"Elder Scrolls goes full GW/Forgeworld level price gouging" Topic

I'm a huge fan of The Elder Scrolls series. Been playing all the video games since Morrowind. Still play modded Skyrim a decade later.

I was always hoping that a miniature company would one day make a game based on TES. And lo and behold my wishes were answered by Modiphius Entertainment with The Elder Scrolls Call to Arms!

I enthusiastically bought their core rules box set, several of their miniature sets, and some of their terrain. I supplemented this with additional 3D printed terrain from Etsy as well as some 3D printed Draugr, skeletons, townsfolk and monsters.

All told I spent roughly $300 USD, but that amount of money got me the full, complete rulebook and supplements, a full set of tokens, a full deck of stat. cards, enough terrain to fill a 4 x 4 table, and nearly 80 miniatures: Imperials, Stormcloaks, adventurers, skeletons, Draugrs, as well as several large creatures and monsters.

I was looking forward to seeing what would come out with the 2nd wave for the game.

Now I was willing to pay $40 USD for an expansion or two of the six mini. sets like with their Stormcloaks and Imperials. I was also willing to pay $35 USD for their Bleakfalls Barrow set which was 8 miniatures. That's pricey but not too crazy.

But I wasn't willing to do that with ordinary rank and file monsters like Skeletons which is why I turned to Etsy for 3D printed stuff. Got way more for my money.

But just today I got a notice about Modiphius' upcoming release of the 2nd wave of miniatures and was genuinely blown back by the prices.

I was even more blown back by the "value bundles" they're offering. They released a new set of adversaries including Dwemers, spiders, and the Dark Brotherhood as well as a new character set. The cheapest set is for the three spiders, $37.00 USD The Dwemer sets are $50.00 USD and up for three to five miniatures in each set.

And the "value" bundles combine all or some of the 2nd wave stuff into single packages for one price.

Here is the 2nd wave "value" bundle for just the adversaries:

link

This bundle is $185.00 USD. For…14 miniatures and a deck of cards.

Here is the 2nd wave "value" bundle for the entire 2nd wave:

link

This bundle is $284.00 USD. For…27 minis. and a deck of cards.

$284.00 USD? That bundle price doesn't even include an abbreviated soft-cover starter version book of the RULES. You spend $284.00 USD and you can't even play the game. It's purely an expansion that has no function on its own. Now granted, Modiphius offers a free PDF of the core rules on its website. But still, to not have even a printed out leaflet rules summary in a bundle like that, I don't know.

I'm not bringing this to everyone's attention because I'm asking if it's "worth it" or not. I'm not passing judgement on a "free market" or who can and can't "afford" to pay that price. OBVIOUSLY there will always be people out there willing to spend that amount of money on something while others simply aren't or simply can't.

My question is: Where is the actual cost in that set? Where is there $284.00 USD of value in 27 miniatures and a deck of cards? Am I not understanding production costs?

Perhaps Modiphius, being a smaller mini. company simply has to charge more for their game and minis. because they don't have the ability to produce greater quantities and so they have to charge more per unit to make their money back.

But whatever the case may be – as much as I love this game and The Elder Scrolls franchise, they priced me out of this wave. It's just too much money for not enough stuff.

See, I got something different out of this. I was reading your post and when I saw the price, I thought $284 USD?

SUCKERS!

I would pay $1,000 USD for a Genuine The Elder Scrolls series expansion set.

I guess miniatures do fall under the category of, Luxury goods :/

I should never buy a Elder Scrolls miniatures game, I'd never finish painting all my alts…;)

Wonder if they aren't making as much as they thought. Licensing has to be expensive for the IP. How many times have we seen companies pay too much for IP and then charge too much for minis etc and then watch the company and game die away?

Where is the actual cost in that set? Where is there $284.00 USD USD of value in 27 miniatures and a deck of cards? Am I not understanding production costs?

The market price of a thing is a function of supply and demand.

It can be argued that theoretically material and production costs on their respective markets, which are their prices there, are asymptotically aproximated by the pricing mechanism in a fully transparent competitive market.
But your toys are not products in such a market.
For example, it is a licensed product for which there is no alternative manufacturer that could supply the market.
You are simply left with your greed for their shiny toys and their greed for your shiny money as the pricing mechanism.
And your desire without alternative is their higher price.

So just pay, you want it too, right?

Come on, you know, you want it, you need it, don't you?

I don't know if this is a factor or not, but currently ocean freight costs for a container have tripled from last year and are expected to rise dramatically over the next six months. What used to cost 4,000-5,000 US to ship is now 12,000 US, and has a four to six week delay. Plastic companies have also been producing masks instead of other goods so there are many seeing a three to six month wait to produce materials and stock in all industries. Based on this, I would expect to see more increases over the next year.

At least it helps me justify buying new stuff now, before that happens.

Are there any links with pictures of the miniatures?
Your links are box pictures with only 1 miniature.

Re the price, I guess it depends on if there are opponents or if you are a collector. If yes to either then it may be worth it.

@CeruLucifus,

Not sure what you mean by "1 miniature." In the links I provided, the fronts of the boxes show the actual contents and number of miniatures you get in the boxes.

@Captain Oblivious,

That would certainly make sense, it would definitely explain the prices for sure.

@smithsco,

Yeah, that's my concern too. It would really be a shame if Elder Scrolls Call to Arms has its life shortened because of it. I mean of course I have the rules and some of the minis. and stuff, so I can play the game at home for as long as I like.

But it would be a shame if Modiphius had to cut it short and stop supporting it.

Plus I don't think we'll see a 2nd Edition of the game any time soon. Modiphius is fairly small and new, a game like this one is pretty specialized. I would guess it would be at least a few years before they could actually produce any kind of 2nd Edition rules.

It's always sad when a company decides to make just money instead of just good games. I remember when the makers of Saga and Muskets & Tomahawks went that route, forcing players to rebuy the games out of sheer avarice. And for those who are lining up to say ‘don't buy it', I didn't. The first editions still work just fine.

@DukeWilliam,

Yes indeed, my feelings exactly.

I know a lot of gamers don't have a problem with it, but personally I cannot stand it when a company decides to make a 2nd Edition of a game when the 1st Edition is working perfectly fine, and they are clearly doing it to simply make more money. If a company is decent they will provide a free PDF version of the new rules so you can keep playing without having to buy a whole new book. That gesture tends to keep customers loyal and buying more minis. in my experience.

But too often, like with X-Wing, and as you mentioned Saga and M&T they purposely force you to buy new rules, as well as new supplements. It's so obnoxious and just such a slap to the customer. X-Wing was especially insidious, with their $50.00 USD "conversion kits" where if you wanted to use your old models from 1st Edition you had to spend $100.00 USD to upgrade the Rebels and Empire. The news stats for the ships should have been included in the new version of the damn game rules boxed set which is already $40.00 USD!!

If Modiphius ever comes out with a 2nd Edition and I'm forced to buy a new book, or worse am forced to buy all new sets of cards at $30 USD a pop, that will be the end of my journey with Elder Scrolls Call to Arms. I just don't tolerate that.

Even $300 USD would be more than I would invest in a new and unproven game! But that being said, I agree that those prices appear ridiculous on the face of them.

@javelin,

Yeah, I understand where you're coming from. For me, I don't mind spending that amount of money if the rules end up being only so-so. I play more for immersion and usually the rules end up getting tweaked one way or another so playability isn't an issue.

For me it was more about the amount of stuff you get for the tabletop. Being able to recreate Tamriel and having 80+ models plus loads of themed terrain makes that amount of money worth spending, like any other game.

That $284 USD price tag, my god I mean that bundle should at least come with the rulebook and one of the other faction starter sets so you could at least begin playing the game.

Hello friends.

I'm the Line Manager for Elder Scrolls at Modiphius.

There's a lot to unpack. The TL:DR version is that producing miniatures is not cheap, or even as cheap as it used to be, and we need to charge enough to cover costs and keep producing miniatures a viable activity. Our prices are not dissimilar to our peers, although we don't benchmark ourselves against them. Nobody at Modiphius is driving a sportscar off of miniatures sales.

The longer version is that we do have costs to cover – sculpting, prototyping casting and mould making, packaging, printing, rules dev, transport. Retailer and distributor discounts also have an effect on pricing. The whole reason your FLGS or that big internet mail order site can sell for lower than we do is because they demand a discount. And, of course, we also have a license fee to pay. All of these add cost, or reduce profit.

Raw materials have become scarcer in the last year and a bit – we do all our resin casting in-house at our facility in Cornwall so we buy in all our silicone and resin for the minis. So far we have been able to get supplies, and I joke about one of our ships getting attacked by a Kraken one day, but as others have pointed out, global shipping is in a sorry state right now.

However, even bearing all that in mind, are we gouging? I certainly don't believe that is so. Modiphius is run by gamers so we are acutely aware of how expensive miniatures can be. Chris is a non-stop gamer and I am a veteran gamer* We want our minis in peoples hands. We want you to be playing our games, but I need to be able to make this set, sell this set and think about the next and the next and the next. Prices are going up and what you might see as gouging is the unfortunate reality of how much it costs to make our toys these days.

Our miniatures are also, without wishing to toot our own horn, very high detail and very high quality. Yes, you can buy a box of 20 plastic figures for £20.00 GBP or thereabouts these days, but ours are not that nor do they aim to be. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with mass produced plastic, I certainly have plenty myself (I have just spent the weekend sticking 60 plastic Stargrave figures together) – but our figures are of a different type.

Ultimately there is a choice. As a business we have to make money to be sustainable. I can make cheaper toys, but you'll only get them for 6 months before the line becomes untenable and I go back to the lucrative but boring world of installing datacentres.

A couple of corrections as well

The bundle deals are just the first part of Chapter 2 – the first six set of 12 in total. We slow the release rate down after the initial sets, though, so you'll see more sets over the coming year.

The Bundles deals are also not supposed to be starter sets, hence no rules are included. They are expansions. We will be doing starter bundle deals in the near future. I will say no more and demur from linking as we are not a TMP advertiser so would not wish to be seen to be promoting the company.

Chapter 2 is also not a second edition – we just call our release waves "Chapters". The core rules are still good for Chapter One and Two.

*We hade a spreadsheet to see how many different wargames we had played and myself and our Dev co-ordinator got into a very childish competition. We were up into the 500's and were both wracking our brains for every obscure ruleset we could come up with – I'm pretty sure he made some titles up.

If I may say…I find it troubling and infuriating that a customer (me) who spends upwards of $250.00 USD on Modiphius products, and then as a consumer rightly wonders about and complains about the prices of their most recent products -

is responded to with a multi-paragraph, page-length reply from a Modiphius team member that looks like a legal defense in a court case, explaining and clarifying where I supposedly got it wrong about their products and pricing.

This is the SECOND time this has happened to me now with Modiphius, where a post that I created with critiques of Modiphius products was pounced on with a lengthy rebuttal. It leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.

May I ask how one little tiny customer out of all the customers you have, one single customer like me out of tens of thousands would be enough to compel you to write what amounts to a full-page defense of your pricing and product structures? What power do I have? Almost none! I'm ONE guy. I'm on a random miniatures page complaining about the pricing of a miniature product, and it scares you enough that you need to respond with a wall of text?

I plan on possibly, possibly buying more Elder Scrolls stuff from Modiphius, but not the stuff you just released.

Your prices are too high. Rather than spending an hour responding to one customer like you're defending yourself in court, why don't you figure out a way to make the prices on the latest bundles lower?

There is NOT a lot to "unpack here." Because I never asked you to unpack it. It's all right there already laid out. Prices too high for not enough stuff. Bam.

You're charging too much for your products. Pure and simple. And this response you gave just may have compelled me to never buy another single Modiphius miniature again. So congratulations, your wall of text probably lost you one customer's business, mine. If that was your goal you achieved it.

Unreal.

…and one final note. Whether you call your releases "waves", "chapters", or "episodes", or whatever else, it doesn't change the pricing problem. I have no idea why you would feel the need to correct me on terminology when it has no relevance to the issue I raised in the thread. Just thought I'd point that out.

Explain how correcting me calling the releases "waves" instead of "chapters" changes the $284.00 USD price for 27 miniatures and a deck of cards?

Ok COOL, I stand corrected. The latest "CHAPTER" has mini. bundles that are too expensive.

Yeppers.

If it sounds like I'm ticked off by this it's because I am.

It looks like Goober gave a calm, measured and friendly response. Your reaction seems a little dramatic.

It's curious that you think you have the right to state something about a company and they have no right to explain themselves.
Further, Goober's explanation is exactly what most gamers who are inquiring about a product would love to receive.

Incidentally, You said in your OP that you were priced out of the Elder Scrolls chapter market which means he didnt really lose you as a customer because of his post.

When I became line manager for Elder Scrolls I made a decision to be engaged with the community. As I mentioned, I'm also a gamer and I am sometimes frustrated by the detached way that some of the suppliers I purchased from treated their consumers.

My intent is to inform and give context. You have commented that you feel our prices are too high, I'm trying to explain why they are as they are. Last time you said our plastics were too complex, I tried to explain why they were in so many pieces.

You may be only one customer, but your post is in a public forum, so it reaches many eyes. My response is not only to give you some answer to your concerns, but also to give the same information to the people who read your comments.

I will continue to be engaged with the community, and explain our motivations when they are questioned.

The wave/chapter comment was a misunderstanding on my part. I was responding to comments that I thought suggested Chapter 2 was a second edition, but it looks like I conflated two separate things in my mind. It was late when I responded :-)

G

Baranovich

You asked a quesion and the company was good enough to come on to TMP and answer it in a very detailed, polite and informative manner…

You have previously complained about high prices from other companies such as Grand Manner:

TMP link

in a way that implied that other people were insane to buy from them when people pointed out they liked the product and felt it was worth the money.

GW here:

TMP link

If you can't afford to buy a product then don't – it is a want, not a need – this is a hobby after all, but companies are in this to make a living.

Mike

I was quite impressed that Goober had taken the time and trouble to respond, cordially and in detail, to concerns raised by a paying customer – a refreshing change from many others.

Baranovich's subsequent response does seem rather ungracious and dramatic by comparison. I hope it doesn't deter the guys at Modiphius from continuing to engage with the ‘community'

I will chime in on the side of Baranovich.

Goober, your game is too expensive. Other companies offer much more for much less; Mantic and Warlord are prime examples.

So, thank you for addressing his concerns in this forum. I wish you luck in your enterprises, but I do think you are setting this game up for failure by pricing it non-competitively with your competitors. Personally, I will vote with my dollars by not buying the game.

On a side note, I wanted to order the new Five Parsecs From Home from your site, but the shipping was nearly as much as the actual product, essentially doubling it in price! Modiphius may want to step back and review how they are positioning themselves in the market from a "total value proposition" approach.

Shipping is hugely problematic at the moment and it is an area we know is a point of pain both financially and in terms of time it is taking. A lot of shipping costs are outside of our control, but we are taking steps to set up a US distribution partner for direct orders, rather than shipping everything from the UK. We thought we had it sorted earlier this year, but for Reasons we were set back to square one. We SHOULD have it up and running Soon(TM).

Glad to hear it!

I don't think you can compare Mantic and Warlord in this case – licenses are HUGELY expensive and this is a pretty boutique style of game.

This is aimed at people who want to play in the Elder Scrolls universe…

Mike

Yeah, I know how licensing can be horrifically burdensome. But Elder Scrolls is unlike, say, Star Trek in that you can generally find proxy miniatures for elves, fighters, rangers, etc. Even the dwarven ruins can be proxied. This particular IP is more elastic than others, which means Modiphius should consider whether to lower the prices and plan on volume making up for the incremental loss in revenue.

" Modiphius should consider whether to lower the prices and plan on volume making up for the incremental loss in revenue."

What makes you think they haven't done that already?

What makes you think they haven't done that already?

Their response above…?

It's amazing that the handful of companies that operate properly are the ones getting complained about. As odd as it is, there is a premium associated with hobby companies that provide good product and service. As much as I thought that Fighting 15s had an asymmetrical grasp of markets, I do think they provide a top notch product and service.

Too many hobby companies are run like someone's personal piggy bank and eschew all professional standards. Thus, we really shouldn't be picking on well run companies merely because a couple of people don't want to pay the price.

The OP's questions reminds me of Aesop's fox that got the crow holding the cheese to start singing. The motivation appears to be to embarrass the company to lower their prices; a tactic which is self serving and, ultimately, has nothing to do with their prices. If they are selling them at the prices they want in the quantities they want, then they dont have to justify the price. And because so many here are free market fans, I'm sure they agree…

Au Pas +1

I'm sure they did consider the lower price/higher volume option and decided against it as a less profitable business model. Can't criticise them for that, it's a business, not a charity.

Can't criticise them for that, it's a business, not a charity.

Well, yes, we can criticize them for what may appear to be faulty reasoning. It's called "reasoned public debate".

I want to see Modiphius and the Elder Scrolls IP succeed, and I harbor no ill-will towards the company. But I have as much right to criticize them as you do to defend them.

In this case, I believe that the Elder Scrolls game will be a failure, and that saddens me. It's the same critique I leveled against Games Workshop back when they re-launched Specialist Games and then priced it into extinction. The result? No more Epic 40K, Warmaster, etc., and the few Specialist-type games remaining are enormously expensive.

I hope and pray that Modiphius proves me wrong!

Well, yes, we can criticize them for what may appear to be faulty reasoning. It's called "reasoned public debate".

What exactly do you mean by this "reasoned public debate"? You've put it in quotations and this makes me wonder about it as some philosophic definition?

You can criticize them but not without consequences. It's occurred to me on here and many other places that far too many have no true concept about what free speech is and believe it means they can say whatever they want without any ramifications.

I want to see Modiphius and the Elder Scrolls IP succeed, and I harbor no ill-will towards the company. But I have as much right to criticize them as you do to defend them.

Except that your criticisms seem grounded in personal desire and not in objective market observations. it's like when a cheapskate who wants a genuine Gucci bag, shakes their fist at the company and says that unless Gucci drops their prices, they will soon be out of business. Now if you admit you are blowing off steam because you personally don't want to spend the money; I suppose that's understandable.

However, if you are, without facts or research, pushing your comments as true market predictors, you might be entering the world of defamation which would expose you to liability if Modiphius chose to hold you accountable. Remember the slogan, "Freedom isnt Free"? Well, it also applies to speech.

In this case, I believe that the Elder Scrolls game will be a failure, and that saddens me. It's the same critique I leveled against Games Workshop back when they re-launched Specialist Games and then priced it into extinction. The result? No more Epic 40K, Warmaster, etc., and the few Specialist-type games remaining are enormously expensive.

Fantastic magic trick perhaps but again not grounded in facts or well analyzed comparables; just your own mood. And whereas you are free to express the voices of gaming doom which you may be hearing, they are not objective market analyses.

Au pas de Charge, I don't think you are any better placed to comment on the relative value of Modiphius's product that javelin88. As far as any risk of defamation, even raising this question is absurd. Stating one's opinion on the value of the product is completely legitimate and legal. I looked at Modiphius' website. Some nice stuff but I would agree with others in stating that there pricing is extreme. $175 USD for a lovely dragon. That is more niche than I can afford.

In this case, I believe that the Elder Scrolls game will be a failure, and that saddens me.

The line is doing quite well 18 months after launch. We are just about to launch into our second expansion wave and have several more in the pipeline. But, thank you for your concern.

Just my 2 cents. My wife and I are huge Elder Scrolls fans, so I bought the first wave releases. Played a few games and found it kinda fun, but there was too much errata for my tastes. I'm also not a fan of resin; I personally prefer plastics. So my interest has largely waned, and the cost of the new releases has definitely given me further pause. I hope the game is a success but I'm not buying more stuff for it.

@svsavory

That's wonderful but it still is neither market reason nor concern. I'll wager almost 7 billion people refuse to buy Gucci bags because they are too expensive. And yet, somehow, Gucci thrives.

Gucci! That's funny!

As odd as it is, there is a premium associated with hobby companies that provide good product and service. As much as I thought that Fighting 15s had an asymmetrical grasp of markets, I do think they provide a top notch product and service.

I'm chuffed to get an honorary mention in this thread, when all my responses about costing have been on another one. :-)

I will comment that if my "asymmetrical view" simply doesn't give much sympathy to customers going "Your product is out of my price range. Please reduce the price so I can afford it" then my only reply to them is the short but famous word of Anthony Clement McAuliffe. (BTW, I feel I offer quite reasonably priced products nowadays, even after a price rise.)

Properly licensed products cost a stack of money. When I cast AB Figures under licence, I had to pay a 40 per cent royalty on them based on the AUD price. It was worth doing only to ensure supply and rapid fulfilment, and to get a reputation for quick service for 95+ per cent of orders. And yet I still got customers asking me to do an order for AB Figures for the price of Old Glory figures ("otherwise they would take their custom to Old Glory" – and again, here we enter the world of McAuliffe as far as replies go…), and customers who thought that the higher price reflected a higher quality of product, not a higher cost of product. It was a higher quality product, but that's not why it cost so much, and it was still produced using exactly the same technology as for a lower quality or lower priced product, with all the associated manufacturing defects and compromises.

Modiphius almost certainly has similar high costs to consider for its licensed products. Given that, I don't think its pricing is outrageous. But there again, for my pastime, I buy model trains from Germany that are three times the price of the unreliable, badly built offerings from some major UK companies, so again my viewpoint may be skewed. :-)

@Au pas de Charge: There is no need to stoop to personal attacks.

@Au pas de Charge: There is no need to stoop to personal attacks

Wait what about your earlier statement?:

javelin98 said: Well, yes, we can criticize them for what may appear to be faulty reasoning. It's called "reasoned public debate".

Does this apply to everyone here equally? Or, is this a privilege only you possess?

Criticizing a company's practices isn't a personal attack. Please learn the difference.