4 minutes ago, Larky Bobble said:

The last I heard Asmodee was taken over by a private equity group. Capitalism is presently based on short term profit maximisation to satisfy shareholders (otherwise the directors could be jailed). You can call it greed if you want, but it´ s the nature of investment, really.

As someone who pulled out at 2.0, I don` t care about the prices (but I do love a good debate, especially about board games and S.Wars) but I thought the increased card count was the justification for the price rises across the board (bar Boba). Snazzy packing makes it easier to tolerate.

However, from a debating point of view.-- You made claims that you are now avoiding and have no means of substanciating. You have resorted to an insulting tone against someone who appears far better informed than yourself. Poor form, the onus is on you to substantiate or withdraw your claim.

And finally... The two forms of thought in economics are based not on names. In reality they are Profit Maximisation or Utility (satisafaction) Maximisation. What is best? Everything else descends from that. (Marx was in favour of Private Limited Companies, for example, whereas Keynes was not). But if you think FFG/Asmodee/Equity groups are in it for the Utility maximisation... errmm... good luck!

You may be able to guess the second subject I teach after mathematics...

My claim was we don't know enough to be able to conclude that the price increases are "crazy", as was presented by the OP in the title. One of the possible factors for a price increase is that the US might currently be in a "trade war" (thanks to the current political bull going on) with the country in which the game components are manufactured, which got dragged out of my post as if it was the heart of it and spun into the mess you read through coming to the conclusions you have about my position. Investor/share holder expectations is another factor (commonly lumped under the "Greedy Company" umbrella by those who only look at the cost on their end and don't care to understand the whole picture to any degree). Variances in infrastructure expenses and transportation costs also might be a factor. Other overhead increases as well would need to be taken into account... This isn't just limited to FFG/Asmodee, every company that is involved in the process of getting the raw materials for the product, to making the base product, to painting them, to delivering the product to market tacks on the costs of operation into the cost of their end product, which accumulates down the line...

17 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

Or is it just me?

no - I am finding second edition expensive too. FFG needs to be careful, part of the appeal was that the ships were inexpensive. I used to pick up a ship without thinking - now I am thinking before I spend and not buying everything.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Tournament players only want the best ace/pilot, and only need 3-4 ships in any event to play.

Even the most passing familiarity with the tournament scene would tell you that's not true. Tournament players buy tons of ships. Tournament players are the sort of players who will buy multiples of a ship they're not even going to use just to get multiples of one card so that they can stay competitive without waiting between waves.

Who was it that was buying three large base JM5ks to run triple torp Deadeye Contracted Scouts? It sure as **** wasn't casual players.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

They have also killed the swarm, another good way to get players to buy multiple models.

Uh, no. No they haven't. They just tried to bring it back.

It's not a tier 1 competitive list at the moment, but Howlferno is a very capable list. It could very well be tier 1 if just one or two nerfs to the cost of Punishers and TrajSim happen, it could even creep into tier 1.

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Lastly, with 7 factions, players are now likely to buy LESS THAN ONE of any given ship, because they don't want to collect all factions.

This is actually a very good point.

Assuming generic upgrade cards do indeed find their way into all factions promptly, the need to buy outside 'your' faction will indeed decline.

Though I'd say that really only targets casual players. Tournament players are still likely to at least dip into a new faction, if nothing else to play their strongest lists for themselves to understand how they tick, or potentially even adopt.

I could indeed seeing more factions as a reason for FFG to up the cost of individual expansions, though. This is absolutely more product being spread more thinly over the same market size.

Though I suppose it's also possible FFG might expect an influx of new players who only get in to the game because they love Clone Wars stuff?

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

And by promising not to cross factions, FFG has assured themselves of no card-based extra sales of models.

Have they promised that?

They removed some legacy 1e cross faction ships, sure. But I think only because they felt those ships made more sense in only one faction, and because they wanted to shore up faction identity a little.

One of the best ships in the game at the moment is cross faction in Rebels and Scum, the HWK. Z-95s are still cross faction. Y-Wings are still cross faction. ARCs are about to become cross faction. All they really did was remove a Scum ship from the Imperials that was only Imperial in the first place because it was released before Scum was a faction.

23 minutes ago, Larky Bobble said:

As someone who pulled out at 2.0, I don` t care about the prices (but I do love a good debate, especially about board games and S.Wars) but I thought the increased card count was the justification for the price rises across the board (bar Boba). Snazzy packing makes it easier to tolerate.

I think it does to a point.

I do see what people are saying though. The $15 expansions increasing to $20 can kinda be excused by saying the new models are a bit more detailed (YMMV of course, but personally the new Y-Wings and X-Wings vs the old are night and day) and they all come with a lot more card content now. But $5 for more cardboard kinda seems fair (again, YMMV) whereas $10 for more card, even if its more more card than the small bases, feels like a bit of a stretch.

ARCs in the UK will now cost as much as 1e large base ships (£20 at least). Even with the extra content, there's also quite obviously an element of 'we want more money' across the board.

In the UK at least, it's hardly the only thing. The price of everything is increasing at a staggering rate, so I'm kinda desensitised at this point. Of course X-Wing ships are more expensive, just like I can't afford to upgrade my RAM or buy a top class phone without a contract anymore. Consumerism is getting harder and harder to be part of while only becoming more damaging, but that's probably not an argument for a plastic spaceships board.

There is also the aspect of return of investment.

It is an investment to design/build/manufacture/distribute/sell a ship. If you anticipate selling more units, you can afford a lower price. If you expect fewer sales, you have to increase prices to be profitable.

I believe this applies to X-Wing ship sizes. Small ships will sell more units, since you can field larger quantities on a game. Conversely, large ships will sell less.

I would probably think that the investment for a larger ship is also larger. Bigger molds, more material, larger storage spaces, etc.

Short story, it does make sense to charge more for 1) something you expect to sell less and 2) something that costs more to manufacture.

Having said that, the above is great and all, but ultimately FFG will charge what they think will maximize profits, hence my earlier comment of why sell it at $20 if you guys will pay $30 for it?

The 2nd Ed. ARC-170 is probably just a victim of product rationalization --> all 2nd Ed. medium ships now cost $30 period.

14 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Go back to heckling your "students", I'm not one of them. Without more information the knee jerk "**** GREEDY BUSINESSES" holds no water and is nothing more than the out and out ignorant whining of someone who thinks they should just be given what they want. As someone who supposedly gets paid to teach economics that should be obvious to you. What goes into the price of things on the consumer end is allot more than just "Me want to make big money, me charge big"...

I recommend you are a bit more humble in the future. You clearly pretended to know about the subject, threw the comment about trade wars, and then made it obvious you had no clue of what you were talking about. @hawk32 is not "heckling" you like a student or trying to corner you, I believe he/she just wanted to understand if you had any evidence behind your claims. The next time you feel that you bit more than you could chew, the best is to be open minded and learn instead of responding with nonsense like the above quoted post. I can't believe some users even "liked" your post.

The price seems fine?

The prices were static for over 5 years. It's a small increase across the board, and now based on ship size.

Also, they made it easier to skip ships/factions. All seems like a plus. *shrug*

1 minute ago, player3137305 said:

I recommend you are a bit more humble in the future. You clearly pretended to know about the subject, threw the comment about trade wars, and then made it obvious you had no clue of what you were talking about. @hawk32 is not "heckling" you like a student or trying to corner you, I believe he/she just wanted to understand if you had any evidence behind your claims. The next time you feel that you bit more than you could chew, the best is to be open minded and learn instead of responding with nonsense like the above quoted post. I can't believe some users even "liked" your post.

Read my post at the top of this page please...

I mean, am I disappointed FFG decided to raise prices? Sure.

But prices often go up, and they had an excuse with the edition change-over.

I'm more disappointed in the TIE Striker and Scum Z-95 for $20, though. The $30 dollar ARC has 4 unique pilots, two different generics, and a fairly sizable looking stack of upgrade cards. The new Z-95 and Striker kits have no new pilots and few upgrade cards. None of the upgrades are new or harder-to-find ones, like Afterburners, but at least the Striker comes with some Device tokens (but still old devices. Are there new ones?). Are there no new missiles or devices or illicits in the Clone Wars or Mining Guild TIE expansions to stick in here, too?

That's comparing the small-to-medium-base expansions, so maybe not the best comparison. But the Aethersprite has 4 unique pilots, and what looks like 6 upgrades--only one of which is a familiar, old one. The 2e TIE, x1, X-Wing, Y-Wing, and Fang fighter expansions all seem like they came with more in them than the 1e versions of these expansions came with.

I guess what I'm saying is that the $30 ARC looks like it has as much "stuff" as many of the old large-base ship expansions had in it, even if the plastic volume is lower. More stuff than in the older $20 1e Arc Expansions. However, some of the new $20 small-base ships seem like they don't have anything more than the old $15 ones. Going up in price is a lot worse when you don't even get any extra paper, like upgrade cards.

4 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Scum Z-95

In this singular instance, the overall cost of acquisition has actually dropped, though only if you're after a single model. If you're planning on getting multiple Z-95's it has increased a fair bit.

This thread is a dumpster fire, hot ****.

Unless you've seen FFG's books, nobody even knows what their profit margin is now or was before.

All I know is “plastic crack” is addictive at any price.

Yes the ARC is expensive in real $, but it's also expensive in game. As long as players can use the Rebel dial you effectively get an ARC-170 plus roughly half of a conversion for it. While you can't have 2 of the same generics you'll still have the ability to play multiple ones from a single Republic ARC.

10 hours ago, player3137305 said:

I recommend you are a bit more humble in the future. You clearly pretended to know about the subject, threw the comment about trade wars, and then made it obvious you had no clue of what you were talking about. @hawk32 is not "heckling" you like a student or trying to corner you, I believe he/she just wanted to understand if you had any evidence behind your claims. The next time you feel that you bit more than you could chew, the best is to be open minded and learn instead of responding with nonsense like the above quoted post. I can't believe some users even "liked" your post.

Hiemfire just says toxic crap sometimes. Wouldnt worry too much about it. Those of you outside the U.S. may be unaware, but in the States the rise of faschist conservatism has pretty much been a deathblow to civility. People in general (but particularly young republicans) just go straight to personal attacks and idiotic off topic garbage. pretty sad state really

11 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

My claim was we don't know enough to be able to conclude that the price increases are "crazy", as was presented by the OP in the title. One of the possible factors for a price increase is that the US might currently be in a "trade war" (thanks to the current political bull going on) with the country in which the game components are manufactured, which got dragged out of my post as if it was the heart of it and spun into the mess you read through coming to the conclusions you have about my position. Investor/share holder expectations is another factor (commonly lumped under the "Greedy Company" umbrella by those who only look at the cost on their end and don't care to understand the whole picture to any degree). Variances in infrastructure expenses and transportation costs also might be a factor. Other overhead increases as well would need to be taken into account... This isn't just limited to FFG/Asmodee, every company that is involved in the process of getting the raw materials for the product, to making the base product, to painting them, to delivering the product to market tacks on the costs of operation into the cost of their end product, which accumulates down the line...

yeah I run a small manufacturing business and use ABS plastics and all sorts of stuff. Nobodies costs went up that bad outside alluminum and some other metals. in fact the resins I use have seen no change whatsoever

I fully understand inflation, tariffs, etc, but theres virtually no reason why a product of this type should see a $10 increase on a $20 pricetag. thats a 50% increase

seperately, while some of the models are more detailed or better painted, others are worse.

The new Firesprays have bleed-out in the black cockpit that should have been quality controlled out, the new Fangs look like the used a gloss primer for the color, and the new Y-wings look like micromachines. the X-wings look great, as does Landos Falcon, but Im not seeing this jump in quality... in fact quite the opposite

1 minute ago, Vontoothskie said:

yeah I run a small manufacturing business and use ABS plastics and all sorts of stuff. Nobodies costs went up that bad outside alluminum and some other metals. in fact the resins I use have seen no change whatsoever

I fully understand inflation, tariffs, etc, but theres virtually no reason why a product of this type should see a $10 increase on a $20 pricetag. thats a 50% increase

seperately, while some of the models are more detailed or better painted, others are worse.

The new Firesprays have bleed-out in the black cockpit that should have been quality controlled out, the new Fangs look like the used a gloss primer for the color, and the new Y-wings look like micromachines. the X-wings look great, as does Landos Falcon, but Im not seeing this jump in quality... in fact quite the opposite

Nice, you have access to some info I don't have a realistic way to get ahold of. Do you happen to know if FFG has the mini's manufactured state side or over seas? If over seas, where?

Just now, Hiemfire said:

Nice, you have access to some info I don't have a realistic way to get ahold of. Do you happen to know if FFG has the mini's manufactured state side or over seas? If over seas, where?

i assume theyre made in China because they go "on the boat" there, but who knows. maybe thats just where they package them. realistically all the chemical materials come from Asia, Africa, or Russia so it makes sense

1 minute ago, Vontoothskie said:

i assume theyre made in China because they go "on the boat" there, but who knows. maybe thats just where they package them. realistically all the chemical materials come from Asia, Africa, or Russia so it makes sense

Have we suddenly stopped our economic pissing match with China or have they just not retaliated? Not saying it is set in stone (haven't from the start, it was just assumed that I thought so. I blame the usual failings of text not carrying tone) but that might be a contributing factor along with a bit of "future proofing" of a sort on the part of FFG a couple of the other posters, I'm forgetting names at the moment, have suggested.

On 11/25/2018 at 9:38 PM, Animewarsdude said:

Costs did increase small ships were $15 with larger ones like the ARC-170/Starviper were $20 with the base price for small ships now jumping to $20 and large ships went from $30 to $40 now. People are finding exception to the ARC-170's price increase because it jumped up $10 with the only perceived difference being a new paint job and a medium/large ship peg being glued to the model rather than 1.0's small peg.

I think the Arc being a small base in 1.0 and then moving up is part of the sticker shock for $30. To be fair to FFG, you do get $30 worth of content, and the ship is different now than it’s 1.0 counterpart. I know I keep having to remind myself it’s not a small base anymore, and I’m trying to picture it as more of like purchasing a U-wing or firespray, then purchasing say an X-wing or Y-wing.

Also I wouldn’t be surprised if FFG didn’t simply just change the paint pallet for the model, and the Republic arcs are going to ship on a small base pegs with a conversion peg.

On 11/26/2018 at 2:20 AM, Vontoothskie said:

Or is it just me?

It's crazy.

1.0 minis currently selling for about half of that here (Europe).

13 hours ago, freakyg3 said:

no - I am finding second edition expensive too. FFG needs to be careful, part of the appeal was that the ships were inexpensive. I used to pick up a ship without thinking - now I am thinking before I spend and not buying everything.

I believe that is part of the point they are trying to make, that you don’t need everything, nor should you buy everything unless you want it. I don’t think there catering on the majority of players buying all 7 factions, like most people did with all 3 back in 1st edition. This does hurt for trying to collect everything though for more casual games.

If you were competitive in 1.0, it’s a welcome change(no more randomly sinking money into starvipers), if not it’s an annoyance. I can understand both viewpoints.

Im hoping there will not be too much need to have to re-buy the re-releases of rebels/imperials. Then most of the cost will be on the new factions, though I an not overly keen on them at the moment.

Yeah I've been playing 6 years and the prices seems to be creeping higher than inflation

7 hours ago, Hiemfire said:

Have we suddenly stopped our economic pissing match with China or have they just not retaliated? Not saying it is set in stone (haven't from the start, it was just assumed that I thought so. I blame the usual failings of text not carrying tone) but that might be a contributing factor along with a bit of "future proofing" of a sort on the part of FFG a couple of the other posters, I'm forgetting names at the moment, have suggested.

The current pricing changes are just based on the new bases and packaging along with the acquisition by Asmodee most likely and changing their distribution structure as well as Disney probably wanting a little bit more royalties. If the Trade War starts affecting prices expect much bigger increases on ALL products but that will likely be for stuff shipping next year and they'll probably have to eat it for a wave or two.

8 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

Hiemfire just says toxic crap sometimes. Wouldnt worry too much about it. Those of you outside the U.S. may be unaware, but in the States the rise of faschist conservatism has pretty much been a deathblow to civility. People in general (but particularly young republicans) just go straight to personal attacks and idiotic off topic garbage. pretty sad state really

A LONG time ago I realised that the quickest way to start an argument was to discuss politics, religion or red-haired women. Leave politics out of a discussion on an effing game. Move it to the Off Topic forum, please.

8 hours ago, Vontoothskie said:

Hiemfire just says toxic crap sometimes. Wouldnt worry too much about it. Those of you outside the U.S. may be unaware, but in the States the rise of faschist conservatism has pretty much been a deathblow to civility. People in general (but particularly young republicans) just go straight to personal attacks and idiotic off topic garbage. pretty sad state really

Fascist conservatism is a bit of an oxymoron...

Got to be honest, what I do see is a lack of civility across the board. It’s just easier to poke at the “not me” people for it. The American left has been just as savage, if not more so.

Let’s keep this out of a game forum, k? The world doesn’t need to hear about our woes and how Americans refuse to be civil anymore once politics are involved.