I just came here to see who runs their own business

LOL! That would mean a thread stays on topic.

I am CIO/COO of a consulting business (so, I literally "run" someone else's company) and we interact with clients from a variety of industries - what I've come to realize in the last 20 years is that unless you can see someone's P&L statement, you really have zero understanding of what it cost them to run their business versus what they actually make in Net Income (ie, true profit), and the "armchair businessmen" that love to offer insights into how the business should be run usually translates to little more than a cry of "well, if you could reduce the cost, it would make me a lot happier!"

FFG make a niche game that can - as others have pointed out - be played casually or at a competitive level and are doing a great job of balancing that, but they are not a non-profit or not-for-profit, they are a company that are in business to make money (for stockholders, owners, employees, whoever) and all the while demand determines supply and price, they should price according to what the market will bear.

As someone else pointed out, an additional issue here is the love of the license - many people have an almost unreasonable love for all things Star Wars, and are less interested in the business model behind what it takes for them to get that, than they are in satisfying their desires/whims.

As yet another poster mentioned, this is cheaper than any of my kids sporting endeavors, cheaper than child-care, cheaper than me playing golf, a lot cheaper than when I was single and went out clubbing and bar-hopping. I'm very ok with how FFG price their products. If you are playing casually, you can buy casually. If you are playing competitively, then accept that there is a cost associated with it.

I run my own business as a secondary job. I charge £20 an hour. A lot if folk are happy to pay that without question. I occasionally get someone who grumbles. I point out by the time I deduct income tax, class 2 national insurance contributions, insurance and overheads (commercial vehicle, Ppe, diesel, tools, sundries etc), I probably take home just over a tenner an hour. They generally shut up after I point this out. I've only ever lost out on one job I quoted for. No loss. I'm so busy, I'm thinking of hiring my first employee.

Ffg charge fair prices for well designed and put together toys. I'm happy to pay what they ask to keep churning out expansions.

No loss. I'm so busy, I'm thinking of hiring my first employee.

Congratulations, and my deepest condolences, simultaneously.

As yet another poster mentioned, this is cheaper than any of my kids sporting endeavors, cheaper than child-care, cheaper than me playing golf, a lot cheaper than when I was single and went out clubbing and bar-hopping. I'm very ok with how FFG price their products. If you are playing casually, you can buy casually. If you are playing competitively, then accept that there is a cost associated with it.

Anyone who thinks flying plastic spaceships is expensive should try flying airplanes.

And they don't even have turbolasers.

I think the production costs of a Boba fett figure would be about 50 cents or something? They could easily include him in the Twin Shadows box but instead you have to pay 10 bucks for him separately.

I think FFG have some pretty horrible sales models for cash milking. I don't think x-wing is as bad as some.

Also i thin their tournament support and obvious car to make good products garners a lot of good will, but they only garner good will becasue it's a good business model.

I'd go further to say that they could have included the entire Twin Shadows expansion in the core box, as an expansion it's pretty flimsy. Sure, Hoth looks like it will be worth it, but Twin shadows looks like something they carved out of the original game just so they could have an expansion to sell. However, as bad as it seems, the absolute cash milking machine to beat all machines is Armada.

the absolute cash milking machine to beat all machines is Armada.

How in the world do you figure that?

When you figure the price per list, and price per wave... So far Armada is pretty much on par with X-Wing.

I am CIO/COO of a consulting business (so, I literally "run" someone else's company) and we interact with clients from a variety of industries - what I've come to realize in the last 20 years is that unless you can see someone's P&L statement, you really have zero understanding of what it cost them to run their business versus what they actually make in Net Income (ie, true profit), and the "armchair businessmen" that love to offer insights into how the business should be run usually translates to little more than a cry of "well, if you could reduce the cost, it would make me a lot happier!"

FFG make a niche game that can - as others have pointed out - be played casually or at a competitive level and are doing a great job of balancing that, but they are not a non-profit or not-for-profit, they are a company that are in business to make money (for stockholders, owners, employees, whoever) and all the while demand determines supply and price, they should price according to what the market will bear.

As someone else pointed out, an additional issue here is the love of the license - many people have an almost unreasonable love for all things Star Wars, and are less interested in the business model behind what it takes for them to get that, than they are in satisfying their desires/whims.

As yet another poster mentioned, this is cheaper than any of my kids sporting endeavors, cheaper than child-care, cheaper than me playing golf, a lot cheaper than when I was single and went out clubbing and bar-hopping. I'm very ok with how FFG price their products. If you are playing casually, you can buy casually. If you are playing competitively, then accept that there is a cost associated with it.

I remember child care costs. <shudder> That will put you right into the poor-house. It is no coincidence that immediately after saying good-bye to child care we got our first brand-new car and within a few years, a much bigger house. It was like there was a third person with a job living at the house.

Say what you want about Dubya, but I want his child tax credit back. That was $1500 right out of my pocket.

They need to do things that can give them enough profit to keep going but also do what they can to keep their customers happy.

Who gets to decide what enough profit is? That's the problem with these kinds of statements... Exactly how much profit is enough? Who do you think should get to decide that?

I find it interesting how often people feel they have a right to decide how much money someone else should make.

That is a good question and one that society as a whole as trouble with. This is why people want to say "TAX THE RICH!!!!" because it seems they happen to be making some kind of profit above what others are making. But is it fair that if I pay 30% in taxes on my income that someone who makes 100x more than I make should be charged at 70%? One may say the person making so much more doesn't actually pay the 70% because they 'hide' income or use creative accounting to lower their rates but is it fair that they would be expected to pay 70% vs. my 30% if we were using the same accounting and management?

I am in a production industry which DOES cry over spilled milk. We may not get to set our sale prices directly but we can do things to affect our production. The odd little thing here is that why we can produce X for Y inputs there are things we can do to push X higher by increasing Y. A big part of me gets upset by businesses that think it's ok to spend $0.999999 to make an additional $1. Maybe that doesn't apply to FFG but there are a lot of other things out there it does apply to.

That is a good question and one that society as a whole as trouble with.

That's why I believe that as long as the company is doing nothing unethical, or illegal, they should be allowed to make as much profit as they can manage.

The thing is, a company with any sort of foresight is going to price it's product for long term profits and not to strip-mine the market and get out. Because they're going to make more money in the long run by having consumers who feel they're getting a good value when they by products.

I'm pretty sure FFG is trying to provide its customers with exactly what they ask for (except the Gunboat, darn it!) at the MSRP that correlates with demand and expected expendable income or customer. They surely are not gauging customers and they are not holding a gun to anyone's head. A game company is by deffinition selling luxury items, not commodities.

I also do not run my own business, unless you count randomly selling some things on eBay or Amazon.

That depends entirely on how many they make. One? Significantly more than they sell them for. The fixed cost of development and moulds is quite high, the variable unit cost is quite low.

In a grossly simplified example, $200 to develop the model and make the mould, and $0.50 in plastic and labour to make a Boba. Make one, and it costs $200.50 per model. Make two, and it costs $100.25 per model.

Make 100 and they cost $2.50 each.

Make 1,000? $0.70.

Make 10,000 and it costs $0.52 per model.

As I said, this is a grossly simplified example, there are other fixed and variable costs to consider. But the more they make, the less significant the fixed costs become.

The other issue like say the complaints about not including Boba in the Twin Shadows box, is people miss out on the opportunity cost involved.

Sure, but that's just looking at the production costs, granted as you stated in an over-simplified way. You still have all those annoying employees everywhere that want to get paid. In that case, the more you sell, the more people you typically need to keep moving that product.

And to Bojanglez comment about seeing the P&L statement... hell, I see our P&L statement, and even our own board can't agree if we're making a good enough return or not. It all depends on optics, and what each person thinks is a good result. My pay cheque doesn't bounce every two weeks, so I'm happy.

That is a good question and one that society as a whole as trouble with.

That's why I believe that as long as the company is doing nothing unethical, or illegal, they should be allowed to make as much profit as they can manage.

The thing is, a company with any sort of foresight is going to price it's product for long term profits and not to strip-mine the market and get out. Because they're going to make more money in the long run by having consumers who feel they're getting a good value when they by products.

Even here you can run into issues. Look at the drug companies that charge a wide range of prices for the same thing depending on who is buying. It can get even worse when you start digging into things further when they create a much more expensive, but only slightly better, drug to do something that products already do; in gaming we might call this power creep because once the new and improved product is out they may just stop selling the old stuff which doesn't make them as much money or in our case isn't so useful. They may also be guilty of working for that "long term customer" by continually working on treatments when an actual cure may be possible; the problem is that building the cure may not be any more any more expensive than the next treatment but you sell a cure once while you can continue to see treatments to the same customer time and time again. Perhaps this is unethical to society but to shareholder it makes perfect sense to keep profits rolling in.

Big pharma is also repeately caught forming price fixing cartels. The laws aren't rules to them, the fines are simply a risk to be weighed against the benefit of lawbreaking. No risk to the individual because companies are apparently people and the executives that form these cartels aren't themselves prosecuted.

Can I just say my comment about IA was not saying that i felt it was unfair, I understand the skirmish thing and I think the box expansion is a good price, and because I don't skirmish (but like to have all the figures) It's only about £50 to get everything every 6 months or so? And i get that if i didn't want the figures i don't need them to play the game.

What does irk me a tad is if i buy boba to use in the main campaign I can't do his agenda mission without a tile from twin shadows. With all of the figures tied together like that it does feel a bit off, I think the agenda cards / side missions / rewards should come in the expansion box and just have the model have the skirmish related stuff in. I don't know i think there's something a little better they could do and there is a little of the milking cash cow going on, but it's like i said I am choosing to pay it, and i am fully aware I am choosing to pay it.

anyway the fact that the IA model is worse that x-wing one is the point i was trying to make because people are acting like this new core set is a sign FFG are turning in to the devil. I think it's a really good idea to do this core set.

Can I just say my comment about IA was not saying that i felt it was unfair, I understand the skirmish thing and I think the box expansion is a good price, and because I don't skirmish (but like to have all the figures) It's only about £50 to get everything every 6 months or so? And i get that if i didn't want the figures i don't need them to play the game.

What does irk me a tad is if i buy boba to use in the main campaign I can't do his agenda mission without a tile from twin shadows. With all of the figures tied together like that it does feel a bit off, I think the agenda cards / side missions / rewards should come in the expansion box and just have the model have the skirmish related stuff in. I don't know i think there's something a little better they could do and there is a little of the milking cash cow going on, but it's like i said I am choosing to pay it, and i am fully aware I am choosing to pay it.

anyway the fact that the IA model is worse that x-wing one is the point i was trying to make because people are acting like this new core set is a sign FFG are turning in to the devil. I think it's a really good idea to do this core set.

Hi -

Yes, of course you can, and I'm sorry if my quoting your post cast you in a poor light. I appreciate your input.

Big pharma is also repeately caught forming price fixing cartels. The laws aren't rules to them, the fines are simply a risk to be weighed against the benefit of lawbreaking. No risk to the individual because companies are apparently people and the executives that form these cartels aren't themselves prosecuted.

True. If the fine isn't anywhere near the $$$ made, well, you know what happens. Corporate structures actually don't protect individuals from criminal prosecution, but someone has to choose to go after them, and these corps have massive $$$ to pay lawyers to delay and obfuscate.

What big pharma needs to do is make a drug that treats gaming addictions.

Maybe.

And to Bojanglez comment about seeing the P&L statement... hell, I see our P&L statement, and even our own board can't agree if we're making a good enough return or not. It all depends on optics, and what each person thinks is a good result. My pay cheque doesn't bounce every two weeks, so I'm happy.

Can I just say my comment about IA was not saying that i felt it was unfair, I understand the skirmish thing and I think the box expansion is a good price, and because I don't skirmish (but like to have all the figures) It's only about £50 to get everything every 6 months or so? And i get that if i didn't want the figures i don't need them to play the game.

What does irk me a tad is if i buy boba to use in the main campaign I can't do his agenda mission without a tile from twin shadows. With all of the figures tied together like that it does feel a bit off, I think the agenda cards / side missions / rewards should come in the expansion box and just have the model have the skirmish related stuff in. I don't know i think there's something a little better they could do and there is a little of the milking cash cow going on, but it's like i said I am choosing to pay it, and i am fully aware I am choosing to pay it.

anyway the fact that the IA model is worse that x-wing one is the point i was trying to make because people are acting like this new core set is a sign FFG are turning in to the devil. I think it's a really good idea to do this core set.