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When GW supporters say "Don't like it don't buy it" - what they actually mean is, if you don't like it don't tell anyone

When I first saw the price I thought it was Australian dollars. I was not surprised when I learned it wasn't. GW is doing their level best to fuel the 3d printing hobby inadvertently. Kudos to them!

My 4 year old daughter overhead me watching this video. She said: “Daddy, why is that lady so angry?” 😂 It was quite difficult to explain it!!!

GW has stopped doing anything for the hobbyist it is purely an exercise in rapid profit for shareholders, keep speaking out mate great job thanks.

if the price scares off buyers GW will likely conclude that people dont really like chaos and eldar and go back to ignoring them.

"Turn players into payers." Now that's a Jimquisition deep cut.

Feeling your anger, sister. I've said it before: G.W. have the same ethics and business practices as the big Bookies/gambling firms. You are absolutely right about the awful effects on vulnerable people, as well as the wider hobby. Truly an awful company.

"If there were no inflation, GW would raise prices anyway" this lends itself as a slogan for T-shirts. GW is so detached that they tie each other's neck loops, there are other companies, other systems and the growing community of printing miniatures on 3D printers. I've loved the Warhammer aesthetic for years (I'm looking at an old box from Assault on Black Reach right now), but there are plenty of alternatives especially in the 3D industry. I also recommend everyone not to be afraid of 3d printers :)

When I saw the box I was really exited. I even thought I might get back into 40k. Then I saw the price. So never mind. You are so right on this one.

A lot to unpack here. Firstly I can see how this genuinely gets to you and I want to say thanks for putting yourself out there. For me, as someone who budgets a little money for hobby every month, GW’s pricing has left me exasperated for many years now. I remember balking at 7th edition prices at a time in my life where I had disposable income. I would like my son to enjoy the hobby as much as I do, and get as much out of it as I have over the years. To get him interested in 40k is beginning to give me a similar feeling to buying him cigarettes or knowingly starting him on the path to addiction. It is sad that it has come to this.

I hope GW will finally feel that they priced out some people out of the hobby. I still see Shadow Throne and BT boxset on shelves in my FLGS along with lots of other recent "limited" GW stuff that nobody wants to buy because the price is ridiculous. Even comparing Eldritch Omens to the Fury of the Deep for AoS which came this month. It's 43 minis for 170$ vs 16 minis for 200$. I wanted to buy new Eldars and GW would have got more money from me in the long run but instead they want to be greedy short term and complain later that xenos does not sell. Why GW does not understand that you earn more profits from selling more boxes at lower price rather than selling less boxes for high price, therefore pricing out customers who would otherwise bought it?

6:19 always good to remind people of it. GW's predatory practices are aimed at vulnerable people, and that's more disgusting than my Death Guard

I have OCD with social anxiety and collecting has been one of my great go-tos. Back at the beginning of the pandemic they had just released the current edition of 40K and I was aiming to start buying it, but being locked down disuaded me initially. I kept looking at it and later the new Kill Team but realised just what a drain in my money it would be. I think the surprising thing was just how difficult it was to stop buying any of the new stuff, especially as the release heavily involved Necrons which were my faction. It took a real effort of will to say to myself that I just wasn't going to buy any more. I do still get things from GW, but have shifted focus to Titanicus which, thankfully, doesn't need many miniatures and is well supported on Etsy. But fighting that collector mentality and the little hit of dopamine was an honest-to-goodness fight. So I really see your point with how NDs are vulnerable to this type of aggresive marketing. Thanks for the video

My friend went halves on the shadow throne box with someone who works at GW, my friend paid him £20 for the custodes half. Meaning GW were willing and probably have boxes like this actually valued at £40 but they sell them to us for £125.

Remember when these dual boxes were actually cheap ? When they really felt like a good buy ? Yeah Pepperidge farms remembers. I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when I hate these boxes. What’s most sick is the over costed , because it’s normal, is considered good because it’s not over expensive. A real sickness with that imo. Warhammer is for everyone , especially people with poor impulse control who can’t resist their terrible box sets. What a joke of a company. Real sad stuff.

More and more im glad I've found a love for non gw games and 3d printing

Yeah, I'm out too. Overpriced plastic is getting a bit... overpricy.

I think the apathy also comes from "F you, got mine" where if I don't play the army that's getting the shaft I'm not gonna make a stink because my army doesn't have an overpriced box yet

Loved this video, it felt raw and honest. Loved seeing your passion for the topic, for me this has to be your best content so far and i hope to see more "off script" moments going forward

Don't buy any exclusive box. This is a wise and vital advice. I hope players across the globe are going to change their buying habits in the good sens. Thank you Discourse for your analyses and warnings.

Hey discourse, thank you for making this video. I am one of those you mention that has severe impulse control, and I have preordered this box to split with a friend. I know that this is terrible value. I knew as son as I preordered it, and the disgust kinda outweighs the excitement that I have for these new models. I am finding this more and more with new releases for my army and it’s turning me off of buying anything new really. I’m glad you are such a passionate advocate

It's the same with microtransactions, dlc and packages. The moment a hobby grows to such extent that the corporate environment begins to notice it, there is always a situation of "what? Can we apply all the models we have developed for gambling in an industry where we will not be limited by laws and restrictions against gambling? And can we predatorily target young people and children without any penalty? Amazing." And the CEO and the heads of the sales and marketing divisions get an endless orgasm.

People think this is new behaviour. Sadly I'm old enough to remember that GW started this ages ago. You used to be able to get £150 army boxes for Warhammer Fantasy, these contained an army standard bearer miniature that you couldn't get anywhere else, not even through the mail order service (back when you could still order individual parts). Why is anyone surprised that decades later it's gotten worse? Unfortunately they got away with it then, so they'll get away with it now.

Thank you discourse for sticking up for consumers and especially neuro divergent people like myself

Yeah we need more voices like yours in this matter, the hobby space we can imagine is the one we deserve, where theres space for all of us and its not carried and exploited by the most vulnerable - no need to just accept the greed and whats given to us by GW, THEY need to change, not us learn to live with it

Im starting to see Discourse as the Total Biscuit of Warhammer. Standing up for consumers rights, benefits and concerns.

as a 40 year old beardy git i remember lead greater daemons for 5 pounds, 14 pound boxed sets and even the odd sale event (yes i said sale!). With 3d printing surpassing GW quality and cost, the public are finally realising how crap and plainly evil GW are being. talk with your wallets peeps!

Piracy and recasts are still a lot more ethical than financially supporting such predators...

Blister packs were great. Used to spend hours choosing miniatures for my 3rd edition Warhammer fantasy battle armies without spending a fortune.

GW must have moved into 3D printers! They are making everyone buy one! Even I'm considering it! And pricing their boxes at a similar price to entry level 3D printers is genius. It's a no brainer! :D

I collect both of these armies. It's a rare shining moment when the roulette ball lands on my number. But man, the price is just insulting. And then you look around. One aisle over in my local store is an inner sphere lance for $25. Warlords' staff have all been amazing to work with. I mean... I know who is trying to get my business at this point.

I played Eldar for almost 20 years and had models from the 80's up to 2005. and When I say I had models I mean like ALL the models. I had models that I could only get from the UK (The old spirit warriors) I had epicast and armor cast titans and vehicles and I had huge forge world models like vampire transport etc. Because my young children were going into primary school in 2005 I sold EVERYTHING on Ebay and made a nice profit because I always customize and paint my models. I realized how much money, time modeling, time painting, and time away at events was over the top and my family needed me. My kids are grown and I would like to get back into the hobby and game but I just can't because of the pricing. GW was always OP (Over Priced, I worked for them for a year and the employees got a 60% discount and the company still made a profit off our discount prices). I even thought about getting everything from ebay and second hand etc but its still quite high prices on the second hand market because of the high retail prices to begin with. I finally have to say a permanent good by to my Beloved Eldar. Of course I am getting a resin 8k printer...

Plastic crack and actual crack prices have reached parity.

I always wondered why I bought so much gray plastic! I have all kinds of mental divergence. But I have decided to not buy more minis until I finish painting what I have or sell the excess. God I hope I stick to this plan....lol. Sometimes I feel like you can be a Debbie downer but I still click the link and am always happy I did and remember your not the downer, GW is!! Love ya.

Luckily the harder someone tries to sell me something the harder I push back. I once put a pot of nuln oil back on the shelf because I’d reached my monthly spend limit. The GW salesmen had no idea what to do. I could see him reaching for the panic button.

Great video! You are doing a great service to the hobby as a consumer advocate, so important for people think about this. I keep going back to when I first got into 40k. Summer of 2018. Dark Imperium came out and I got that box right at release. It was such an awesome box. For $150.00: you got over 50 minis., the full hardcover, 300 page rulebook, two starter army booklets of about 25 pages each, dice, rulers, and even some counters and tokens. It's pretty sad that even 2018, less than four years ago, look like the good old days for GW! It is absolutely insane how far they have fallen due to pathological greed.

So I dropped by my LGS the other day, and was catching up with the owner on things from Kings of War to 40K (been out for a month due to quarantine and surgery). He mentioned how he kind of is forced to run more events at the store, despite COVID being pretty prevalent in the area right now, in order to keep traffic into the store because he can't rely on sales alone. This led to a conversation how the 40K big boxes were still on the shelf. He, until the other week, still had a copy of the Eldar vs Dark Eldar box from 8e (think it was Blood of the Phoenix from Psychic Awakening) on the shelves. He still has Black Templar boxes, still has Dominion. He still has Ork Battleforces which have been on sale for as cheap as he is allowed since the day they showed up. In order to get the Battleforce boxes the players there wanted, GW still required them to order 1 of each battleforce at a minimum. However, GW sees it as the unit moved from their warehouse to the third party retailer as a successful unit sold because... well they got their money, so screw the other guy. They are basically killing small third party retailers with this practice, as the owner is forced to front capital they don't want to on products that won't move, in order to acquire the ones the players there want. This is so unbelievably predatory on ones that are simply struggling to get by, especially with the pandemic slowing down store traffic. It is bad enough that the owner of the store was confiding to me about this, and I'm just some random schlub who comes in to play Kings of War on Fridays with the group, and tries to make all my purchases out of that store to keep things afloat! Imagine the stress he must be under in order to hit that point where the curtain just drops completely.

Of course, these are only plastic dolls we like to paint and play with. But we love them, and we hate that they are kept hostage for an ever increasing price which do Not even remotely come close to the actual material value.

For your 'James Workshop Ceo' skits, I really want a cross-over with TableTopGuard skit.

The only thing they’re actually limited production wise is books like black library or codices and stuff like the joy toys, mcfarlane and chibis because they’re the only thing they outsource

I just want to point out how insidiously clever the concept of the "whale" is. You have a clear demographic, your demographic feels a weird sense of honour to be in a special "company specifically caters to me" bracket and the entire community can bitch against a perceived class enemy, "the rich assholes", who ruin the game, when instead there are a lot of neurodivergent people who were simply roped into a sunk cost fallacy scheme and they're far from "rich assholes".

I'm not concerned because some time ago.. I realized that I can design and 3D print my whole army unrecognizably different to the quality of GW. I wonder if GW know this and know that we will print whole armies so they overprice anything they release as they know they only get small returns from people that do the same?

I feel your anger here. Beyond the ridiculous price, why do they bother having two armies in one box set? I use the term armies very losely here because at best your going to get barely even get a kill team sized skirmish out of them. Dark Vengeance for instance was a game in a box, this, this just baffles me. Give the community a decent eldar box (with a decent price) and stop forcing people to have miniatures they don't want. How can that not work better?

One thing you have overlooked aside from the FOMO and whales side of the situation. The almighty GeeDubz have also done the research of if they put the models in your hands, you will be more likely to start that extra army. I mean, since I already have these Chaos Marines from the Eldar that I wanted, I might as well build out that army.

Compare this box 200$ to the dark imperium box in 8th edition 160$. That was released only 5 years ago and had 3 characters per side, 2 units of troops and a fast attack per side, and more. Way more minis. It did have some exclusive minis, but the box was not a limited time release. It was there to stay, for that edition at least.

I got over the constant buying when I sat down, looked at everything I have, and thought, "I wouldn't get around to it anytime soon any ways," then I stopped buying. I understand that I'm not exactly an addict, when it comes to buying things, but I've had phases of it. I just hit a point where I realized it and broke that cycle, by abstaining and having friends keep me in check.

Keep it up. You've called out something and it's great that you are doing it. It's tough and you're doing an awesome job.

I used to play fantasy and 40k when i was a teenager, i was thinking about getting back in but its literally better value for money for me to stick to Motocycles and Cars, Gameswork shop has made the whole hobby extremely daunting, confising and expensive to get (back) into.

You're right about this... And my joy for 40k just died. I don't care anymore. I think I'm going to buy and play just boardgames with cool minis for now on.

GW makes overpriced product targeted at a race that isnt SM. box doesnt sell well. GW "look? see? thats why we dont support eldar. no one buys it"

Discourse! YOU are MY hobby influencer. I feel your anger. I love your passion! Advocate for the consumer!!! Someone has to. You are 100% correct! These exclusive boxes are a total rip-off!! I WILL NOT pay $200 for 16 models. Ever! I can buy a model military jet, with the same plastic and similar detailed parts and sprues for a fraction of what GW is charging. It is not good for the hobby! It's greed, plain and simple!! Sorry for so many exclamation points, I'm angry as well.

GW are no longer an asset to the wargaming community. They are a problem that is negatively affecting the perception of the hobby among newcomers.

Another thought just hit me.... Just compare Age of Sigmar boxes sets to 40k.... It's the same company but even then the boxes sets are such lower value for 40k.... There really is no excuse, it's pure explotation.

What are your thoughts on the ravaged star model range started up by miniwargaming? I think that range is gonna allow me to never buy a CSM model from GW ever again.

I'm so glad to see a successful KZfaqr be as adamant about how frustrating geedubz has been behaving further and further as I am. I'm sick of being attacked for being frustrated that the hobby I'm passionate about is needlessly exploitative and inaccessible.

Every one of these boxes makes me happier to be painting Battletech. I am ecstatic, as I paint pewter miniatures of literally any other company, and happily tell people about games other than 40k

I defended the BT box as is was a saving when compared to individually buying the models and most were either great or new. But you are right, this is getting out of hand and each one is worse then the last.

I absolutely agree with your (our) outrage. I haven't purchased GW products since Dark Vengeance, but every time they release something I still feel that pull to buy despite the cost and I feel like a recovering alcoholic. It's infuriating.

I could see if that train wreck of a 'box set' was about $40 and functioned like a board game(kind of like Blackstone Fortress) but for $200 you are getting screwed. For that much you can get into pretty much any other game system with two massive armies like Flames of War, Dropzone/Dropfleet Commander and Fallout Wasteland Warfare offers a lot for it's price, heck with Reign in Hell you can use your own miniatures.

Well shit, can't we have anything good? '-'

Can we NOT call New Choosen "fully customizable" while they are done in the same way as Havocs and Terminators? They jsut have FEW of each weapon and not enough to make "unt you want"

So for the price of that Eldritch Nope Box (155 euros) I can get a Mk3 starter box for a Warmachine/Hordes army + a 25 point list's worth of mini's. Example with Khador: You get Lord Kozlov + 2 heavy warjacks (35ish) + 1 unit winter guard infantry (45 euros) + Officer/Standard (16) + 2 Artillery Kapitans ( 25) + Kovnik Joe (10) + Mortar Crew (18) and have some money left over for a drink! That's a total of 3 50mm based mini's (1 metal, 2 plastic), 6 metal 30mm mini's, 14 plastic 30mm mini's. Note this is just an example; WarmaHordes has some more expensive kits around but that's because a ton of their older stuff is still metal.

Yesterday, I printed 8 28mm miniatures (including a big Lord of the Print file) for about $2 CDN of resin. $2 dollars! I will get the same amount of pleasure painting these printed minis then I would from any official GW kit. Plus the added accomplishment of having printed them my self is just *chef kiss*. GW can keep on pricing these kits as they are doing, I will keep on enjoying this hobby without breaking the bank on "designer models".

I would be hesitant to use the term fully customisable for the minis in this box. They have a monopose core and head and weapon options, far from the fully customisable standards of older boxes. On a plus note, I am over a year into my no buying gw products until the pile of shame is finished! I can happily say since starting it, I have never felt the need to buy anything from them, too much hype, to high a price.

You really do bring up thoughtful perspectives👍

I think I'm finally exhausted from the FOMO. Not just the paywall box sets but the fact that certain things don't seem to stay around for long. It's killed my enthusiasm for the new scenery, and the books too. I like campaign books but they seem to be rendered irrelevant and go off sale too fast for the pace at which I paint and play.

I remember waaaayyy back when you could get a pack of blood claws/grey hunters for the space wolves for 25 dollars and it was a 20 man box. now it's 10 dudes for the space wolves pack for like 50 bucks. yeah, that was 20ish years ago, but there's no way the price of plastic has increased that much for them.

You can have double amount of Corvus Belli "Infinity" models for that amount of cash. And those have been considered the more expensive miniatures for years. Well not anymore and now they are even more worth your buck instead of the breadcrumbs GW tosses out.

You make a valid point. I subscribed to OnePageRules patreon because of your channel and couldn't be happier. Always wanted to try warhammer 40k but never could afford it. Now I can and get new minis to print and paint every month for 80% less than the box set featured on your channel. Thank you!

As someone who digs anything elfin or chaotic, I was looking forward to this box set at first. When I saw the contents, it looked a little light, but decided it's still the stuff I like. But with this pricing, I've got a conversions to play with instead.

Can't wait to hear your take on the price increases that have been announced. I won't be adding anything to my armies for a good long while now. Keep up the amazing work

Pretty spot on video. As a bit of a CSM whale myself I'm losing interest in GW. If they supported their games like 40K well (ie. digital rules, apps, game balance, etc) then I don't think I'd have a problem paying high prices for great looking models. But the whole package is feeling lackluster now and I'm looking to other game systems now like Marvel Crisis Protocol.

Eldritch Omens is £125 for 16 Minis. One Page Rules is £8 /month for an average of 20 minis/month. Math may not be my strong point, but even I can do this one...

I'll always be in the front of the line to take a shit on GW, but saying people that don't know how to manage money have a full on disability, and trying to sell things to them is somehow immoral is fucking WILD.

@Discourse, would you buy / hold GW shares rn?

Great Video again! My only regret is that I can only "Like" it once. You reminded me of my wife when you went off script. I knew there was a reason that I keep coming back. :) We are hell and gone from the days of 3 rhino tanks in a box for around 10 pounds. You are the lighthouse in the storm that is GW. We are the ships lost at sea. Keep up the good work! - (forgive the sap, I was inspired)

i was a long time GW fan. Started way way back in the early days of 3rd ed WFB and Rouge Trader. Loved the game had many armies across the main games and many of the niche games as well( necromunda, mordheim, Warmaster etc). I was priced out of the hobby years ago now. When it was over 100 CDN just for the rule book of the game ...and the crazy price increases. In some cases the price of models had doubled. It made me sad but I have left this hobby behind .

Well said. I actively attempt to make points like this and get met with "yea, it costs money." Like wtf

What used to happen is you buy the box set and ebay the chaff you didnt want/need at a mark up of 30% and end up clearing the price tag. I think GW saw the Ebay prices and said they wanted that mark up for themselves .

I'm getting kind of sick of these boxsets too. I didn't mind them once in a while, especially when the "value" was ok...but it just isn't once in a while anymore. Constant spamming of boxsets, rulebooks, supplements, points behind paywalls...They need to ease up a little bit on it! Then there's the ebay scalping that goes on that fuels the boxset market even more and creates false scarcity.

A fool and his money are easy parted. Is the community around this like the Steam trolls who accuse people who complain about price hikes of just being "bitter poors" who can't afford it? I have a feeling it is.

I'm really glad that this channel exists and that the mighty algorithms let me find it. Keep on flaming Discourse ;)

This box is 290 dollars in Aus, which factoring in conversion to usd is 205 roughly which is a much smaller mark-up than usual but it's still utterly ridiculous.

It exists because GWs management moved away from being gamers to being businessmen/women. (Note: that’s specifically management, many front-line staff are gamers and don’t deserve being abused). It exists because many businesses have moved away long term sustainability to short term profit maximisation. It exists because GW are taking notice of what other companies are doing and are implementing on a tabletop game. It exists because consumers continue to buy GWs products and enable the above. And I’m as guilty as many others. As usual with its several steps forwards (new sculpts), but one giant jump backwards (price increases and limiting new models). Regarding inflation. You’re using the wrong inflation level… you’re not using GW inflation (CPI+however much age feels like that month).

You said like "players don't care", tell you my side of the story: After the price reveal I merely hinted at the price not friendly for new blood at one of my chatgroup and some one immediately retorted "Don't like the models? Then don't buy it, GW isn't putting a gun to your head". Not only new comers have to deal to ridiculous pricing, now there are gatekeepers some more.

When you first showed the box, my initial thought was "That's it? What a rip-off!" Then you showed the price and I actually said "WHAT" loud enough for my wife in the other room to ask if everything was ok.

it was $290 for that set here in Australia. For reference, the rent on my 4 room apartment, is $220 per week.

You are so right Discourse.. thank you for looking out like people like me... I 100% was gonna get the box for the eldar 😞never considered I was getting Fucked till you brought it up

You could say the bundles are... ruinous powers? ... ... ... Yeah, I'll see myself out...

Agree with so much of what you say here. I think it is important to acknowledge that this practice is exploiting vulnerable people. It feels a lot like mobile gaming which taps into gambling addiction for profit. This box doesn’t even come with usable forces. People buying this still have to wait for rules and other models to make a usable eldar force.

$200 for Eldar models you waited 20 years to get is only $10 a year so you're basically getting the Chaos Marines for free! What a deal! *buys 4 boxes*

I returned with 8th ed but have now decided to sell up and get out of the hobby as far as GW is concerned.Why? Well mainly for the reasons mentioned in this video. I will continue to paint and have an army as a collection but these will be 3d printed. Ok 2 armies as I put too much work and effort into making my deathwatch army, but will be using the nice and simple 8th ed rules if I want a game at home.

Discourse - thank you for this video. I’m amazed that people still enthusiastically defend these practices. I get that you love the IP and models but why are you OK with exploitation? Unfortunately I dropped out collecting almost 2 years ago and I don’t regret it. Part of me wishes that hobbyists would just withhold their dollars to teach GW a lesson but sadly don’t think they’ve hit that pain point yet and GW would likely just continue jacking up prices to make up for the shortfall. It is truly sad what they’ve done to something I loved.

That box made me realize something pretty funny: You know how GW ha been butchering a lot of datasheet of minies just to have their wargear options fit what's on the (more and more gimped) sprues? The excuse is that they want people to be have everything they need in the box (unless they are plague marines or boys apparently), but then, on the other hand, GW ha made it's main business focus to sell boxes with two armies that people are expected to "split with a friend" (read, sell on ebay). So.. Why is it OH SO IMPORTANT to prevent people from having to go on ebay to buy bit, but it's totally okay to have people go on ebay to sell half their boxes? Welp, one of the reason is probably the fact that bits can easily be made by third parties, but I'll be honest, I never really believed that argument, since you still have to own he base mini to add that 3rd party bit onto...

Thank you for your passion, your advocacy, and your humor!

3d printing more & more appealing...👀

Much of my collection is from ebay . New in sprue or second hand. I havnt bought new from gw for many years.

thank you for talking about this. I had to get a 3d printer to tear myself away from this nonsense that I can't afford.

$12.5 a miniature ,....hmmmm old hammer on Ebay is now officially a good deal.