A guy over on warseer posted this and I thought it was so utterly accurate and funny, I thought I'd share:

"GW: "Okay guys, price increase time. Units of 20 models now cost $30 instead of $25. Sorry."
Dan: "Alright, seems fine to me"
GW: "...really? Wow, we thought you'd be mad. Would you pay $35?"
Dan: "You just said they were $30."
GW: "Well they are. Due to increased costs, however, they now cost $35 for 20 models. Take it or leave it"
Dan: "Siigh, fine. I'll pay $35"
GW: "Really? Wow, that went over well. Tell you what, since you're such a great customer they're now going to cost you the low low LOW price of $22."
Dan: "Wow, you guys are awesome!"
GW: "Right, right. You only get 10 to a box, but it's still a great deal."
Dan: "That's a price increase, guys. I'm not an idiot."
GW: "Is it? Wow, we didn't even notice that. No matter, you seem to be fine with the current pricing scheme, right?"
Dan: "Well no. Actually I have some concerns, because I'm finding myself less inclined to start new armies as the cost to play seems to be increasing at a ridicul-"
GW: "Whoops, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt your rambling there. Prices just shot up again. $24.50 a box."
Dan: "Okay, fine. I can't buy as much stuff any more guys. I have a set hobby budget and I'm going to allocate less of it to GW product if you keep doing this"
GW: "Okay, okay, look. Look. We like you. And because we like you we're only going to raise the cost of elite units this time around."
Dan: "To what?"
GW: "$41.50 for 10"
Dan: "...I don't understand how we made that jump. I'm now paying double the money for half the models that I was buying just 5 years ago. That's a 400% price increase."
GW: "Yeah but sales are down, so we need to boost them"
Dan: "That doesn't make any sense. I'm just not going to buy the set that doesn't have any value."
GW: "Nuh-uh. See, some people are buying them."
Dan: "Is it the amount you were anticipating?"
GW: "..."
Dan: "..."
GW: "...okay we just crunched some numbers and it seems we're looking at another price increase here.".

I think that will be my last GW pricing moan for a while..... just looked over my shopping lists and I need to find £280 for some eldar before they go end of life.......


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All companies when they want more money get the prices up but with such an action the customers are reduced... Isn't tehre anyone msart enought to understand it?
I remember a guy who told em that Ushatbi at Australia costed 60$

Very well written.

I'm not going to moan much anymore either. Trying to get things summarized for my Backlog Reduction Oath I totaled up almost 450 models needing love, including about 100 cavalry, 4 monsters and 2 Mumuks. I can keep myself busy for a while and will just look to the second hand market for most things I want to add down the road. I'm sure I'll still get the occasional item but I'm confident it will be well under $100 per year which is a pretty big drop from past years.

Oops...they lost some revenue...time for another price increase.

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It does seem an odd strategy to continue to put up prices that noone will be able to buy as much as they could beforehand. Hence the value of ebay and trading.

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I would be very interested to know what the real statistics are. Have GW actually increaced their revenue with each price-rise?

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Who knows?
'Vote me Hilbert as the owner of GW and the prices will go down .'

ha ha ha ha ha

very funny.

thank goodness for ebay as those price increases are so true though

Haha, pretty funny stuff.

My average annual spending over the past 2 years: $25.00. Guess they better increase prices.

Here's what I can tell you from an insider's view, 2 years removed:

Before the last 2 price increases (think 2008, maybe 2007), GW in my area was doing fairly well. The local Bunker (HQ) was in the top 10 in the world, #1 in the country, and was on pace to be a $1,000,000.00 store. Stores were open 6 days a week, about 9 hours a day during the week, and 12 hours on Sat. There were 3 full timers per store, more at the mall locations.

Fast forward 2 price increases and a change in focus - stores are open 5 days a week, 35 hours total for the week, mall stores are on a skeleton crew, strip stores have 1 employee. They no longer carry blisters in the stores to further reduce overhead, they have closed quite a few stores and have not opened nearly as many as they had planned while I was "in the know". Nearly everyone I know is looking second hand (ebay) or discount retailers. I have bought 1 box, 1 blister, 1 primer and 2 paints in the past 2 and a half years.

I can't tell you their numbers, but I can tell you that when I left, things were not good.

Over the past 3 years, they've done a good job of alienating their vets, firing the enthusiasm out of the company (at least around here) and pricing a lot of people out of the hobby. Don't get me wrong - I blame not the grunts on the front line, and I enjoy the hobby and the friendships. I do have a dislike of the direction they (the bosses) have taken things though. I can't imagine that the decline in quality and quantity as well as the rise in price to "stupid" has helped their bottom line.

Edit: Also, if they try and pull a stunt with a new version of LoTR SBG like they did with Warhammer, well...

$75+ for a rulebook, or $99 for a starter set is [insert expletive here] outrageous. a $50 rulebook is a bit pricey, but they went overboard with Warhammer pricing. That's not really affordable, or I should say, not really reasonable with the current state of the economy and the jobless rate. Sure, it's a hobby, and a luxury, but even so - it should be reasonably priced so that someone who is on a tight budget can at least stay current instead of being priced out.

But hey, what do I know?

That was really funny

The thing that amazes me most about all this is because I used to be in SEO. Because of my time in it, I know just how valuable social media like this site can be to any industry whatsoever. GW is ignoring the pleas of their customer base in all of this - how long have you been complaining about increased prices? GW doesn't know. And by their actions, I'd feel safe in saying that they don't care.
Personally, there are a lot of models they offer that I still want but don't have. I don't expect to get them, though, because I'd feel ashamed to pay the prices I'm being asked for them. Even when I can find them on sites like ebay and amazon they're winding up too expensive, and GW is doing their best to push everyone else out of the online market concerning their products.

I'm not saying they should put themselves out of business by asking too little, and I'm not even saying that the guys "at the top" don't have a right to get rich because of their success. But I am saying that, if they keep asking more than is reasonable (which they are doing) they're going to run the company under just the same as if they gave out each item they offer for $0.01 apiece.
We, their customer base, have been asking for quite some time that they put some effort into making sure that everything is within an affordable range for us. The old saying that the customer is always right can be taken too far; but if you convince the customer that you hate him, he'll just ditch your business for someone else.


But I don't have an opinion.

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I never care about price increases because I always buy from ebay. I also don't care about cuts they do to stores because they are no stores in Korea. I go to a store in England 1 every year and I always enjoy going there, and I have not seen a decline in quality (apart from the one manager thing) or quanitity of customers, or a lack of LOTR players either.

Comapre GW to a company like Gripping Beast.

(from the Gondor product list for GW) VS (the Mid/Late Saxons product list for Gripping Beast).

Minas Tirith Commanders: 3 models, £15:50
Saxon Command: 4 models, £5:50

Weathertop Aragorn: £7:70
King Alfred the Great: £3:50

Warriors of Numenor, Fountain Court Guards, Citadel Guards: all 3 models, all £8:20.
Anglo Saxon Huscarls (with 2h axes): 4 models, £5:50

I know what I'm looking forward to in future, and thats Historical gaming. Yes, GW's models are superior quality (though thats open to debate), and yes, LotR has the fact that its LORD OF THE RINGS going for, but really, £14:50 for 9 models (metal I should add), is not bad. Compare that to £31.40 for SEVEN models (some of them possibly finecast now; and assuming you get one of the elites blisters I mentioned).

I still like LotR, and I am still going to play it (SBG - I've never been able to afford a WotR sized collection) - in fact I'm looking to start a Battle Companies campaign at my club using Erunion(?)'s expanded ruleset - but I'm not going to be starting new LotR collections. I'm going to finish my Gondor/Arnor and Mordor/Angmar collections (I need a couple packs of Hobbit Archers and Citadel Guard for Battle Companies, and maybe a Trebuchet cos I always wanted one, then my Gondor is finished), and finish my 40K Raven Guard, then move onto Dark Age Anglo Saxons & Vikings (Or possibly Perry Mini's Samurai, they're amazing and I'm into Total War Shogun 2).

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Personally, I recently found some conversion work done with Malifaux that produced some excellent BioShock minis & I feel kinda' inspired. I expect that's going to be what I get next, if I can find the pieces I want at a price I'm ok with.

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I would also add, to my immense shock, that my 2 lads, have asked me to crack on with wargames factory shock troops, as well as asking for the heavy weapons packs.

The eldest wants some of the viking and saxon plastics (good dunlending stand ins of course).So they are slowly swinging from GW to other manufacturers. Variety is the spice of life as they say, but I can't understand GW pricing when so many other manufacturers are undercutting them with real quality products ( I know they have shops and store staff - a massive overhead for any company).

With SELWG coming up i know where the cash will go.....

Would you mind if GW closed half their stores but halved their prices ??

I would be totally okay with GW closing half of their stores and halving their prices. But then, I'm biased. All of the "official" stores closed where I lived, and there are none where I'm going to school. I don't get the benefits of a store, I just suffer the high prices. I assume its like that for a lot of hobbyists, or at least maybe a trend among Americans. I also want to switch away from Games Workshop, towards historicals. I really love eBob Miniatures and Perry Miniatures, and also Wargames Factory has caught my eye, as well as Black Scorpion Miniatures. Haven't made a GW purchase in months, hoping to continue to resist--but really, Lord of the Rings is a very strong pull, and I prefer a lot of their hobby supplies.

Lord of the Rings is a strong pull is the most right phrase to describe it... Even if you run you will always return
Really if the prices go very high nor I will buy anymore

The prices are already high, which i why I haven't been buying many metal models recently.

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"I am the Flying Spagetti Monster. Thou shall have no other monsters before me"
-FSM.