Why do these toys cost so much?

Lego has a lot of kits using well known IPs now, so you are paying for the expensive plastic, wages, and IP fees.

$20 for a truck with pull back motor. Actually not as bad as I thought.

GW does all its manufacturing in the UK

>This. They're high-quality sculpts not made in a third-world shithole.

>third world shithole

>the place manufacturing iphones, half the components in any BMW, and basically every other high quality model kit on earth is a third-world shithole

Ok, first of all China is specifically 2nd world, or was back when that term actually meant something. Secondly they manufacture products to a VASTLY higher quality than the fucking Brits do. 40k models are NOT high quality models. They are loaded with mold lines and errors. Remember finecast?

>They still overcharge for them a bit, but they can afford to do that because they pretty much have the market cornered.

There is no over or undercharging, they charge what the market will bare and the market prices out people who aren't middle income adults in western nations. That just conflicts with the fact that they very much are toys and the fluff is very childish. But hey, whatever floats the boat of old white dudes amirite? They could be buying wildly overpriced guns instead. Or 400 dollar name brand sneakers. Or whatever other overpriced garbage is out there.

>You're going to have a hard time when you find out where a lot of GW models are manufactured then.
What do you mean "find out", I've seen the machines themselves.

>these boxes are almost pure profit
m8, no

>GW does all its manufacturing in the UK

Nope. It's done a TON of book printing in China and quite a few models (specifically big box stuff like terrain sets, Assault on Black reach style value boxes, or Forge World models at times).

I build a lot of Gunpla, and it always confuses me why Warhammer models cost so much, especially when they don't even come pre-painted and are rather small in scale. The plastic on Gunpla is solid as well.

>What do you mean "find out", I've seen the machines themselves.

Welcome to modern manufacturing. Things come from different places. Notice how I said 'a lot'. Most Tshirts hit four continents before ending up in Europe or America. Not every model they make comes from UK and they have decades of production history.

>m8, no

m8 yes. A cardboard box of injection molded plastic is literally pennies in raw materials. All their cost is sunk into development and capitol expenditures. The quality of injection molded plastic has gotten ludicrously better than it was 30 years ago. An 8 dollar action figure can have the same detail per square MM as a primarch.

GW does nothing special, they CAD up models in Zbrush then order molds.

Bandai namco are much bigger company than GW is.

Happening all over m8, not just GW.

Much smaller company means they're less able to do things and those things cost more proportionately. Not sure if the audience is bigger or smaller considering how batshit insane Japan is.
Plus GW has been run into the ground by pure short-term greed on top of those things, which does not help matters at all.
As for prepainting and scale, that's a matter of differing tastes between hobbies.

Not sure how Gunpla is made, but plastic injection molding is a particularly expensive way to do things. The comparison to Lego was good actually, they both use the same process. It's gotten more expensive over the last decade or so with rising material costs.

Plus, the US Dollar is just weaker than it was ten years ago.

Different audiences. Bandai has a lot of kids and people who aren't the type to spend hundreds on an army buying from them. Meanwhile GW is the other way, and they are simply pricing everything t a point where they make the most profit.

Now what Bandai needs to do is make a wargame that you can use Gunpla kits in.

Gunpla is all injection molded as well.

Gunpla is injection molded too, and it's done on a pretty massive scale.
>youtube.com/watch?v=yVHI7nKMqlE

>Not sure how Gunpla is made, but plastic injection molding is a particularly expensive way to do things.

No. It really, really isn't. Stop parroting GW's line about why their prices are so high. Injection molded plastic is fucking chump change. It's more expensive than plaster casts and DIY shit in a garage, but it is NOT an expensive manufacturing technique. It's an industry standard used by basically every toy company on the planet.

>The comparison to Lego was good actually, they both use the same process. It's gotten more expensive over the last decade or so with rising material costs.

Literally no material involved has gone up in cost over the last decade. Plastic pellets are cheaper, the metals the molds are made from are cheaper, the CAD software used to design them are cheaper, and the capitol for the machining (computers, laser QC systems, etc) has gotten cheaper.

This is absolute propaganda.

>Plus, the US Dollar is just weaker than it was ten years ago.

The Dollar is stronger against the Pound and Euro now than at any point in decades. Wow you're dumb.

No, Toys have actually stayed pretty stable over the last few decades mostly tracking under inflation while their quality has sky rocketed. What has gone up is consumer spending and the average age of a model set buyer.

>all these good goyim giving their retarded excuses and justifications for GW's prices
The models are expensive because fans are willing to pay premium for them. Nothing more, nothing less. There isn't anything wrong with that. It's just business.

You can thank the rothschilds taxation scheme for that.

But yea, you're entirely right. Its an economies of scale, methods and materials problem. That and a bit of IP abuse no doubt.

What does the US dollar have to do with the gw prices?

If anything sterling just got its teeth kicked in hard, which would mean: offshore contracting became more expensive relatively for gw, and dollar for pound purchasing power increased - making everyone not in the uk happy for cheaper dollies.

But no. Currency value bears no relation to gw pricing. And shipping does not enter into it either.

>nzfag here. We and ozfags get treated appallingly.

Plastic injection has high initial cost, but as a by-volume production method it is relatively inexpensive. A single die can cast plenty of product before it wears out.
And with modern cnc and cad, the price should be falling. Simply cad up your new model, software out a negative, feed that to the 3Dcnc, and hey presto new casting die.

>Notice how I said 'a lot'
And I'm saying that's wrong. The bulk of their miniature production is in the UK.

Because people pay for them

I feel like you get more or less the same amount of plastic per kit honestly. A pile of gretchin are about as tall as a small high grade, but I feel Bandai uses their plastic more efficiently.

GW charges as much as they think they can get away with, since they're in the mentality of "if we're not making ALL THE MONEY, then we're not making money!" and their business practice of rotating out models and adding new ones with edition changes trying to make people buy all new models. And any models that don't sell get recalled and regaled to special order fine-cast.

Meanwhile Gunpla is marketed towards a collector of a well-established fanbase and the stock can sit for decades on the shelf and still be sold because SOMEONE will eventually come along to buy it.

>'a lot' means 'the majority

Oh user, you'll get out of grade school someday!

I use mine as Tau Supremacy suits

>Bandai uses their plastic more efficiently
Less solid parts, and thinner in general. If, for example, you took a gundam and a crisis suit of similar size, the gundam would probably have about half the plastic in it. But that's a result of the divergent intent behind the both sets of models. Gunpla are largely display pieces, while Warhammer figures (or Lego bricks) are intended to be played with and have to be a bit more robust.

But the price disparity is largely because bandai/namco isn't just a model kit company. They've got other sources of revenue, and a basically constant stream of customers from the cartoons. Can't really compare them 1:1 because of how huge gundam as an IP is.

>What does the US dollar have to do with the gw prices?
Guy posted the US store price, that's why I said it.

Shareholders

>GW had continuously raised prices to try and reach an equalibrium between loss in volume and increase in revenue.

>they are simply pricing everything t a point where they make the most profit

This is what every company that isn't intentionally trying to lose money does. The reason the maximum profitability equilibrium is at such a high point is because people keep buying them.

>Notice how I said 'a lot'.
"a lot" is still not appropriate. Hardly anything GW sells is made outside of the UK. Right now, the only things not made in the UK are the new decorative bases.

>and are rather small in scale
That makes the mould more expensive, since their fault tolerances are a lot smaller.

Look at it this way, a tiny bit of wear on a gunpla mould will likely not be noticeable, due to their large detailess surfaces, but the same tiny amount of wear could amount to an entire detail on a citadel miniature being ruined.

If your afraid of wealth. See share holders tend to want a quick return so while it may rich short term it's not terribly sustainable vis a vie the dwindling number of physical stores which could probably benefit from some restructuring. Frankly GW is shooting it self foot by deliberately keeping it's niche market too niche. Yeah neck beards have alot disposable income but it pays more long term to have abroader appeal. Also they don't do market research which is fucking stupid.

Yes and no. That's just one aspect of trying to make money. They could also attempt to aggressively increase the SIZE of their business through lower sales and the targeting of new players. That is how they grew to their peak in the mid 2000's. What they are doing now is what a company that plans to transition industries or rely entirely on IP is doing. They are accepting a decrease in market relevance for an increase in overall short term revenue. Games like 40k or Warhammer rely ENTIRELY on networking effects. The moment so few people are playing that pick up games become impossible to find the bottom falls out and the game suddenly collapses, along with GW.

I kinda suspect they started reallly fearing that was going to happen which led to ceasing price raises, doing more cost effective army bundles,and totally revamping their core product.

2010-2015 GW was a classic case of a greedy company destroying itself through shareholder first practices. Those practices aren't just prices, it's short term exclusive releases, short term collectors item books, a dizzying release schedule while letting the core game itself flounder and break under incredibly lax rules and community maintenance, etc.

>"a lot" is still not appropriate.

I'm pretty sure Chinese manufacture accounts for dozens of boxed sets over the years including the majority of terrain and custom molds in value boxes. It's a lot. For a period some forge world stuff was made there.

>Hardly anything GW sells is made outside of the UK.

Except for basically every single accessory from the early 2000's until the early 2010's and most of its books. I think the only things wholly manufactured (mostly) in the UK are the models themselves most of the time though it wouldn't surprise if the molds were actually machined elsewhere.

>Right now, the only things not made in the UK are the new decorative bases.

look deeeeper

m8 their British. The British accept no culpability for their role in the slave trade. The only people who give a shit about that, white or black, are Americans.

Because the marketing and finance teams don't determine the prices, the creative design team and the artists do. I'm not even making this shit up, got it straight from the mouth of a GW employee.

Tell that to the massive global superpower that wants to kill the Brits because of what they did during the colonial era and will fully rake them over the coals if they ever crawl out of the crater they put themselves into with brexit and try to get a trade deal.

>Because the marketing and finance teams don't determine the prices, the creative design team and the artists do. I'm not even making this shit up, got it straight from the mouth of a GW employee.

Wow, you got lied to by the mouth of a GW employee.

>>I'm pretty sure Chinese manufacture accounts for dozens of boxed sets over the years including the majority of terrain and custom molds in value boxes.
Source? All of my kits say made in the UK on them.

Sounds like vague corporate speech for "models that took longer for the artists to produce cost more".

They shut down China production. They USED to produce models there, but no longer.

Forgeworld stuff is no longer produced in China, but GW still does have some production there (that according to rumours around the plasma obliterator isn't going great). It's simple stuff like textured bases though, not really models.

Sorry user, I don't have any of the boxes the models came in over the last 20 years of my fucking life. You could check the tiny made in label on photos of boxes in google, but goodluck getting high enough resolutions from back when they were doing it a lot.

Just look at the made in for things like templates, dice tins, carry cases, or terrain pieces every now and then. It's weirdly inconsistent, even when it was more common I'm pretty sure they were dual sourcing.

It's mostly low volume low detail stuff. A lot of the End Times terrain apparently came from there and I'm pretty confidant that space marine statue was.

Artificial rarity. The company produces minis in small amounts in order to keep the supply lower than demand and thus the prices high. GW uses copyright laws to scare away competitors from making the models, so it's a blatant breach of anti-monopoly laws but the government doesn't do anything so there's corruption too.

>anti-monopoly laws
It's not a breach of monopoly laws because they solely hold the copyright and are a publicly traded company.

>GW uses copyright laws to scare away competitors from making the models, so it's a blatant breach of anti-monopoly laws but the government doesn't do anything so there's corruption too.

Thats.. not.. What? Do you have literally no idea what a monopoly is? Do you think Marvel has a monopoly on Wolverine?

t. butthurt mud

I mean, technically he's not wrong. A copyright is just a government-granted monopoly on an idea.

There's upsides and downsides to copyrights, but they ARE, literally speaking, monopolies.

I would find the treatment of 3rd party retailers particularly online ones bit more applicable. It's kind of a grey area considering they never been brought to court on it.

??

Was that a sentence? A name?

>I mean, technically he's not wrong. A copyright is just a government-granted monopoly on an idea.

I mean, sure?

There isn't really anything strictly illegal or monopolistic about having selling agreements as long as they aren't going after individuals.

Look. If a price is high then it must mean that supply is low, this is basic economics 101.

If no competitors enter the field then it must mean that GW has monopoly and is abusing it, simple as that.

There are plenty of competitors in the wargaming market as well as those offering 3rd party models for 40k. It's just that demand is really small.

>Look. If a price is high then it must mean that supply is low, this is basic economics 101.

No, the basic price curve only works in the econ 101 formula for basic commodities that are interchangeable like generic clothes, food, or raw materials.

GW could produce like two hundred trillion Pyrovores and cost them all at 1 million dollars. They wouldn't sell shit, but the supply would be massive and so would the price. Rarity has nothing to do the price of goods in complex modern economies. Just access.

Fun fact: There are enough diamonds on earth for everyone alive to have several.

>If no competitors enter the field then it must mean that GW has monopoly and is abusing it, simple as that.

Nope. That really is econ 101, I would suggest taking econ 201 at some point. Economics aren't a physical system, they're a set of common behaviors that DO vary widely and change over time.

>Fun fact: There are enough diamonds on earth for everyone alive to have several
Diamond prices being high is just due to De Beers being jews and creating artificial rarity.

No, it's not.

It's due to market psychology and the perception of value in 'new' diamonds. The cost of a diamond drops like 80% the moment you purchase it. They depreciate much harder than cars, despite the fact that they're practically indestructible and utterly interchangeable with a diamond from 100 years ago being identical to one now.

Debeers doesn't have magic powers, but they have had phenomenal success in creating the 'value' of diamonds through marketing. The engagement ring as a concept was literally created by debeers in the 30's.

We can literally create diamonds from coal now, artificial diamonds SHOULD have destroyed the value of diamonds, but they haven't because people BELIEVE in the 'rarity' and 'value' of an incredibly common rock.

>I mean, sure?

My point was that you were wrong, he does know what a monopoly is.

GW is pretty much a monopoly if we define their market as 28mm sci-fi/fantasy figures. At best, Corvus Belli and the Warmahordes dudes could bring them into oligopoly territory, but I don't think GW's prices are really influenced at all by those companies because they have such a huge market share.

GW has extreme pricing power and demand from their current customers is extremely inelastic. They are charging the price that their copyright allows. The Chinese black market shows us that people are more than willing to pay for lower quality at lower prices. If GW did not have a copyright on their designs and the Chinese dudes went legal, GW would lose tons of their market power, even though the Chinese guys would still only be doing resin.

It isn't a "blatant breach of monopoly laws," in fact it is completely legal, but GW does have a near monopoly on what they do and that means they can charge high prices.

Now, this also means they have trouble getting new blood into the hobby, which is vital long-term. They seem to recognize this and are lowering prices as a result.

TL;DR copyrights (and customer loyalty to "lore accurate/lore related" stuff) mean GW can charge high prices. This may be changing as we speak.

I definitely thought this was a dragon dildo while scrolling through the catalog.

>My point was that you were wrong, he does know what a monopoly is.

As a colloquialism, sure. Not as a legal definition, which considering he was talking about government corruption its pretty fucking clear he was talking about the legal definition.

So, no. He doesn't fucking know what a monopoly is.

>GW is pretty much a monopoly if we define their market as 28mm sci-fi/fantasy figures. At best, Corvus Belli and the Warmahordes dudes could bring them into oligopoly territory, but I don't think GW's prices are really influenced at all by those companies because they have such a huge market share.

Nope. They don't. The fact that there are like 40 competing brands selling other 28mm sci fi games means they don't. An oligopoly maybe, but they seem to genuinely dislike eachother and I very much doubt there's any market collusion occurring. Also, there are way too many players for it to an oligopoly unless you restrict it to purely 28mm scale, which is absurd and arbitrary. Hell, they aren't even the biggest player in the space having been outsold by Clix and Star Wars multiple times in the last few years.

About the only thing they have is a very valuable IP. They have no technology or ideas of any value underpinning them. Just a brand in a space crowded by brands.

The inverse. Colloquially, he was wrong. Legally, he's right. It is a monopoly. But it's government sanctioned.

>outsold by Star Wars

yes, but not relevant because while they share players, they are selling very, very different products.

>outsold by clix
Wait really? Sauce?

>Just a brand in a space crowded by brands.

Their brand is older and stronger than most of the others. As you say yourself, a very valuable IP. That's basically what I was getting at--they can set these stupid high prices because people are buying the IP and not the product.

What's the future of 3D printing? Are people going to be able to reliably scan and pirate directly from GW models?

If 3d printing gets to that stage it'll be the death of professional model companies.

3D printing is a dogshit meme. Maybe in a few decades consumer printers will be able to produce minis of acceptable quality but I doubt it.

Good. Might actually force them to shift focus to make a system that isn't garbage.

The company will just sell its IP and close shop.

So people who actually care about the setting / gameplay for more than shekels get their hands on it. The horror.

If they bother with keeping the tabletop game. They'll probably just relegate it to black library only.

You do realize that a lot of people already pirate all the rules for these games right?

>GW uses copyright laws to scare away competitors
no they don't

They have before, with the whole chapter house thing.

>They have no technology or ideas of any value underpinning them
Mm, I'd disagree on that point. As far as the actual technology behind making their models goes, they aren't really slouches. The fact that people even compare them to industry leaders like bandai is enough of a compliment.

>the whole chapter house thing
chapterhouse wasn't a competitor, and GW sued them because of an actual breach of IP

they have to, or they lose control of their IP

>The inverse. Colloquially, he was wrong. Legally, he's right. It is a monopoly. But it's government sanctioned.

No, that is literally the colloquialism of it. They do not have a legal monopoly. Take it to a court and find out just how much of a monopoly they don't have. I dare you.

>yes, but not relevant because while they share players, they are selling very, very different products.

No. They aren't. They are selling miniatures for use in a competitive tabletop board game. They are in the exact same space selling very similar products.

>Wait really? Sauce?

Mage Knight, at its height, outsold them for like a quarter and Heroclix was set to be the pre-eminent game before it suddenly crashed. No other brand Besides Xwing and Warmahordes has had any endurance next to 40k.

>Their brand is older and stronger than most of the others.

The others are brands like Marvel, Star Wars, and Warmahordes. The brand is not stronger than it's most influential rivals (besides warmahordes). It's got deep loyalty, but the brand is fairly limited and GW is a tiny player compared to some.

> That's basically what I was getting at--they can set these stupid high prices because people are buying the IP and not the product.

Pretty much. It's an IP DESIGNED for this kind of niche product. It works in a way that Disneys various brands simply can't.

>Mm, I'd disagree on that point. As far as the actual technology behind making their models goes, they aren't really slouches. The fact that people even compare them to industry leaders like bandai is enough of a compliment.

Bandai is NOT an industry leader in any technology, let alone injection molded plastic. Neither company is doing the research work to create higher quality machining or higher quality modeling technologies. Both just license and use stuff developed in other industries.

That is some cool shit right there...
>They all wear feddie uniforms
Now that's dedication

>Injection molded plastic is fucking chump change
the plastic is chump change, the mold designing is not. Like with most molding technics, one sprue costs almost nothing, but the initial cost is high, and must be repercuted on the global price.
>Literally no material involved has gone up in cost over the last decade.
It almost like they didn't use the same material/technic everytime and tried to improve their shit to make better minis than before. Have you noticed the difference in quality between, say, Rogue Trader era Space Marines and the new Chad Primaris?

Of course they also try and make a profit. But everyone saying 'hurrr it should cost 10 cents per mini' is a complete moron

If GW models became cheap like Gunpla models I would be buying more of their stuff.

That's the thing GW doesn't understand.
If their stuff was cheaper, people would buy more of it. They'd be more likely to start up additional armies.
Instead, it's pure short term profit they're looking for.

They definitely do understand, they are not competing with gunpla, they are competing with other wargaming and roleplaying miniatures. Comparing the price and quality of GW models to what's on those markets they're not that expensive.

>they can set these stupid high prices because people are buying the IP and not the product.
its not just GW though. as far as 28mm scifi/fantasy minis go they're average in price. Stuff thats cheaper is typically lower quality, higher quality stuff is normally even more expensive.

cheap minis are historical ones, that no single company can claim an IP on and so there's direct competition.

Fifteen years ago, plastic tyranid warriors were thirty bucks for three.
Now? Fifty one dollars for three.
Or how about when they cut the number of guardsmen in a box by half and charged...I think it was five bucks less?
And that's not considering that, while it's slightly cheaper per-model, they require a shitload more models than any other of the major competitors.
They should be charging less money than they are now, so they can get more people hooked and buying more product, rather than trying to see how high they can charge each individual box. If they were EVEN CHEAPER than the competitor's stuff than now, it'd make them look better as a company.

That's why they have Start Collecting boxes which are priced with like a 40% discount compared to buying their contents individually.

Really bad comparison considering how shit the old warrior models were, but yeah, they can do that without a worry.

When it comes to needing to buy a load of miniatures, that's the wargaming market. Who is there to compete with them outwith historicals? Mantic? Not really. GW has that market cornered hard.

>not knowing memes

What other reason do you have to be on Veeky Forums.

>Fifteen years ago, plastic tyranid warriors were thirty bucks for three.
yeah, and they didn't even have the weapon arms to equip a single squad properly

and they will release rules for 8E for free because they don't care anymore

"In 2017, the relative value of $30.00 from 2002 ranges from $38.00 to $49.30."
source: measuringworth.com/uscompare/relativevalue.php

POO

IN

LOO

Every inflation calculator I can find online sets the value of $30 in 2002 to $40 in 2017 give or take a few cents.

because it is written in that toy book that the toy deals 40 damage to other toys

Correction. Anything made with human hands is expensive outside of cheap production countries. Robots are the future.