Prices recently went up on Imperial Assault stuff, too. My guess is that with 2.0 on the horizon, they just delayed the increase for X-wing to coincide with edition change.

6 hours ago, Astech said:

Better miniatures.
Better painting.
Significantly more cards in each pack, with more thought going into each card, and larger card sizes for better aesthetics on the table. 

They've increased the prices before. In Australia MSRP went from $24 to $26 maybe 18 months ago, which corresponds well with Inflation. After 6 years you'e looking at a bare minimum of 20% inflation alone (based on standard 3% PA). Once you factor in the aspects above you're looking at a mild discount based on previous packs. As Yoda would say:

Judge me by my size, do you?

This points at something. I look at the MSRP in USD. Currency exchange rates also matter greatly.

Personally, one thing I'm seeing is the number of pilots/tokens per set going up. $15 smalls usually only granted 4 pilots per box. The new sets coming out look like 6 pilots for the X-Wing, for example. I don't know if the 6 pilot TIE/LN will be staying steady or increasing to 8 pilots (three generics, 5 named?), but it does look like the non-ship content is increasing.

Might also be worth mentioning that from what we can see from the t-65 unboxing, there is a considerable increase in card count (6 pilots vs 4) and cardboard (3 cardboard sheets vs 2). Paper and cardboard maybe pennies on the dollar, but they’re trying to give us more with Disney price hikes.

7 hours ago, Icelom said:

We will never really know because FFG won't tell us any of that.

Yeah, I mean basically this. The prices are going up and it would be really reckless for them to reveal the inner details of their costing model. So, it is what it is.

6 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

I realise this

Slightly tongue in cheek though. There's no way production costs justify these prices but it's a luxury market so we're basically on the end of a chain. Heck, I thought they were expensive before.

Soon after the release of the Millennium Falcon ($30, which was considered expensive by many players) Christian T. Petersen wrote an article about the manufacturing process and explained how there wasn't much profit built in, but being such a well-known ship justified it as a way to draw players into the game. As I recall, core sets are similiarly low-profit products in order to get new players in.

If those profits were slim a few years ago, they probably got worse over time. For all of X-Wing's popularity, I think FFG had gotten stuck selling a lot of products at a much lower profit margin than their accountants would advise.

21 minutes ago, DagobahDave said:

Soon after the release of the Millennium Falcon ($30, which was considered expensive by many players) Christian T. Petersen wrote an article about the manufacturing process and explained how there wasn't much profit built in, but being such a well-known ship justified it as a way to draw players into the game. As I recall, core sets are similiarly low-profit products in order to get new players in.

If those profits were slim a few years ago, they probably got worse over time. For all of X-Wing's popularity, I think FFG had gotten stuck selling a lot of products at a much lower profit margin than their accountants would advise.

I find it very hard to believe that they are barely making any money on the core set, and yet instead of releasing a conversion kit with a damage deck and a sheet of cardboard with manuever templates, which would cost them a tiny fraction of the entire core set (with all the FFG ™ Super Expensive American ™ Cardboard ™ Sheets ™ Made Of Diamonds ™ three ship models, rules etc etc.) turning a higher profit while costing the players less, they require everyone to buy a core set.

conspiracy theory is they know veteran players won't be buying them so they're jacking up the price

35 minutes ago, eMeM said:

I find it very hard to believe that they are barely making any money on the core set, and yet instead of releasing a conversion kit with a damage deck and a sheet of cardboard with manuever templates, which would cost them a tiny fraction of the entire core set (with all the FFG ™ Super Expensive American ™ Cardboard ™ Sheets ™ Made Of Diamonds ™ three ship models, rules etc etc.) turning a higher profit while costing the players less, they require everyone to buy a core set.

They're obviously still making a profit on core sets (bear in mind FFG is a business, not a charity) but the margins are lower. The ships alone will retail at $20 each. The core set is $40 with $60 worth of ships+dice, templates, rulebook, cards, and cardboard.

They want an affordable entry point to encourage players to pick up the game. Maybe not a "loss leader" as such, but a "low profit leader" certainly.

1 hour ago, DagobahDave said:

Soon after the release of the Millennium Falcon ($30, which was considered expensive by many players) Christian T. Petersen wrote an article about the manufacturing process and explained how there wasn't much profit built in, but being such a well-known ship justified it as a way to draw players into the game. As I recall, core sets are similiarly low-profit products in order to get new players in.

Ok, that's fair enough, I did not know that.

I can well imagine though, that the cost of production scales up significantly for such a large and detailed piece. But I will admit there's no factual basis to my imaginings

3 minutes ago, Sekac said:

They're obviously still making a profit on core sets (bear in mind FFG is a business, not a charity) but the margins are lower. The ships alone will retail at $20 each. The core set is $40 with $60 worth of ships+dice, templates, rulebook, cards, and cardboard.

They want an affordable entry point to encourage players to pick up the game. Maybe not a "loss leader" as such, but a "low profit leader" certainly.

They are not a charity yet they choose to make less money instead of more money, just to screw players?

Obviously they would still sell core sets to new players, but they could also sell damage decks and templates to old players for like 8-10USD and make not-a-marginal profit because of near zero production cost compared to a core set.

36 minutes ago, eMeM said:

They are not a charity yet they choose to make less money instead of more money, just to screw players?

Nope.

6 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Nope.

Agreed. They are making bank with 2.0.

The easy answer to this is just buy what you need, not everything. Treat v2 like a normal mini game and I gurantee you’ll spend less. It’s this “I have to buy everything” mentality that makes it more expensive. Now that I don’t “have” to buy crap I don’t want for stuff I do, my purchases will be smaller but far more satisfying. I literally have scum ships still in plastic because I wanted cards in the box not the ships. Self control is your friend and I know personally I learned in v1 too, I don’t need everything and will not buy everything.

Prices are higher due to:

- Inflation

- Less impetus to buy all the ships (due to not needing to buy them to be competitive)

- Make up for lost income due to people leaving the game

- Because they can due to me still wanting to buy all the ships...

33 minutes ago, LordFajubi said:

The easy answer to this is just buy what you need, not everything. Treat v2 like a normal mini game and I gurantee you’ll spend less. It’s this “I have to buy everything” mentality that makes it more expensive. Now that I don’t “have” to buy crap I don’t want for stuff I do, my purchases will be smaller but far more satisfying. I literally have scum ships still in plastic because I wanted cards in the box not the ships. Self control is your friend and I know personally I learned in v1 too, I don’t need everything and will not buy everything.

I realized that I bought into Scum mainly for the upgrades. I don't even like flying big ships. I am tempted to make Empire and Rebel Alliance my primary factions because I can buy the ships cheap and then just get a conversion kit (Empire definitely since that is what I played before). But, Resistance sounds like it will be more my style (aces) so I may end up going Empire, Resistance, First Order. Of course, I want to see the Wave 2 announcement before making that decision for certain, but that is the way I am leaning.

3 minutes ago, LifeGain said:

I realized that I bought into Scum mainly for the upgrades. I don't even like flying big ships. I am tempted to make Empire and Rebel Alliance my primary factions because I can buy the ships cheap and then just get a conversion kit (Empire definitely since that is what I played before). But, Resistance sounds like it will be more my style (aces) so I may end up going Empire, Resistance, First Order. Of course, I want to see the Wave 2 announcement before making that decision for certain, but that is the way I am leaning.

Empire all the way baby. I will have some rebels too got to have 2 sides ya know ? Empire is the only thing I will consider day 1 though. In this new regime I can afford to wait for everything else.

4 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

New sculpts.

Flappy GUNBOATS? We need to demand folding wings until the day my beautiful GUNBOATS can flap along beside mother Lambda

1 hour ago, eMeM said:

Agreed. They are will probably making make bank with 2.0 based on my gut feeling and not anything concrete.

There, fixed it for you.

You might be right, 2.0 might be a big success for them. To which I say, "so?" Is a company making a successful game that we enjoy a problem? A LOT of people seem to think so.

perhaps the production is based in china, and currently there are severe consequences in this. there is a commercial war now.

30 minutes ago, CapitanGuinea said:

perhaps the production is based in china, and currently there are severe consequences in this. there is a commercial war now.

Trade wars are good and easy to win.

7 hours ago, Duskwalker said:

new better models + better paint scheme + growing production costs in China + lower sails expectations because they know most player will just go with conversion kits or leave outright = stuff gets more pricey

Add here "free app" for 2.0

There's also more (and bigger) cards included

If you contrast 1.0 expacs to 2.0, you'll see the the 2.0 is an actual box as opposite to just a plastic sealed blister

Ie it's a lot fatter

Guess it's a little cheap that the quick build cards fatten it up...but so did the reference cards in 1.0

It's because choosing a single faction and buying only that faction will become possible. The extra cost offsets the reduced number of expansions purchased per person.

12 hours ago, Icelom said:

Inflation... (well the increase is a bit more than inflation but it plays a factor)

Also most likely a little more complex manufacturing for all the new articulated ship models. We also don't know that 2.0 came off the back of a license renegotiation with Disney (would make sense), Disney may have looked at FFG's profits and sales and demanded a larger cut. We will never really know because FFG won't tell us any of that.

We don't know if the price increase profit is going to FFG or if its just a higher MSRP to give retailers more profit and incentive to push X-wing.

But the most logical explanation is there sales department and marketing department determined that people will be willing to pay that much.... at the end of the day they are a business and are trying to turn a profit. Consumers have a choice to purchase or not, you cant get mad at them for charging as much as people will willingly pay, best you can hope is that money goes into more development and not senior administrator bonuses.

Don't forget that plastics are mad from petroleum and as that price increases so does the price of plastic. Oh, our price never drops with the cost of oil but it does go up. The models, the blister packaging and maybe some of the inks as well are all made from petroleum.

9 hours ago, eMeM said:

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Inflation accounts for extra $1.3. The rest is FFG finding out they can raise the prive and we will buy the ships anyway.

I ran the numbers before seeing your response. And _yup_!