"Do free gifts put you off?" Topic

I have noticed a number of the hobby magazines have been offering free gifts attached to the front cover leading the whole publication to be encased in plastic. Personally I don't buy a magazine unless I can flick through first. Leaving aside the environmental issues, I don't like 28mm figures and the last thing I want to do is add something I don't want to the unpainted pile- How about you?

I subscribe to Wargames Illustrated so appreciate the "free" sprues. I won't use most of them.

I rarely buy a magazine these days but I am sometimes lured by the freebie.

I like to get Wargames Illustrated once in a while, but the "free" sprues usually stop me from buying since I cannot look through it to see if it is worth buying. WI will never get rich on their sales to me, so they should probably not be concerned with my feelings on this issue.

OMM lists the contents of issues, so if I don't subscribe that's what I base the purchase decision on. I'll confess I find the freebies a minor negative, in that they're rarely something I want and then sometimes pages of the magazine are expended on discussion and painting guides. But (1) I'm figuring they keep the price of the magazine down, because surely the manufacturers are paying the magazine to distribute free samples? And (2) I mostly buy a magazine for about two articles anyway. Four articles is an issue you remember.

I pick up WI pretty much every month at Barnes & Noble. The freebie us nice, something to fiddle with, though usually not anything I'm interested in- WWII especially.

I get a heads up on the content a month in advance here or on their own site, but buying it is usually a given. I just wish they'd put a bit of clear plastic under the sprue so it doesn't chew up the damned cover. Duh!

Often parts are bent or cracked from shipping. I don't do plastic people, but I did like the Cruel Seas sprue.

I don't mind at all. I tend to buy the magazines anyway and find they are a nice bonus. Sometimes there is something that interests me, Cruel Sea for example, sometimes not. If I don't need it or won't make use of it, there are plenty of other gamers who can make use of it, who don't get the magazine.

I like them.
If it is something I won't use there are others in the club that will appreciate them so I pass them on.
Occasionally I have been tempted to branch into another genre (like I need it) !?!
Love the Cruel Seas.

Can't recall the last time I purchased a magazine.

Last month I passed on the Cruel Seas sprue, but today I succumbed to the Roman Legionaries ….

Depends. I bought eight copies of one magazine issue to get a specific armoured unit.

I have subscriptions to the main three magazines.

I have no problems with the free sprues.
If they're not something I'm interested in I pass it along to one of the club members that is. This happens most of the time because I have decided that I'm done buying overpriced plastic figures with small fiddly parts that I have to assemble. I've gone strictly metal now. Like in "The good old days ".

Interesting-a good spread- thanks chaps…

Does anyone seriously say, "I was going to buy that magazine as it has an interesting article, but since they are going to give me some free stuff will not"

The free gifts don't put me off, but the fact I can't have a good look at the contents to decide whether there are any articles inside that make the magazine worth buying will do.
None of the plastic sprues are of interest to me, so I give them away to friends who can use them.

I have a subscription to Wargames Illustrated too, and I like the free sprues. If I have no use for one, I'm sure someone in my gaming group could use it.

Ah, first-world problems…

I also have a subscription to WI. I don't like assembling plastic figures. The sprues are just something else I have to store. I have started giving them away (I am having trouble finding takers.) I would rather not get them. If I did not subscribe and saw it at a store with a sprue in it, I would not even look at the cover and I would not buy it.

Another issue I have with them is that they are just random. If over time you could build up a unit, I would be interested in them. That would be much more useful. But these random one or two figures are pretty worthless to me.