Wife logic

[Bedroom General]

Good day to you all.
Yesterday my wife and I went to the local shopping centre/megaplex to see a movie. Afterwards we were walking past the GW store and I decided to have a look inside. (I usually go to my fLGS 'cos of 10% discount, but it can take a while for orders to come in, and I want to use my holiday time painting'n playing not waiting.)
So long and short of it, I bought the Annihilation\command barge and the Praetorian\lychguard boxes. In Australia this cost me $110.00 all up.
Now Jo (my wife) is a supporter of my playing the game, as she knows and likes all the people that I play against, sees the work and effort I put into painting and making the game board look as good as possible, though she'll pay out my colour scheme choices. "Not enough colour contrast" she'll say. "I'm using a muted scheme" I riposte lightly. I'm an art teacher, Jo's a graphic designer, so I can just about survive the criticism with shreds of ego intact ;)
Anyway, I am tooling around and opening the boxes, Jo comes in and looks at the stuff.
she looks at the three sprues I got in the Praetorian box and said the immortal words "Is that it? That plastic must cost what, 8 cents?"
I explain the process of tooling the moulds and the amazing detail, then realise that I sound like a GW salesperson, I'm trying to justify why I'm ripping myself off!
I also remembered that the Monolith kit I looked at in the shop was $110.00, which made me not get it, as
A: I've got one that I bought in Ze Gut Alte Tagen for $60.00
B: For the same money I got two newer kits with interchangeability.
Still she has a good point. I love to play the game, all aspects are fun to me, but I can't justify spending that sort of money anymore. Jo ripped the veil from my eyes, just by having an "outsiders" view of value for money. This is an issue especially here in Australia. The models DO look great, even Jo agrees about that (if not about my paint jobs :( )
Wife logic has made me make myself a New Years resolution. If I buy anymore stuff its either second hand and/or ebay, or substitute models from cheaper ranges.
Sorry for the tl:dr ness of it all, just sharin'.
Happy holidays!

[scadugenga]

Or, make friends from someone not on the GW "screw you" list and pay regular prices like the rest of us. :)

[Jive Tyrant]

At first I thought the title was an oxymoron, but the truth is much more horrific.

Why not go with her round a ladies clothes shop, pick up pretty much ANYTHING and say, "but this is just a piece of cloth, it can't cost more than a few cents to make".

Your user name is a lie! Or at least it will be if you say the above to her.

;)

[Dalleron]

It is sometimes referred to "plastic crack" for a reason.

Sure you can say it costs X so why are they charging Y. But so are many things in life. It comes down to what you want to do with your money.

[Bedroom General]

Scad I don't know exactly what you mean, in the words of Pauline Hanson..please explain?
Jive, my wife is way up on the girly stuff ripoff already, you should hear HER in those shops!!
I know it comes down to my choice with my money, thats why I'm choosing to go budget in 2012.
Thanks for the replies, and I'm glad to be able to report that my user name still rings true!;)

[eldargal]

GW Australia prices are ridiculous, I wouldn't pay them.

[Necron2.0]

She looks at the three sprues I got in the Praetorian box and said the immortal words "Is that it? That plastic must cost what, 8 cents?"
I explain the process of tooling the moulds and the amazing detail, then realise that I sound like a GW salesperson, I'm trying to justify why I'm ripping myself off!

Exactly. I've been a straight up collector of minis for almost 30 years now. GW cannot justify the prices they are charging, and certainly not what they're charging in Australia. The tooling process doesn't cost anywhere near what they're claiming (or it shouldn't, if they've got a half-way reasonable production process) and their quality really isn't all that amazing. There is some truly amazing work being done in the miniature market these days, just not at GW. GW minis aren't bad. I'm not saying they're terrible ... they are fine for what they are (game pieces), but there are some really, REALLY outstanding minis out there (Studio McVey and Kingdom Death leaping immediately to mind), and for those I gladly cough up $25 a figure for. GW tries charging nearly that for miniatures I find (as a collector) are a little underwhelming.

Anyway, there are plenty of proxies you can buy instead of GW products, if you're just playing at your local FLGS. Worse comes to worse, you can do what a lot of people do, make your own.

[eldargal]

Actually I think the UK prices are justifiable, and I could see paying EU prices with a discount but the rest not so much. The only company that produces multi-part plastic characters of similar quality in my opinion is Avatars of War, and they are cheaper.

[Chris Copeland]

I have to say that I think that any price that they charge that keeps a bunch of us still buying is a fair price. This hobby is 100% luxury and so any price is a fair price as long as the market will bear it.

I've never been concerned about what these things cost GW to make. The prices have always been driven by in-game utility, not production costs. Zoanthropes cost $20 (American) per single model because they are REALLY useful to me as a Tyranid player... who cares what the dollop of resin cost GW... a dollar... two at most... it doesn't matter. $20 for a single Zoanthrope mini is reasonable because enough of us are willing to pay $20 for a single Zoanthrope... again: prices are driven by in-game utility and what the market will bear. The fact that so many of us keep buying after each price increase tells me that GW is doing a good job of determining prices.

The above is my two-cents worth. I will throw out this follow up: keep playing the game but use cheaper miniatures from other manufacturers. As long as you aren't a big-time tourney player (and by that I mean tournies wherein GW is providing the prize support) who cares if you are using Citadel miniatures? GW makes it clear in the rule books that these rules are for us to use and modify to our heart's content. If your mates don't mind you using other minis then you can continue to have a great time with the GW rule-sets without paying GW prices. I can't tell you how many times I've read Jervis or Rick P (or some other GW luminary) go on about how we all need to remember the main rule with GW games is that we have fun with them. I can buy cheap Cthulhu models and use them as Tyranids... I've long considered building such a Tyranid army and may yet some day... if I ever do you can rest assured that my mates and I won't have any less fun paying with them than my expensive GW minis.

I've never understood all of the angst over GW prices. These are prices on completely optional luxury goods... any price that we keep paying is a fair price (by definition). Cheers! Copeland

PS Our local GT in these parts is The Alamo GT (http://alamogt.com/rules.php). The rules for the Alamo GT explicitly say that any company's models may be used (http://alamogt.com/rules.php) as long as it is made clear what each unit is supposed to be...

[Sister Rosette Soulknyt]

Bedroom General do you by chance live anywhere near Melbourne? There is a nice place near there that sells GW kits for average 20% off.
Why pay $60+ for Sterngaurd when you can pay about $44 or so.

It is ridiculous here in Australia, they cannot justify why it costs so much, i even argued the point with a GW employee from the Melbourne store, he actually tried to tell me that its a fair price.
Right like i want to pay for a LR at a $110 AUS, when i can buy a Forgeworld LR for less, or how You great folks from UK can pay nearly half what it costs her (conversion costs included).

[Chris Copeland]

It seems as if GW might have pushed the Australian market too hard. If they did the problem will self correct: players will stop buying and they will have to drop prices. However, if Australian players keep buying then they've found a fair price to charge...

[flatdice]

The only real saving grace to buying WH40K minis in Aus is that there is ebay and second models, prices are not bad mot of the time the one down side thought if you want some thing specific you usually have to shell out at your local GW

[Slug]

True, prices down here are pretty bad, with uni coming up I'm always on the edge of just stopping due to lack of time and cost. I probably will finish up my necrons to about 1500-2000 and then only buy guard models very occasionally. Maybe Gillard can use the extra money form the Carbon tax to subsidise Warhammer here :p
It is a valid point though, that there are many hobbies that are far harder to justify then Warhammer so long as you don't get every new model and play fairly often, so it really depends on how you feel, we do get very specifically ripped of here so I don't know. :confused:

[scadugenga]

Scad I don't know exactly what you mean, in the words of Pauline Hanson..please explain?


BG: You can either buy from a US or EU/GB shop that will mail it to you, or have a friend/contact living in EU/US/GB purchase stuff for you and then ship it to you so you don't have to pay the insane Aussie markup. :)

[Bedroom General]

Preach it Sister! 20% is pretty good, thanks but I'm a Croweater, my FLGS has lots of second hand traffic though, which may not be a good sign for the hobby come to think of it.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses everybody, I particularly liked Chris' "100% luxury" point, because that is what I'm doing, I'm cutting down on a luxury, by being a lot more selective about purchases.
Thanks too to Scad, that is what I thought you meant.

I have a substantial investment in this hobby, I have a lot of stuff. I won't be giving it up, I'm just not going to be a big buyer at GW prices anymore, in fact I'm gonna start kitbashing and cannibalising my existing stuff even more, if I feel the need for a new unit. I've got a lot of options, Its just that impulse buying at these prices is no longer one of them.

I will learn to play "Crappy armies because the old models got nerfed" better.

Hope you guys are having a great time in this weird interlude between festivities, I'm off to work out how to get the most out of the boxes of Praetorians/Lychguard, Annihilation/Command barge bits.
Advice would be most welcome,
I've also got six necron warriors still on the sprue, which will be thrown into the kit bashing mix to start with.

Cheers!:)

[eldargal]

I spent eight years bullying an Australian friend back into the hobby, he wouldn't pay the RRP price for anything but books, characters and paints so I recommended Wayland and Maelstrom. Six months later the new terms of trade came out banning them from shipping to the antipodes.:(

So now I recommend Dicebucket, although someone (perhapos Gir, on Warseer) recommend an Australian store called Milsims.

[kaos15486]

I always bought from Maelstrom. I found a site recently that ships internationally, ship2me.co.uk i think it is. Havent used them yet, anyone on here tried them? Gotta love two boxes of anything for price of one

I'm definately planning on using some old spare warriors to make extra elites with the immortal/death mark kits.

[Wolf Brother Hellstrom]

ive always been in the mind set that you get what you pay for. even on ebay. if you spend the cash you can get a nice well built, well painted army. if your looking to not spend alot of money you can get the over primed sloppy painted models from the 11 year old whos mommy and daddy bought him to shut him up for a summer.

with that said GW is too expensive and the are always inflating there prices to cover bad business decisions i.e. shafting the aussies. the quality is top notch, maybe not the best but definatly in the conversation.

the question is are you buying it for quality or the enjoyment of the game. my buddy got me into this game buy showing 3rd edition dark angels and those terminators were hideous caompared to new models and i still fell in love with the game.

everybody wants their passion to be cheaper, cause its important to them. i want gas to be cheaper but it never happens. this is the world we live prices included.

and by buying from ebay and second hand sites it drives the prices even higher

i personally like buying multiple boxes and creating my own minis from bits. green stuff is cheaper than any model

peace im out

[Wildeybeast]

It seems as if GW might have pushed the Australian market too hard. If they did the problem will self correct: players will stop buying and they will have to drop prices.

Or GW charges even more to its remaining OZ customers knowing it has a captive market.....

Here's a thought - why don't all the people down under moaning about prices either a)give up playing GW and get a cheaper hobby; b) accept that you are buying a luxury product which is being imported from the opposite side of the world to be sold to a fairly small market and as such you will have to pay a hefty premium or c) get as many people as you possibly can to buy GW products direct from GW. Then their stores would actually be turning a decent profit and they wouldn't have to subsidise them with product prices and they may even consider opening a manufacturing plant down there. Continually moaning about it in forums, or buying from people who undercut GW is not going to help. In fact it will only lead to raised prices and GW trying to stamp out competetion down there, which is what is currently happening.

[Gotthammer]

I always bought direct from GW. Now I haven't bought anything aside from Black Library (which is bizzarely cheaper than most same sized books, figure that one out) in almost a year. I might be picking up around $200 of Battlefleet Gothic stuff for a Rogue Trader game I'm running, but I'm going to get as much from Forge World as I can.

[Uncle Nutsy]

here's another outsiders' point of view, and someone who has a few other hobbies than 40k.

1) people won't stop buying GW products. they'll still resort to what i call the purity argument, wherein they justify the prices and having the"genuine" models to the point where it would make a salesman jealous.

2) people will still complain about GW prices on the internet and swear up & down that they won't buy anything more from them, making up silly justifications... but in the end, they'll still buy and it won't affect anything at all.

3) the other hobbies I have include RC, and computer gaming, both which cost a fair bit more than 40k. 800 on the latest system build, and over 1500 on the RC side of things. (one battery alone costs about as much as a battleforce). But both last me years whereas 40k just keeps getting more and more expensive.

[DarkLink]

As someone who enjoys shooting stuff, I can verify that 40k is actually pretty cheap as hobbies go. Not the cheapest thing in the world (you can get a lot of mileage out of paintballing, for example, and my friends and I paintballed practically every other weekend all through high school), but when buying a single firearm is can cost anywhere from $500 to $3,000 and most ammo other than .22 LR can cost close to a dollar a bullet, the money adds up quick. And considering that shooting rifles, pistols, shotguns, and just plinking around with a .22 are all very different things, you're looking at a lot of money if you want to expand your horizons. And that's not considering how much money you can spend on quality scopes and accessories, or tune-ups to improve the performance of your firearm for competitions.

In fact, a friend of mine once got the opportunity to shoot a $16,000 shotgun. And older guy saw him shooting trap with just his basic shotgun and told him "try this out". It wasn't until after he'd smoked each clay that the guy told him how much the gun cost.





So my advice is to know your limits. I enjoy 40k, but I'm not going to go out and buy another army. I have my Grey Knights, and enough Eldar that if their new codex ever comes out and I like it I might invest a little bit more, but beyond that there's no need to pay for anything but tournament entry fees. Fortunately for me, there aren't many tournaments around, as I'm a poor college grad looking to get off the ground.

[scadugenga]

So my advice is to know your limits. I enjoy 40k, but I'm not going to go out and buy another army. I have my Grey Knights, and enough Eldar that if their new codex ever comes out and I like it I might invest a little bit more, but beyond that there's no need to pay for anything but tournament entry fees. Fortunately for me, there aren't many tournaments around, as I'm a poor college grad looking to get off the ground.

How's the Marine Corps OCS looking? I know you were interested in that.

[DarkLink]

It's six months until the next set of selection boards, so I've got a while to just sit around and wait. Unfortunately (or not?) the military is downsizing, and the USMC is dropping from ~210,000 to ~186,000, meaning that the selection process is more competitive. Our OSO (officer selection officer) pointed out that some of the selections are coming down to which candidate had their blood drawn most recently. Needless to say, I'm not going to sit around for six months getting fat, so I'm looking for a job in the meantime. Also unfortunately, California hates business and with the economy as it is there aren't very many engineering jobs atm, so I also have to look at more minimum wage stuff.

So, just cross my fingers and see what happens. At least I'll get to go to the Bay Area Open and stuff like that.

[Archon]

I have to say that I think that any price that they charge that keeps a bunch of us still buying is a fair price. This hobby is 100% luxury and so any price is a fair price as long as the market will bear it.

I've never been concerned about what these things cost GW to make. The prices have always been driven by in-game utility, not production costs. Zoanthropes cost $20 (American) per single model because they are REALLY useful to me as a Tyranid player... who cares what the dollop of resin cost GW... a dollar... two at most... it doesn't matter. $20 for a single Zoanthrope mini is reasonable because enough of us are willing to pay $20 for a single Zoanthrope... again: prices are driven by in-game utility and what the market will bear. The fact that so many of us keep buying after each price increase tells me that GW is doing a good job of determining prices.

The above is my two-cents worth. I will throw out this follow up: keep playing the game but use cheaper miniatures from other manufacturers. As long as you aren't a big-time tourney player (and by that I mean tournies wherein GW is providing the prize support) who cares if you are using Citadel miniatures? GW makes it clear in the rule books that these rules are for us to use and modify to our heart's content. If your mates don't mind you using other minis then you can continue to have a great time with the GW rule-sets without paying GW prices. I can't tell you how many times I've read Jervis or Rick P (or some other GW luminary) go on about how we all need to remember the main rule with GW games is that we have fun with them. I can buy cheap Cthulhu models and use them as Tyranids... I've long considered building such a Tyranid army and may yet some day... if I ever do you can rest assured that my mates and I won't have any less fun paying with them than my expensive GW minis.

I've never understood all of the angst over GW prices. These are prices on completely optional luxury goods... any price that we keep paying is a fair price (by definition). Cheers! Copeland

I like to agree with this. There are food & rent for your flat/house whatever, this things are essential, there are things like tv, a car, your phone - this things are common in our world, but there are things you´ll buy just for your own entertainment. This tings are luxery the one way or the other. I would´t not compere diamond rings with gw kits, but both are pure luxerey:cool:

[Forrix]

i think there are too important things to remember and both have been touched on

1) It is a luxury not a need and so i can pretty much promise you they are pricing based on what they think people are willing to play not on how much it costs to produce them

2) for me when i look at them i cant think this is a miniscule amount of plastic that set me back nearly 100 dollars. Instead i think for 100 dollars i have got somthing i can model customize paint and then eventualy play with and each unit will easily give me a couple hundred hours of entertainment. Now compare that to the cost of a 2 hour movie.

and finally i think G.W is fast approaching the limit of what people would play. There is a huge field of competitors selling more for less. Every FLGS has a program to get you a discount. I have never had a army that is not about 60-70% second hand and whenever i start a new one i sell my old one to fund it. And when i do finaly get cornered into buying right from the store you can bet i spend a long time working out my shopping list and getting every discount i can.

[Lord Azaghul]

I think I hit 'wife logic' back in back in 2010, when I bought a 'giant' kit (whfb) Really didn't feel like it was worth 50$ for that little bit of plastic.

Our entire group hit 'wife logic' during the last 2 price increases,and the series of 2011 GW uber-debacles put the nail in fantasy, and guaranteed that 40k stays in the closet until 6th.

I just don't see the logic in paying 40% more for the same product over the course of 2 years.
That's simply overpriced.

Sure its a luxury product - but you could also argue that cable and home internet are luxury items - that doesn't mean I'm going to buy from the most expensive provider just because I always have - granted that non GW models are simply not GW models - no matter what the price. But: competitors will emerge the higher the price gets.

But for a luxury item I feel GW is price about 20-30% higher then they should be.

In the past, I've mostly bought from discount online retailer for gw stuff - but even those prices have gotten too high, I'd still pick up a blister or random box from my flgs - but I can't justify those purchases anymore.

-demanding top dollar doesn't mean, its actually worth top dollar or I have to pay it - so I don't - and I won't.

Thanks to GW's price point (and other issues) - I've discovered all sorts of great games out there -

I'm perfectly happy paying reasonable prices to support my local store, and having a good time playing everything from board games to table top games.

The more time goes buy the less I buy GW. In fact I don't think I've bought a single thing at GW retail since finecast dropped...

[Myu]

"why don't all the people down under moaning about prices either

a)give up playing GW and get a cheaper hobby;"

Never gonna happen. I like GW stuff and everything else I see looks terrible.

" b) accept that you are buying a luxury product which is being imported from the opposite side of the world to be sold to a fairly small market and as such you will have to pay a hefty premium"

If that wasn't invalidated by being able to buy forge world stuff with shipping at MUCH cheaper price I would totally believe you

" or c) get as many people as you possibly can to buy GW products direct from GW."

Would like too....but I don't want to both my relatives over seas every time I want to buy a product I should be able to get here without any of this hassle.... maybe I will occasionally, but not often.

Also, as much as you don't like people like me complaining on forums, WHERE ELSE WOULD I DO IT? Go to GW and complain? Doesn't work in their stores, they shut down their own forums to stop people complaining... there really isn't any way I can make them aware that I can't justify buying their stuff except for rarely. It's not like they'll say "I haven't seen that guy buy stuff in ages, I actually care and want him back". That kinda thing isn't important to them.

[eldargal]

As much as I believe GW don't deserve half the vitriol aimed at them, in the case of Antipodean prices it really is deserved. The prices are unjustifiable even if, as my Australian friends tell me, all imported goods are marked up similarly.

[flatdice]

Alot of imported goods are marked up in Aus, but this bleeds into the overall story of the high AUS dollar combined with how its cheaper to buy alot of goods online.

The problem is that many goods in Australia can be bought online and in store from various shops, where as most of the time GW holds 90% of the countries stock of miniatures.

Now of course there is a divide between a luxury hobby and a household items, but no one likes to feel they have been ripped off, regardless of whether they are or not. This feels like the situation with GW prices atm to me.

[flekkzo]

You are not just paying for the plastic. You pay for the molds (though I personally believe that they are not nearly as expensive as often stated, as GW has their own tooling (shown in their investor video), which would be one investment and then they could make each mold fairly cheap. I.e. they could have gone all plastic instead of fine cast), for the sculptors time, for the game developers time, for promotion, store employees, customer service (and they have good customer service). All things necessary for high quality products. Now, some of the quality isn't high, and then I feel we are entitled to complain, but the quality issues tends to be more rules/codex/book related in my experience.

Yes, I ignore the fine cast debacle on purpose.

What I find more upsetting is the leadership of GW, but that is a different story.

Just my two (worthless) cents :)

[eldargal]

The moulds are very expensive, though it is likely people overstate them. From what I've heard the sprues to make a small plastic kit for, say, a tactical marine squad could cost anywhere between thirty and fifty thousand pounds. The sprues for a large kit like a land raider or baneblade could approach one hundred thousand pounds. The small moulds used for the plastic characters are speculated to be in aluminium and cost only a few thousand pounds but I've heard they will wear out faster.

People complain about GWs leadership but it should be remembered they have spentthe last five years consolidating their business aftere they suffered 50% decline in revenue in the 2005/6 financial year when the LOTR bubble burst and their inefficient business model could no longer be sustained. It is quite possible that if GW hadn't taken many of their more unpopular measures in the past few years they may have had to sell off parts of their IP or even be bought out completely.