As long as people continue paying such prices for minis, the problem will never be solved.
Welcome to a capalist democracy. People want GW minis, and so they buy them. You imply that you would prefer to ignore their choice. If so, China needs you!
Also, I hate WYSIWYG and the slow power and numbers creep of their games along with the attitude of the (admitedly few) GW store emplyees that I met.
Uh. Lets see.
1) GW staff are very friendly and helpful. Some of the best store employees since they actually give a damn about what they are selling.
2) Slow powers and numbers creep? Er no. That would be Rifts. GW actually do this little thing called balancing. So i don't agree with that argument. After all, X-Plosion was full of minis far more powerful than those in earlier boosters.
And i cannot see what you are getting at with WYSIWYG. GW even allows you to take totally scratchbuilt minis to tournaments - you not notice the guy with a hover - tank equiped army? Compare this to wizkids who have a very rigid system of not changing anything much if you want to go to a tournie. GW allows you to use "this counts as..." and "this is actually..." when dealing with conversions.
Well, GW is almost single handedly responsible for the embarassing cost of miniatures these days.
...whereas D&D costs £20 per book, a hardback novel is £16 and a computer game is £45, a squad of minis is £15. Seems to be about par for the course to me. You can easily spend more money of a selection of RPG books from the D20 or WoD lines than on a 1000pt army.
Combine this with the fact that GW keeps jacking up their prices and you see the problem.
Somebody needs to go and find out what "inflation" is. And before you get all excited about the current shagged situation of the US economy, remember that the British one is going swimmingly. And the prices are really bad due to the fact that the pound is strong against the dollar. Good for people in britain buying imports, bad for people in america buying british exports.
All in all, I think they're bad for the hobby because of their ridiculous prices
Ever wonder why GW can afford to make such high quality minitures and books? The Codexes are higher quality than D&D books at times. The quality comes at a price you know. If you want to buy crappy VOID minitures at lower cost, thats your choice. And interestingly enough, GW has annually increasing sales and profits. Wonder why.
People will pay a lot for a GW model and so other mini makers charge like prices.
Most of them do not do nearly as well. I do not see many Ral Partha or VOID minitures on the shelves. Wizkids are in a different type of market, the collectable one, and so do not really count. GW minitures are things you spend hours of pain and love over, painting, modelling, converting. Wizkids ones are not. Ever wonder why GW gives so much shelf space to paints and modelling tools?
And on the whole internet retailing thing... Hm. I dunno. It is not like other companies would not do the same if they thought it would improve their profits. I'm not that bothered by it, since most if not all of said retailers are in the US. Maybe it is a tactic to increase their US profit margins.
Whew. Sorry about the harsh tone, but there it is.