Today's rant is based on a concern that has risen in the last few years here at the club and it addresses this very matter. It's old hat that a portion of the veteran community has been put off by your actions, and you've even told us you don't care about any of that. We're going to move past all those hurt feelings, and talk about the practicalities of what this means for us going forward.
The other day, we were plotting out Bignutt's Lizardman army and calculating what the cost would be to add 250 points to his army to round it off to 2000 points. He told me there was a new skink unit he wanted, so we added it to his army list (he likes skinks) and then went to put the buy in the Collective's itenerary. I was shocked when I learned the asking price for this model. Really. Let me explain.
Until only recently, this sort of model (in metal or resin) would cost around $40 to $50 USD. That's reasonable, it's the equivalent of a tank. However...GW has created a new practice I like to call the "double-duty" kit. It's through the use of this method that GW has sustained it's profit margin even though sales are dropping off like lemmings from a cliff.You see, the Troglodon/Carnosaur kit is currently priced at $85 USD. That's nearly double what I expected this model to cost. Is it really that expensive? Let's examine this kit and a few others.
The kit comes with the pieces you need for two models, the troglodon (with skink rider) and the carnosaur (with saurus rider). You're not getting two kits - you're only getting one. Take a careful look at these two pictures and you're realize the only thing different is the rider and the head of the monster.It goes without saying that it comes unpainted and unassembled, but you should consider that point as well. I expected this kit to weigh in at $50 USD or so...but $85?? For real? What is going on here? Is that extra head and model (whichever rider you don't use) really worth the cost of the kit almost doubling. I call shenanigans (once again) on GW.
This is by no means restricted to this kit - it seems to be GW's new initiative. They have phased out metal. Now they are phasing out Finecast. Now they want $30 USD for single pose plastic miniatures on a tiny sprue.
Consider also some of the "elite" kits that have come out in the last few years. Skeleton Warriors cost roughly $28, but Grave Guard weigh in at $50 USD for the same number of models. Ditto the equivalents for Black Orcs, Tomb Guard, Greatswords, etc.
Granted, the new Dark Elf release is better, so they might be sensing this isn't working out. The Executioners/Black Guard kit costs the same as these other elite troops, but is a double-duty kit: you can make either Executioners OR Black Guard. That's more plastic in the box for the same price, but at this point that's not worth anything either. You were only going to make one unit anyway, except now you have a ton more bits for you bits box. That's usually a good thing, but remember you're talking about units - that's only 10 men per box, meaning you're going to have a LOT of the SAME spare parts.
White Dwarf itself has experienced this blatant price-gouging. The price has risen steadily for the print magazine, and now it's $10 an issue. Over the time the price has risen, but the content has deteriorated to the point that it's basically just a monthly release catalog that showcases some rudimentary painting articles. Haven't you noticed that the paints do everything now, and there's no longer any need to mix paints?
White Dwarf no longer includes fun gaming articles and the design studio in general seems to have completely thrown rules balance out the window - while at the same time GW makes digital rules available online. New today: add Be'lakor to your Chaos Space Marine army by buying the digital download for $4.99. Shouldn't those rules have been in White Dwarf to begin with? Shouldn't I have already paid for that?
Note that though the cover price for White Dwarf has increased steadily over the years, the price for a subscription has not changed from $100 USD in at least 12 years. Really? What does that even mean, other than it's obviously not a production cost? After this month, I'll no longer collect White Dwarf. The newest issue won't be readily accessible for the club, and we won't even care - we quit noticing White Dwarf a long time ago. I do have a contiguous run from 1997 to 2013, so that's neat. The only new White Dwarfs I'll get will be old ones.
The reason this keeps coming up is the sheer volume of gaming materials we buy as a club. We literally have a stake in every release GW makes due to the fact that there are only one or two armies across all their games that we don't play. We're going to build up bits we can never use in the bits box with every buy of a double-duty kit. Yet that's the genius of the Collective. Through this careful planning, we have actually reduced by a great deal the amount of money that is projected to land in GW's hands on behalf of the club - and if they could see the numbers they would not like this at all.
Are those extra bits worth it? I think it's apparent this is a price gouge - if Empire State Troops, Dark Elf Corsairs and Warriors can have two or three builds in the box at $28, why do these certain kits cost double for the same thing? This sort of thing limits what people will spend, GW. It's not the other way around. I know that at least in this particular circle, this is only going to lead to a steady dwindling of sales, which will trickle down with every push until it is ultimately nothing.