Minor scoop here as I am not seeing it anywhere else yet...my local GW rep called me to inform me that the price of the Realm of Battle game board has gone from $175 (when I pre ordered) to $200 now to $275.00. I was told that they mis-underestimated the initial demand and costs and that they (GW) were going to eat alot of crow on this. Unfortunately while this an awesome product..they are going to lose alot of interest at that price point. People over BoLS where all ready griping about it at $200...this is literally going to kill this product..too bad as it was going to re-invent terrain building The idea of offering modular pieces over time was brilliant..they just wont get the sales to justify it, in my opinion. Yes, - yours truly is biting the bullet and keeping mine. I am going to eBay some some vintage D&D crap to pay for it, that's the only way I can swallow it.
9/20- Just wanted to update this entry. As suspected people on various forums are beyond outraged, Bell of Lost Souls in particular is an all out total hate fest, with not 1 single person in two threads and a hundred fifty comments saying they are buying one. Funny thing is the biggest gripe seems to be that the table is unfinished? which is totally odd as when the hell has GW ever sold anything finished? People seem to be afraid they will dump the money and it will look like shit. Personally that never even entered into my head, I have most of the new GW terrain that's come out in the last year and half...it was very easy to do and came out excellent.
I spoke to Eric at our shop the other day and he said he had very few cancellations from pre orders after people where informed of the price increase. Several people had ordered "2" and had dropped it to one, and one person cancelled outright.. not sure what to make out the lack of freakout up here, sure people are pissed off...but they still want it. I don't think this product is dead in the water yet. I believe once it starts showing up in Shops and at Tourneys expertly done more and more people are going to want one. Is it stupid expensive yeah, but so is an iPhone.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Realms of Battle or (Money)
Posted by JPL at 4:33 PM
Labels: Commentary
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9 comments:
Wow. I'll buy damn near anything from them, and that tipped it over into the point where I highly doubt I'll be picking it up. Glad I didn't put in a preorder yet.
very nice! hahahahaha
vintage dnd crap you say? what kind of crap would tha be? i'd like to know....
**rant mode on**
Like Billy said, Wow.
GW has dropped the ball a couple times for me in the past, but this takes the cake. 1st it was listed at $175, then $200, then $275? Why the price increase GW?!? Did they see a lot of pre-orders for this come in, and thought "hmm, lets see how much we can sucker out of these guys?"
Sure there is a lot of packaging and such, but $275 for the plastic modular boards? That seems really steep considering after getting their molds together this is gonna cost them...what, like a couple dollars at most to manufacture.
If its the packaging thats driving this up so high, why not drop the packaging, Put the whole thing in a big plastic bag like some of their other "Battle field accessories".
Really disapointed in this one, while I wasn't personally entertaining the idea of picking one of these up, now I am certian I won't....ever.
Also a word of caution to those thinging about this.
The plastic that is being used to mold these (I'm guessing its the same plastic that is used in their gaming and modular hills) is very very very succeptable (sp?) to warpage due to heat. Made the mistake of leaving one of the hills in the car and now it looks like some sort of twisty warped ramp thing...totally unusable, and unfixable.
GW not sure what you were thinking, but I would love to hear the explanation on this one. You let us all down with the "spray guns" now you are doing it again.
**rant mode off**
Sorry for the wall of text,
OK read a little more into this. Apparently this was being molded by a 3rd party, as its a "nitch" item and GW didn't think it would sell well (as well as minis for example). And therefor didn't want to invest in molds large enough to create these "in house". While I can agree and understand that point. Its completely unacceptable to raise the price like they did. Granted this product hasn't hit the shelves yet, but still...
I can't wait til some little kid's table warps/melts like ice cream in the sun. The Mom is gonna try to bring it back to GW and they will laugh in her face. Oh wait never mind, no sane parent will spend 275 on this...
Ugh, I really need to stop ranting. Sorry John for fouling up your blog.
yup its basically $50 a 2x2 section
which double what one of the big modular hills costs...is it twice the manufacturing cost. Highly doubtful. I'm dubious on a couple things. At the GT they did a presentation talking how the table was "the new era" of GW gaming it wasnt a "Splash Item" and that eventually all the tables at the GT's would be these tables. He also stated the price point was low enough everyone would want one.
Given that the 3rd party/ not popular item rationale doesn't add up.
IMO, they underestimated the costs of packaging and shipping in our current economic enviroment. And in order meet GW's company policy markups...they had to raise the price.
They are going screw a great idea up with this one, as @ $275 it becomes the niche /splash item they didn't want it to be.
I guess we will see.
I was totally stoked at $175. I was ok with $200. But, $275 starts to sound like a Forge World order being put together to me. I'm wondering if the price hike isn't due to a lack of pre orders and having to make up the difference in quantity sold with the price of what does sell?
Nah- the pre orders where very high @ $175 I was SHOCKED that our little store (Oak Park with 6 tables)
did 37 pre-orders...The truth is somewhere between the GW explanation and my guess at an explanation but now doubts $275.00 bites.
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