The LAF Games Workshop Discussion Thread

[FramFramson]

The interpretation is a bit primitive.

Variance is the real villain. If you have lots of items being listed, then things tend to sort themselves out and the price will come to one that's broadly agreed on. But if something is old enough that it's not listed very often, then there's much less information for both buyers and sellers use and prices will fluctuate more dramatically. When you get big swings like that, then the sellers with less experience will focus on the high prices and the buyers with less experience will focus on low ones.

For example, lets take two sales. Let's say in the past month, OOP "Vampire Lord Michael Bublé" sold ten times, for $7, $5, $16, $30, $3, $10, $22, $11, $9, and $13, with unsold auctions at $40, $45, and $65. Most people would see that and rightly judge that a fair price for the figure is about $13 or so. That's a simpler example - in stats you need to control for the extreme outliers, of course this is much easier to do the larger your sample size is (I say simple, because if you control for extremes in this case and discount the $3 and the $30, you still get a price of about $12).

But if you have only two auctions, one for $30 and another for $3, and an unsold auction for $45 then it's harder to know what's right. Was the $3 just a bad seller who didn't know the value of their goods? Was the $30 a really desperate or wealthy fool? Maybe the fellow charging $45 doesn't look so silly now.

And if something is rare enough that it's not listed for sale very often, the reality is, a section of the public will drive prices up. Even if not everyone agrees with that price, if the transactions taking place are dominated by the deep pocketed, then that becomes the going rate by default.

The solution to keep prices down and reduce variance is to get more sales going, which will happen naturally if prices rise to the point where players sitting on old lead start listing their junk in the hopes of cashing in. The real problem there is that many older collectors are not big fans of ebay listings, so sales are very fragmented, which increases the appearance of variance because even though in the aggregate there's a fair number of sales going on, people can't find them or see them all.

[Tactalvanic]

If , and on the rare occasions I have actually sold via ebay, I have tended to check as many existing past and present auctions I could find to better understand the pricing level for the item.

That way I can ascertain, as well as possible the price level to look at and the demand. If there is no value indicated I won't bother at all.

However, the main issue I have now is that entire post, and all others today I have read (thankfully not out  loud) in the charming tones of Brian Blessed.

Which really does change the effect of it all.

Spent 17 pounds on a halfling yesterday, and it is not even new. Even 2nd hand GW demands high prices (for certain models) 

I assume thats intended as a centre piece for your army?

Still, wow thats a lot for a hobbit.

[Gunbird]

I assume thats intended as a centre piece for your army?

Hardly, she's there for comedy value of my Human warband in Mordheim.

[Tactalvanic]

Thats alright then, Its not to much for a good laugh.

Although I have the picture of a her talking like Brian Blessed at the moment, and not sure if that's extra funny or just a bit too odd. 

[Vanvlak]

Thats alright then, Its not to much for a good laugh.

Although I have the picture of a her talking like Brian Blessed at the moment, and not sure if that's extra funny or just a bit too odd. 


[/quote
Especially when a member of the band, named Gordon and thought to be dead, turns out to be alive.

[Vermis]

Most people would see that and rightly judge that a fair price for the figure is about $13 or so.

But that was part of the point: most people wouldn't see that. The cheaper stuff might hang around a bit if it's being bid on, but for both auctions and buy it now (the latter of which seems to be the more common method, last I saw) once it's sold, it's orf. I'd hazard a guess that most ebay browsers don't bother to ferret them out again after that.

In stats you might need to control for the extreme outliers, but when you go looking for old lead on ebay, extreme outliers might be most of what you see.

[FramFramson]

But that was part of the point: most people wouldn't see that. The cheaper stuff might hang around a bit if it's being bid on, but for both auctions and buy it now (the latter of which seems to be the more common method, last I saw) once it's sold, it's orf. I'd hazard a guess that most ebay browsers don't bother to ferret them out again after that.

In stats you might need to control for the extreme outliers, but when you go looking for old lead on ebay, extreme outliers might be most of what you see.

Right, which is exactly what I meant by lead auctions being high-variance. 

[nic-e]

New boneripper .

(Sorry for the link, not my pic)

[beefcake]

Too big but I quite like the look of that.

[YPU]

no wonder he needs that little helper. The urinal presents unique problems.

Indeed, boneripper is in fact not well equipped to rip any bone.

[Tactalvanic]

Even with his little helper on board, he does not look to be very handy.

appreciate the symmetry of giving him four arms, but no claws/hands at all?

Maybe there are other options that might include the odd body part with fingers available, or perhaps he is very dexterous with his feet/foot?

Still a another pin head ?

[Streetline]

Rat Ogres have always been somewhat pin headed....

[Tactalvanic]

Rat Ogres have always been somewhat pin headed....

Good Point.

But they have not been upscaled to this size yet have they? Do you think they will be - so that you get one a box and it costs say 55GBP?

or three for 170? (+5 for providing the button to buy three at once)

Is the size/scale increase primarily so that he matches the size of the other army centre piece characters being released?

"My overpriced centre piece is bigger than yours"

"Thats Ok my measuring stick is a baseball bat"

[Streetline]

No - I think the existing plastics will stay and this special character is purely to replace the older Thanquol/Boneripper with a new "End of Times" size plastic model.  Not to say they won't release something else bigger and pin headed for the Skaven of course.

[Ajsalium]

Latest rumours....

In 9^th edition, there will only be six factions.

And GW is going to follow the Warmahordes model in every posible way.