The Rising Cost

So the Sixth edition of Warhammer 40,000 dropped over sixth months ago. Let me warn you that I've been back and forth about the new edition constantly since I first opened the book. Suffice to say the Manager in me and the Gamer in me have had a lot to talk about. We have fought over the subject of the new edition itself and the rising price of little plastic army men. So let's talk about the new edition.

The SRP for the new "rulebook" is 74.25 USD. The Gamer in me can tell you that it's a beautiful book, contains amazing art, and the basic rules are the cleanest they have been in a long time. The Manager in me never quite got beyond the price tag. What he sees is a hefty tome that -at it's core- is three books bound into one. The first book is the actual rulebook. The second contains all the background and "fluff" of the 41st millennium. The third book is a hobby section that's shameless in it's promotion of other Warhammer 40,000 products.

Any gamer would be happy to spend money on the new edition once they learn of all the improvements made therein. Any gamer with a budget would prefer to see the game released as a series of books, kin to the Dungeons & Dragons formula.  A rulebook,  A background book, and a hobbyist book all sold at a reasonable SRP of about 30 USD each. In this way the tournament circuit players can have their rulebook, the role-players and collectors can have their history, and the hobbyist get their tips and tricks as well. The die hard's like myself? We can actually budget for all three over time.

So why wait half a year to talk about this? It all ties into the rising cost of Games Workshop products, and the shift I've seen the store take in those sixth months. My retail space no longer buys directly from Games Workshop. Over the last couple years the retailer policies that Games Workshop has made have been very baffling. I watched as prices rose each June for three consecutive years. The store had metal figures taken away and replaced by finecast. Then in a matter of months Games Workshop took finecast away and moved it to direct sales, straight from their website. I could no longer order models for customers at their convenience. I continue to support the game with plastic kits via secondary distributors but the stage had already been set. My retail space no longer has a Warhammer 40,000 following.

Now the core war-gaming community here plays Warmachine and Hordes. They have cited the rising cost of Games Workshop product and it's limited availability as the reason they've switched. They could have easily moved to web orders, but the ones I'm most familiar with have also told me the biggest reason as to why they switched; Because they want the community and a place to play.