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.