ech, And they're off...

[dicnar]

Ok first box spotted now for merly 200 Ł with only one bidder I guess we all seen that comming.
I just want to thank GW for their limited realease bullshi* .Now if anyone was born a little to late he has to go hunting on ebay.

[CyberShadow]

I dont think that you can blame GW for this, really. No matter how long a game is available for, someone will have missed it, and the value will increase significantly when it has gone. On top of that, many GW stores still have copies available (it was only released in the stores yesterday). On the plus side, there are a lot of copies on eBay right now without miniatures...

People playing this kind of deal - buying a few copies and then putting them up at crazy prices is immoral, and I reserve my bile for them.

[Erik M]

You've seen nothing yet CS.
The moment Dale Earnhardt died there was heaps of scavanger with #3 black and white cars on eBay.
Me? I was just glad the most dangerous racecar driver was gone.
80(!!!)% less yellow cautions in NasCar after that. His main attribution to racing safety (after himself refusing to use aything but an open helmet) was to crash and burn. And thus making the HANSE obligatory.

[ANSWER_MOD_DABANK]

Ouch! 200 British Pounds for the game, that is like $165 USA Dollars. Good god!

Hopefully, people can still get them as I believe the USA GW still has them available.

[Vaaish]

I think you mean 327 USD, not 165...

[Stomm]

Well I'm highly tempted to see if my local store still has any left and then putting one up on eBay. I've really got no other way of making any money myself, short of selling off some of my existing collection...

[ANSWER_MOD_DABANK]

Yes, sorry got the conversion backwards.

[Stomm]

Found a pair of copies, and now unless I can make some cash out of them quick I'm going to be in big trouble with the wife for spending this week's shopping money...

[Stomm]

Just checked the US online store and they're still available. But of course with shipping it works out at just under £100, plus of course the chances are that you'll get smacked by customs and excise for 15% on top of that before you can collect it from the Post Office, etc.. So, about £120 is actually a fair price on eBay ATM if you can't get to a store that still has a copy...


Basically it looks like GW underestimated demand in the UK and Northern Europe, whilst maybe overestimating demand elsewhere. Of course getting a French copy will only cost just under £90 with no taxes, but it will be in French. Same lovely figures though, in fact I'm going to find it very hard not to keep all three copies just for the figures... God I'm going to be in trouble with the wife...

[dicnar]

I dont think that you can blame GW for this, really. No matter how long a game is available for, someone will have missed it, and the value will increase significantly when it has gone.

Yea but this is like a week or two since the realease not like 10 years. It's not a special edition miniature, it's a whole game and I really don't get it why they can't have it avaiable all the time, since it's obious that when they announce it's limited many people would buy more than one box and then sell it on ebay. Also you have to remember that not all countries have official GW stores and the online store is the only source so it's like to late already for some of us.

[Stomm]

People playing this kind of deal - buying a few copies and then putting them up at crazy prices is immoral, and I reserve my bile for them.

How on earth is it immoral? I knew that if I didn't pre-order a copy sharpish that I'd then end up being stuck with trying to find a copy on ebay sometime next year which would cost me an arm and a leg. I've also made the rather foolish decision to spend all of this week's food shopping money on buying two more copies, at least one of which I will sell on ebay complete, and I may strip out the figures from one (they are very, very nice...) and just sell the rest of the box if the first once sells for enough to cover my costs.

Obviously take into account that with the weight of this thing even basic postage with no insurance within the UK is around £10, add insurance, etc... and it becomes close to £20. Then of course there is ebay's lovely 10% cut, and of course paypal's cut as well. So if it sells for less than £80 including P&P, the seller is actually likely to loose money on the transaction...



I should also point out that the pre-order period was at the end of the month, and most people get paid at the end of the month, so pre-ordering a copy shouldn't have been too hard for someone that's working. Obviously this is why GW opened it up for pre-orders when they did...


Either way if you're not in the UK the best place to get an English copy at the moment is either the US or Oz online stores. It's going to cost an arm and a leg, but that's what you get for not pre-ordering when you had the chance. I suspect that even they will end up selling out by the end of the month at the latest I'd say, and I very much doubt that GW would ship any copies back to the UK, as they now know that the existing demand in the UK almost certainly exceeds the couple of hundred copies that they might be able to bring back from the US and Oz...

[CyberShadow]

I feel like I should step out of the middle of you guys and let you 'discuss' directly. 

It's not a special edition miniature, it's a whole game and I really don't get it why they can't have it avaiable all the time, since it's obious that when they announce it's limited many people would buy more than one box and then sell it on ebay.

I have no inside information at all, however the general opinion is that the cardboard sections are all outsourced to a third party. These are also the most important and expensive part. This would mean that, to make the game continuously available, GW would either have to pay high prices for several smaller runs of the game, or take up a large part of their stock room to store potentially thousands of copies that may not sell, or may take years to sell.

Personally, I think that this has been handled pretty well (although, I managed to get a copy, so that may bias things). If you believe the web store, it sold out a few days before official release (I dont, but that is another matter) and my local GW had 20 copies delievered Saturday morning and had one left at the end of the day. From a retail perspective, that is almost perfect!

How on earth is it immoral? I knew that if I didn't pre-order a copy sharpish that I'd then end up being stuck with trying to find a copy on ebay sometime next year which would cost me an arm and a leg.

Pre-ordering a copy is fine. I did it. But, are you saying that buying 6, 10 or more copies of a game which is limited in numbers, therefore leaving less for other people and artificially increasing demand, just to sell to people that couldnt get the game themselves because the scalpers got there first, and charge double or triple retail because of this, is moral?

If you saw the guy in front of you at GW wheel out a trolley with the last 10 copies of the game, and he handed you a card to his web store where they were labelled at double price, you would be OK with that?

People buy a copy to sell, or have a spare copy because someone doesnt want it, or they only wanted the minis. Fine. People who buy large numbers to take advantage of people who actually want the game to play and enjoy. Not so fine.

Just my opinion.

[Stomm]

Pre-ordering a copy is fine. I did it. But, are you saying that buying 6, 10 or more copies of a game which is limited in numbers, therefore leaving less for other people and artificially increasing demand, just to sell to people that couldnt get the game themselves because the scalpers got there first, and charge double or triple retail because of this, is moral?

My point is that morality has nothing to do with it. Sure it's bloody annoying, just as it was annoying that I had to source two 20th anniversary Optimus Prime's on ebay for IIRC about £120 each simply because they hadn't been released in the UK yet, and when they were they were only £30-40 each. It's just simple supply and demand, and most of the people that end up looking for stuff on ebay and end up paying over the odds for it are doing so because they can only get what they are looking for online. In this instance I guess it's largely people who missed the boat, parents and partners buying a copy as a present as they missed it at the store, or people who just didn't have the cash during the pre-release stage, were unaware of it or just got to their local store too late on Saturday. I was almost one of those people...


However what is 'immoral' when it comes to the 'actions of the market' is a government failing to act when essential goods or services are failing to be adequately provided by the market, or even being denied by the market. This is of course what happened during the Irish Potato famine, where grain from Ireland was still being exported even though those in the West were starving. I don't think that someone having to pay over the odds for a copy of Space Hulk is quite in the same league as that...

If you saw the guy in front of you at GW wheel out a trolley with the last 10 copies of the game, and he handed you a card to his web store where they were labelled at double price, you would be OK with that?

Well, I pre-ordered a copy, so it doesn't and didn't affect me. I'd be a bit annoyed if I was hoping that there would still be some in stock by the end of the month if I was waiting for my paycheque for example though. But that is what you get if you don't buy something with a limited release when it first comes out...

People buy a copy to sell, or have a spare copy because someone doesnt want it, or they only wanted the minis. Fine. People who buy large numbers to take advantage of people who actually want the game to play and enjoy. Not so fine.

Well, I'm not one of those, I'm just trying to make a bit of cash so that I can justify buying myself a copy in the first instance. I'm also hoping that I'll be able to make enough on selling the first copy to be able to justify keeping the SM's from the 2nd copy. If someone clicks on 'buy now' and pays with paypal, and my local store by some miracle still has some left, then I'll buy another copy as a mate of mine wants to paint the marines, so I'd then sell on just the rules and 'stealers from that...



As an aside I will just say again that if you're in Europe then your best bet if you can't find a copy locally, even through ebay. Is to buy a copy from the US web-store. Postage from the UK to Europe is almost £40 the damn thing weighs so much...

[dicnar]

I have no inside information at all, however the general opinion is that the cardboard sections are all outsourced to a third party. These are also the most important and expensive part. This would mean that, to make the game continuously available, GW would either have to pay high prices for several smaller runs of the game, or take up a large part of their stock room to store potentially thousands of copies that may not sell, or may take years to sell.
Personally, I think that this has been handled pretty well (although, I managed to get a copy, so that may bias things). If you believe the web store, it sold out a few days before official release (I dont, but that is another matter) and my local GW had 20 copies delievered Saturday morning and had one left at the end of the day. From a retail perspective, that is almost perfect!

I don't know anything about that but it's propably true about those cardboards. Still propably marketed this game would be perfect to for selling in all manner of shops just as a normal boardgame. Maby GW just badly calculated the numbers but the bottomline is that there are those who will be stuck without it. At least they could re-realase the miniatures, they already have the 20.000$ moulds and the costs of producing a single sprue is like 50 cents, really And I can't imagine a person playing Blood angles, Nids or space marines in general that wouldn't wan't those in their collection.

[Stomm]

I'd put money on if not the figures themselves, then certainly at least some of the details making their way onto the Blood Angels sprue when it eventually gets released. After the upcoming Space Wolves, then they are really the last 'big' chapter that haven't got something in plastic. Then of course they can do iron hands, white scars and so on... Anyway, almost veering off-topic there...