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GW, Paperbacks, Prices & Reform?

2 Minute Read
Jan 14 2015
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Who knows, maybe GW is coming back from the brink and starting to rollback those sky-high prices…

For a long time we have seen the drumbeat of ever higher and higher prices from Games Workshop.  Even longtime veterans in the game for 10+ years with massive collections are having a hard time keeping up.

Add the frenzied release schedule and it gets even harder to keep up with the current state of the game.

But economics says that those prices can’t just go up forever and sooner or later a price ceiling will establish, beyond which it damages the manufacturer to proceed.  People have been arguing about exactly what the level is for years now.

Now factor in the mid-year financial report from GW and you can start to put a picture together. The company knocked out a ton of amazing products in the last 6 months:

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-Grey Knights
-Tyranids
-Blood Angels
-Space Wolves
-Dark Eldar
-Shield of Baal series and campaign boxed set.
-Endtimes Volumes 1-3 (with amazing miniatures to support them)

YOU THERE no slacking!
 Make the codices FASTER! 

Several years back that would have made an entire year of GW releases, and even with all of that their revenue was down year per year.  Something is clearly wrong with the corporate strategy – and I’d put an educated guess on prices as the culprit.

So when Brass Scorpion over at SpikeyBits Forum says this, I’m wondering what’s going on:

“Some of you astute GW customers out there may have noticed that the Tomb Kings army book has been out of print for a few months. This is because it is moving to paperback! The new price will also be significantly cheaper too. Instead of the $49.50 US hardback Army book price it will be about $37 US and change. Perhaps we can presume this shift to cheaper paperbacks will be seen in other Army and Codex books over time. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

To to some it may seem like just another range of product options used to further tighten the belt at Nottingham and perhaps make a profitable product (hardcovers) even more profitable (moderately lower priced softcovers).
But to me I see the hints of GW starting to come back in off the ledge, and find a way to walk those prices back down to something reasonable.  Kevin Roundtree has only been in the CEO chair for 2 months, so you can’t put the blame on him for GW’s current state.  Signs like this make me cautiously optimistic that he may have a penchant for experimentation that is just what GW needs to reform itself back to the growing company it once was.
Good luck and godspeed Kevin, everyone is watching with fingers crossed.

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Author: Larry Vela
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