It’s been a while since I had a rant, so as the new Dark Angels wing their way into their overpriced packages and go out to the eagerly waiting masses, I figure this is as good a time as any. I try to avoid talking about the 800 pound gorilla in the room too much but, yes this is a GW price rant. You’ve been warned.
I will begin by acknowledging that our hobby is not a cheap one. We’ve all accepted this as a fact and dealt with it. The lucky bastards with tons of disposable income that I have to hate so much just because I’m not one of them, will happily fork over insane sums of money to appease their plastic crack addiction. Those of us in the real world where everything is expensive find the most cost-effective tricks of the trade to feed our habits. That’s how it’s gone for years and we’ve all learned to accept it. Every year GW jacks up their prices for absolutely no reason other then Tom Kirby’s castle needs another wing and we adapt. The community continues to buy and GW continues to earn so this cycle will never end.
I didn’t want to call this into question, but I feel I have to address it at least a little, but what magic mushrooms grow over there in the Narnia-esque fantasy world that is GW Nottigham? The prices for some of the new Dark Angels models are a little excessive, even for their standards (the standards that brought you the $75 land raider that only 4 years ago was $50…gas prices don’t raise that fast) The new models are very nice…except maybe the flying brick and Belial, who was apparently sculpted mid “pee-pee dance”, but come on. At least Dark Vengeance makes Deathwing models easy to find on Ebay, but you’re limited in options. Oh and these idiotic “one click” Bundles are just stupid. Once upon a time (Christmas 2008 at least) GW had these bundle kits…There was a bunch of Chaos spawn (yes, Spawn. Imagine how well that had to sell) Chaos Terminators, Tau crisis suits… I think they were built around Apocalypse formations. The point is they were cheaper then buying each box set individually. Oh but that was back when GW promised us their plastic prices wouldn’t go up for an entire year and they actually kept that promise. When did I become a “back in my day…” gamer??
This rant isn’t about model prices, despite me spending all this time on it. No, my real issue is the new standard codex price. Fifty bucks. Yes, it’s all pretty and hard cover but Fifty bucks? REALLY? It’s funny…Fantasy books have been hardcover for about 2 years now and they weren’t $50 (but guess what’s coming, my square-based brethren). GW’s competition makes hardcover books that aren’t $50. Are there no Kinko’s in Nottingham ? If you seriously want us to believe you have to charge this much on the book to make a profit, then I suggest you re-evaluate your business plan because you’re doing something seriously wrong. As usual, GW’s insanely bloated prices can be attributed to just one factor…the same factor that came into play a few years back when they bent the entire continent of Australia
So what can we do about it? Honestly, nothing. For years the community has been talking about boycotting…”voting with their wallets” and all that such thing, but these plans never get off the ground. GW’s prices suck, but since we keep paying them they’ll keep raising them. I guess that whole recession thing we’ve been dealing with out here in the real world for the better part of a decade now magically stopped right in their parking lot so they don’t know a thing about it. And I won’t say I’m not buying GW stuff anymore, because like everyone else in the hobby, I’m an addict. I have started looking at scratch-building and using 3rd party models as much as possible…which could be another reason the price of a codex has gone up 40% in 2 years. They may be pricing their models out of the market, but we can’t play warhammer without buying their books. Yes, you can decide to play another game, but 1. I’m invested with my 8 armies and 2. the alternate sucks. Plus ask the good folks from the town of South
Now I’m at that awkward point in the rant where I’m not sure what I accomplished besides venting, which is usually what a rant is. At the end of the day GW prices suck. They’ve sucked for years and they’ll continue to suck even worse moving forward. We can’t change this, we can’t quit the habit so we adapt and deal as best we can…until that day I win the lottery and get my gold-plated gaming room…Hey I can dream, right?