Games Workshop Prices

Hi All

Now for those of you who implicitly uphold GW and their prices - look away now!

For those who may not know about what is going on - keep on reading!

Last year or so, GW in their wisdom decided to release a brand new form of model - fine'cast'.  The finecack models have had problems left, right and centre due to quality control but there are many fans of the stuff.  Give me the good 'ol metal!
Due to the release of the finecack range, GW decided to put their prices up by quite a lot e.g. battleforces going from £60 to £70 etc.
I have seen this before as many people who have been in the hobby as long as I have.  The time which resulted in me leaving the hobby for years was the release of white metal.  GW put the notion forward that doping the metal thereby cutting lead content would be safer (which is true) but needs a greater price (untrue).
Then the release of the complete paint range from GW only to be made redundant a few months later by the release of the new paint range?  Watching chat with Les (Lester Bursley's video on youtube) he did state that a lot of people were not happy with this.
The release of the 'eavy metal paint brush range - one GW worker was trying to sell me these brushes (over priced sable in my opinion) whilst at the same time painting a model with his Windsor and Newton brushes!

The list goes on and with the new price increases this coming 4th of June 2012, it is believed that GW will increase prices on the smaller items by up to 50% and a lower percentage on the big ticket items.  It has also been noted that battleforces/battalions could increase from £70 to £80!

One thing that did catch my eye and is a personal bug-bare for me is the going digital thing.  Whilst I love the idea of being able to read a codex and the like on iPad or iPhone etc. I cannot stomach the fact that they have increased (before the 4th) the price of the space marine codex from £20 printed BOOK to £24.99 eBook!!!!

Real books are printed from digital format (have been for a long time), but going digital means that companies cut-out the 'middle man' printers and give you a formatted version from the original digital master copy.  So here we have GW increasing the price on the space marine codex by NOT having to print the damn thing on paper, then get it to shops or sent to people, people having to box up and unbox codex orders and so on.

Where is the sense in this?  Business sense if quite sound really, why not increase the price and cut out loads of money costing things -  the profit would be rather large than by going the other way.  Customer focus?  Well we all know (apart from the misguided individuals who follow GW in a trance) that GW do not really care for customer focus; some of the staff in their shops do. 

I think that my time buying from GW is rapidly coming to an end.  I love their games, their models (except for finecack) are the best in the world but their prices when you think about it are becoming so steep that soon you'll need a mortgage to by an army!

eBay and online discount sellers such as Wayland Games  here I come!
Cheers
Andy