I also ordered about 5 of the figures where you used the code. Although they were £18 each and I have nothing to do with 40k I am keeping these figures along with the 7 free figures I have left and am going to sell them around xmas time.

I would love for GW to do a limited edition Hobbit or LOTR figure in the future, that also is only available for 1 month with orders of a certain value. It would be one of the most highly prized models if so.

I think you're right that this is their mindset but unfortunately I don't know that it can realistically work with what are generally accepted to be luxury goods.

(This isn't bashing GW, simply shedding light on why that particular move probably isn't the most appropriate given the product.)

One thing to always consider about a good when determining its price is its elasticity (how one economic variable affects another i.e., how a rise in price may/will affect a rise in sales). Some companies have the advantage of being able to sell products with little-to-no or low elasticity (low elasticity simply meaning that a change in one variable won't affect another).

To contrast the difference between low and high elasticity, let me share a lil' story. Two years ago, the company that supplies my electricity doubled the cost of my energy. I received a note with June's bill telling me that July's bill would realistically double unless I started to live more rustically. I wasn't a happy man. Nevertheless, I grinned and bore it because they have a monopoly in this area and I (to some degree) need my electricity.

To come back to miniatures (or luxury goods, as mertaal and aelfwine aptly called them), it's hard to significantly raise prices without cutting out huge pieces of your consumer pie. In the above example, I continued to give money to the electric company because to some degree, I "needed" their product. Most people wouldn't necessarily use the word "need" when it comes to 20 or 25mm models, respectively. We might all "like" or even "love" them; but will we die of hunger or freeze to death without them?

I honestly don't hate GW. I still have too many fond memories in their stores to really bear them any ill will. It just seems like, as a student of economics, that the current solution for revenue loss can only really work for a company selling water in the desert; not a company that is selling luxury goods.

My girlfriend works with Pandora jewelry's advertising leadership and they often struggled with the following, that aelfwine brought up:



If anyone is familiar with Pandora, they are the hobby jewelry brand that allow you to customize bracelets with decorative charms that you pick out. When they found that their jewelry came with too high an initial price tag for many people, they started giving away the bracelets themselves free with purchases of 3 or more charms. Despite a slightly less profitable initial transaction, their overall sale of charms skyrocketed (more than compensating for lost bracelet sales) as people began to trickle in to buy more and more accessories over time. It may not relate 1:1, but I think it's an interesting, similar example of the merits of getting people to the table rather than terrifying them with the initial costs of participation.

@Gilcris

The Pandora Jewellery example you have used is a really good one, they seem to have also worked really hard to get their product noticed in shops other than their own outlets and to make their outlets non-intimidating. (Both ideas GW could take on board)

GW are feeling the pinch in two areas, 1. the younger 'fresh blood' players are just not materialising (here they are competing against x-box, card games like MTG etc.) and the veteran players are drifting off to play other more rewarding things... I know loads and loads of gamers who started with GW games but now have no interest in their systems. There are so many amazing systems and games out there now that the competition is very high...

If you compare this years Salute, with one say 5 or 10 years ago you can see outside of the GW bubble the rest of the world has moved on from WH/W40K.

The current policy of 'squeeze the orange a bit harder' may only work for so long.

If you look at the Goblin Town box, you'll see it's what GW is doing. Sum up the cost of every single model the box contains and you are way over its price. The problem is, even this "cheap" box is to expensive.

I've always thought the death of gw started when codex cost more than £10.
For a tenner I'd end up buying a codex AND 2 troops and 1 hq just to try it out... then a few more because of the addiction.
Then 3 months later buy the next codex