Games Workshop pricing, just what are we paying for?

Well A huge amount of moaning is going on about GW pricing and yes people have a right to moan. We are paying a premium price for models. But as long as we continue to pay these prices then GW are going to continue to mark them up and push for more. its natural business.

But just lately GW pricing policy has been a bit to brash for peoples liking. For instance the Eldar release. 3 weeks ago you could buy 10 Dire Avengers for £23.50. And today you can buy the same Dire avengers just in a different box for £20.50. Only problem is that you are now only getting 5 in a box. So instead of paying £2.35 per model you are now paying £4.10 per model. For exactly the same model, no new sculpts or bits. just a different packaging box. there is no reason for the price hike at all. they have not had to pay any sculptors, or researchers or anything. just one guy at a computer designing new box art.

And then we have the release that has caused all the fuss and excitement. the WraithKnight A huge towering model much larger than the recent Tau Riptide release. And the Price £70. Now compared to some other GW pricing this could be considered a bargain. But lets look at it from a new prospective. What are we paying for. the plastic? The R&D?  No not any of them, although in GW own words the Wraith knight is a completely new concept for the 2013 Codex release. 

That's great if it wasn't for the fact it appeared to be a concept in 2006 :P. Now yes you could argue that that is merely just Eldar Titan in the back ground. But then all the WK is, is a scaled down Revenant Titan anyway. 
 So yes I suppose they have had to pay out for Sculptors, molds to be made etc But then the same things had to be done for these.

These are the Gunpla Models from Japan, The same amount of R&D and Sculpting went into these as the GW models. They are as big and in most cases bigger than the WK. Not to mention the fact they have 10 X the detail of any GW model. And you can purchase these Multi part Plastic kits for £15.
If it wasn't for GW's 75% policy on conversions and models I would be using Gunpla Models for my Tau army. they look amazing compared to the Crisis suits of the Tau, that lets face it, resemble kids dressed as robots using Cardboard boxes.

So if the £70 is not to cover the manufacturing of the WK what is it for. Well in all honestly all we are paying for is a Stat line in a Codex. They give us a Stat line that we want to use and hike the price up because they know players will buy into it, because they want a model with THAT stat line.   

Is Kickstarter being abused

I wanted to talk about kick starter, the site works absolute wonders to get people going into a business with a product to sell. The kick starter can fund all sorts of things from inventions to films. It's like Dragons Den, only the people on the World Wide Web are the Dragons. A lot of success has been made from kick starters. But I am having trouble figuring out why some company's are going back to it time and time again.

Company's like Mantic games who have already put 4 projects into Kickstarter and have drawn a total of $1,976,527, so far. Are they being greedy? Using Kickstarter to fund a project they could of easily funded them self's with the profits from the games they have already had Kickstarted. Now I have nothing against Mantic Games and I'm still debating about buying Dreadball or not. But are company's like this taking away from other people that really do need a Kickstarter, rather than an already established company that sells there products world wide. 

Today I saw a set of videos depicting the "tropes" towards women in computer games. Nothing wrong with what she is doing the YouTube videos are well made and informative if you buy into the feminist view of the videos. And wile very well done and edited they are at the end of the day just YouTube videos. I then found out that she got a kick starter for the videos. A kick starter for what is nothing more than a Vlog. She originally wanted $6000. And has some how managed to rake in $158,922................. for a YouTube video............ (So stay tuned for my YouTube Vlog about the constant brutal murders of male AI characters in video games)

Now what made this even more of a "how the hell moment", was the fact that Jason Mews, has been touring the US showing the new Jay and Silent Bob: Super Groovy Cartoon Movie. Now Jason and his wife Jordan, paid cartoonists, voice actors, advertising costs, editors, studio time, cinema time. Everything you would expect from a feature film. For £69000 less than half of what some one got to make a YouTube Vlog, on the same note as this, It cost Kevin Smith a mere £27,575 to make Clerks, one of if not the best theatrical comedy's. 

Is it going to get to the point where EA games are going to ask for kick starters every year for the same old Fifa or NFS game? 

We will have North Korea asking for a Kickstarter to increase the range of there missiles, the more you pledge the the further away they will target them from you.

In my honest opinion Kickstarter has a Pool of money. And people and company's a like are exploiting this pool of money so they have more in there back pocket. I keep a Kickstarter advertised here on the blog, but I will never advertise one for a company that is making multiple kick starters in order to line there pockets more and more, when they already have an established business that is successful. 

If it continues the way it is going, then I fear eventually the pool will dry up.