Reply To: Overpriced GW

[onlyonepinman 18062xp 0]

@limburger I totally disagree because as has already been pointed out, Mantic, Wargames Atlantic and Northstar all charge significantly less for products that can be considered like-for-like to a Games Workshop product.  So to suggest “that’s not how it works” is untrue.  If a business can charge less than a competitor and still turn a profit, they will do so if the increase in sales would ultimately offset the lower profit margin per unit.  So if anyone is looking at other games companies and saying that those prices are driven by Games Workshop, they’re kidding themselves – they’re not.  Those prices are driven by what the business needs to charge, per unit, in order to make a return on investment to keep the business profitable.  Whilst we may not like it, even Games Workshop are driven by that model, only they have the added consideration of shareholder profits and stock market opinions to contend with.  If a company can charge less and still make profit then they can and will do so, especially if that means growing market share.  And that’s something GW don’t currently need to worry about – market share.

I’m not necessarily going to argue whether  Games Workshop is too expensive to either play or get started in – terms like “isn’t that expensive” is entirely relative to ones own circumstances.  But whilst some things might seem comparatively cheap with Games Workshop, what you get as a percentage of you need is generally much, much lower and thus the over all cost to get into the hobby is higher because to move past the starter boxes requires more expenditure.  So the starter boxes for other games (Deadzone, Firefight, Infinity) could still be argued to be better value, by some measures (and I stress the word some, because as I keep telling people, value is subjective), by having significantly lower additional/ongoing costs.

Are there cheaper ways to enjoy Games Workshop?  Yes. Kill Team is fairly cheap, Necromunda can be cheap if you don’t feel the need to buy everything – you don’t really need much more than than the starter box.  But most people want to experience Games Workshop’s worlds on a grander scale via 40k or Age of Sigmar and there’s simply no question in my mind that those two games are simply more expensive, as hobbies in their own right, than the competition.