. I'm looking forward to the day where a safe to handle resin is available, or a printer that manages it automatically through an automatic fill and filtering system. What I meant is that it is still far from being a common household item.

Dog if you like GW’s products, IMO that isn’t some kind of sin by itself. I know videos like these can come off as hostile, but from my point of view some people really don’t understand why people get frustrated like Discourse beyond simple “THEY HATERS” mentality. Not saying you came off that way, but I understand GW critics can have a negative connotation

Creature Caster has some cool proxies for those type of models. Might be worth checking out.

@@nicholas3478 They do. But I’ve developed a bit of a crush on Essetria from the Tome of Demons 1 by Archvillain Games.

Totally get that. I think consumers are definitely pressured to buy from 3rd party retailers now, and there's so much choice of miniatures out there on the market these days. It's hard to justify paying full RRP for Warhammer products.

@@DiscourseMinis Oddly enough I don’t feel pressured to buy the indie versions. I feel pressured to buy the GW option. Because without it in my ranks, my army won’t be perceived as being legitimate. The amount of effort and passion I have expended in the painting, basing, and planning of my army just won’t matter unless it’s composed of the “correct” pieces. The indie options are better value for money. But they also feel more dangerous; riskier; which is inspiring. If I give GW my money it’s equivalent to saying - I approve of your business practices.

Yeah, it's a big problem. So many of the executives at the top end of GW have walked in from the same big companies. In many ways the corporate world is actually getting less and less diverse in the way the people within that world think because they've doubled down harder on well established routes into those powerful positions. It's a sort of self reinforcing circle too, because the people who come up through those routes have an enormous stake in reinforcing the idea that these are the ways to get good corporate people. Since it makes their CV look better. So all the top of the corporate world are a bunch of people with the same background and connections flitting back and forth between the same positions. This is a problem that's getting worse rather than better :(

Yeah, that's a very good point. The ubiquity of Warhammer is so important. It suffers a lot if it gets overtaken by a different company - as it nearly almost did 10 years ago!

I discovered Zombicide and is now exploring/developing new rule systems thanks to its inspiration. This isn't good for GW. Oh, and there is the Elder Scrolls game. Those dice rules are very interesting.

The advantage GW has over the others even if they are ridiculously priced is that you can step into most gaming stores and find other people to play with. It is not quite the same for SW: Legion, ASOIAF and Marvel Crisis Protocol. The community itself is a large part of the equation. If other miniature games become bigger ,... Only then maybe GW will notice how egregious their pricing model is..

That’s the beauty of a free market. If they take big enough hits, they will “correct” their pricing, or they’ll go away. Why so much hate on GW? Play something else. I get you want your favorite game to cost you less, but if people continue to pay the prices, I don’t see why they would lower them.

Good luck playing Kingdom Death with people.. 40k, being the most common tabletop miniature game I've ever encountered, makes it kinda the opposite of luxury in my mind.

Yeah, it's a sad feeling, I know it well!

it's been rough!

It's why I changed games.

Yeah, it's nuts to anyone outside the hobby!

I promise to make a compelling case that Games Workshop should drop prices!

Yeah, I totally agree!

Northern Ireland aka the Callixus Sector :D

@@DiscourseMinis hahahaha, exactly... damn it took me like solid 5 seconds of confusion, before I started laughing, I'm getting old.

@@Commodore22345 you're right- and a lot of that is, as you said- the way they market their brand. Ask someone who owns a FLGS someday about the stipulations GW places (making your dedicate more shelf to them, so there's less room for competitors). As far as people not being interested? Well, I'd say that is a big challenge. I think that's also an unintentional side-effect of GW's business... after investing in Warhammer, the idea of investing in a 'new game' just sounds like twice the Warhammer money... even though a lot of other games are much cheaper, most people don't realize that. As for advice on getting people interested? "Double up" - I've always tried to have at a minimum, enough stuff for two people to play a game. It's a hard sell to ask someone to put money into a game and 'try it'- it works a bit better if you do it the other way. Another idea? Focus on miniatures-agnostic games. "Yeah, you can just use your Warhammer miniatures if you wanna..." and that'll usually help.

Yeah, my brain can't comprehend the prices in Australia honestly

I'm Australian as well. Very expensive I can't really justify the expense. Even though I'm also on very good coin.

I’ve been looking into Conquest and Kings of War. conquest is super popular in my area but I’m scared to dive into it…

I'm on 6 figures in Aus and can not justify buying GW at the moment, I might throw some birthday money at them but I think the last thing I bought from them was the tooth and claw box, and the last Death guard codex. I have since bought a 3D printer and over the period of 3 months it has paid for itself if you compare what I have printed to GW prices.

@@DiscourseMinis I'm on a disability pension, for a bit there I was able to keep up with things. but these latest hikes have really taken the cake. The first underworlds box I bought was 90. I could afford that in 1 fortnight (sure that's pretty much all my discretionary money used) and its now 160 for a box that has nothing extra in it that wasn't in night vault. almost twice the cost. there is no way someone on my income in australia can reallyy keep up in the hobby

They are able to do it, and do it well. We can only hope they figure it out

High end plastic was supposed to make the game overall cheaper, but all it did was break the frame of reference. It used to be cheap common troops in plastic, expensive rare models in metal or resin. But now its just expensive everything in plastic.

Yeah, I still think the LOTR game is probably the most accessible game by GW. Totally overlooked, sadly :(

Hopefully with their manufacturing expansion they'll move it back to the UK!

@@DiscourseMinis We can only hope!

It was touch and go hehe

The 2002 price increase was what drove me out of the hobby. I just went to their online store and nearly had a stroke.

Yup, I totally agree!

Thanks Michael! Glad you found value in the content! I absolutely adore Perry Miniatures!! They do not get enough good press

It's why I bought a 3d printer fuck em. Even having a 50% profit margin is stupid good for a company having a 300% profit margin and still rasing the prices. Fuck . Em.

well duh that's how a business works? How much do you think it costs to manufacture lego compared to their price? Also where did you get the fact about cardboard box prices? Even if it were true, GW would just double the number of models in a box (so according to your logic for less than half the production cost) and double the price so they would have more profit? Why don't they do it?

You don't understand margin calculations... It is (revenue-costs)/revenue.

Executives got to eat right? I mean, those michelin star restaurants, personal chefs, food tasters aren't cheap. I do kid, but lets not forget that beyond miniatures they are also into a lot of things. Books, videos, video games, etc... It seems like a fairly popular place to work as well. So, it's not like they are making a 300% profit. I agree that they are way out if line with the costs for the models. I even stated as much in another video. It's perfectly highlighted in this one. That IP, the lore, the history, is (IMO) the number One reason people contemplate the game. Unfortunately the price gouging, the way gw treated their positive community members and content creators, the very loud and rather large toxic community, and the overall insane cost of entry (money and more importantly, time) just make it a non starter. It's a game, and it's supposed to be fun. Spending 60 dollars on five plastic miniatures that i need to put together and kit but cant get to represent my unit because they don't have the right accessories, is not fun. That's not even painting them.

Thanks so much Rich! Glad you liked the video. I totally agree with you, I think you're totally right, if GW think that there's more "perceived value" in a particular model or bundle they'll use that as an excuse to reduce the offering to compensate. It sucks because it feels like a hostile relationship where GW try to optimize every single engagement.

Yeah, it sounds super liberating! Maybe it's time I went over too...

Oh yeah, I definitely have a lot to say on that topic. The fact that Games Workshop don't do sales at all is absolutely astounding to me. I know whyyy they do it, but as you say, they are definitely missing a trick

Haha thanks! Boo to Nestle!!

Haha unfortunately Johnny, I was one of those younger kids! It was around 2004 that I started to get into the game! So alas I did not get to experience the game before then :(

Thank you so much!! Glad you enjoyed it haha

Haha good luck Christiaan!! Glad you like the suit lol it's one of the easier costumes :( Doesn't fit as well since lockdown though xD Too much chocolate!

Yeah, totally. I really want to see the sales numbers for it, but I suspect it didn't sell great

Oh yeah totally. I get that they can add extra value in the bundles, but the problem is that the boxes otherwise don't give much

Thank you!! Yeah, it's hard to get people into 40k as a result. The buy-in way too substantial. I find that skirmish games are a better way to introduce folk to the hobby!

Hey Krl! I have a lot of content planned that will incorporate lots of different games, it just requires a lot of time and money investment from myself right now to buy everything, but hopefully folk will enjoy it! Glad you like the content :)

I'm not very familiar with blood bowl, but it sounds like they created a problem by overpricing the individual model and sold the solution to you in the form of a bigger box that had a somewhat smaller price increase...

@@Doodlebob563 Yeah, it definitely touches on the point made in the video where a box looks like a great value only when compared to the cost of buying the products individually. But, in this case, they had already established the practice of selling Big Guys separately from the rest of the team. They could've easily upped the price by $20 and used the addition of the Star Players and the Refs as the rationale (also, the rulebook is hardback now whereas I think it was softcover before, but don't quote me on that). But, instead, they actually gave players an additional piece they would've certainly bought regardless they had any intention of being competitive. It's exceedingly rare for the starter set of a new edition to be a better value than the one before, so I think it's worth mentioning and maybe keeping an eye on.

Honestly, even without comparing to individual prices Blood Bowl S2 is fairly decent value. For $120 you get 30 miniatures, 2 sets of dice, the board, and accessories. There are better values out there, but it's still a decent one (only wish it wasn't Orcs vs Humans..as I don't care about humans and my greenskins are spelt with a K XD)

@@Bkwrm88 I appreciate the clarification!

Yeah, it's super frustrating to me! It's an open goal.

Yeah, I'm the exact same way! It frustrates me to no end haha

Yup, it's just not defensible!

Anytime I hear someone say luxury prices I think they mean “thank you sir, may I have another”

Yeah, it's a really high margin, very rare overall. And yup, that doesn't even go to their employees :(

This matches my experience haha

I keep hearing about these GW fanboys, but all I see are people complaining about GW fanboys. I don't see any of them in the comments or really anywhere. This is like the mythical Blizzard fanboy. I could trip and accidently fall on someone complaining about Blizzard, but I can't remember the last time I found someone who actually like the company Blizzard these days.

@@xenoblad So you're trying to create a new kinda of mythical fanboy?...The anti fanboy fanboy? Hmmm sounds sus in the extreme🤣

@@silentmoniker lol, I doubting GW has any good will that people say still remains with some people.

Thanks so much Elijah!! I try to keep it light where I can xD

Yeeeah, I don't think they sold very well

Haha exactly Andres! I love opening Perry Miniatures boxes and getting that shot of "Oh yeah, I forgot how much stuff you can get!"

Thank you so much Kieran! That's very kind of you :D

Tabletop simulator is awesome!! Love it, great as a pathway into the general hobby!

Yeah, totally agree. I miss the sales :( But I think they believe it'll devalue their brand now

While I do agree with you - it's definitely been something that the community have generally been griping about forever - I do think the material context is changing. I definitely see a lot more competition in the wargaming market right now. And as GW inevitably try to push their IP in video games, they're increasingly going to attract a wider casual audience... One which will totally be put off by the prices. I'm sure there's lots of Total War Warhammer fans that are itching to play the Old World that are going to be super disappointed when the price of the models are revealed.

@@DiscourseMinis Yeah this is very true

Love it Dave, I will totally take that nickname lol Arms are almost as good new

Thank you so much! Spoonful of sugar and all that haha

I took the red pill on GW some time ago 😇

Yeah I mostly play the specialist games at the minute!

Yeah, I think a big element is sunk cost!

@@DiscourseMinis I prefer the term Stockholm Syndrome XD

Yea, the problem here is their exchange rate isn't a direct conversion 🙁 I actually buy from Aus to avoid tax and get pricing down to around US/UK MSRP lol