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People calling out others like myself on the other side of the argument as trolls, are simply trying to shut down the discussion.

You're arguing semantics here. Theft =\= Copyright infringement. It's the same ball park. Big whoop. You're still causing damage to the industry, and thus the entire hobby, by committing a crime.

Like I said previously, if you want to do it, then fine. But at least be grown up enough to realise that yes, you are committing a crime, one that does harm the hobby.

 Ouze wrote:
Sure, but now we're arguing about the degree of harm. All I'm saying is that it's a non-zero value, since a sale took place.

In general I'm against recasting mainly because I don't think it's good for the hobby in general. But in the case of OOP you need to play a game I do start to take the view of not minding recasting for personal use, for the same reason that I think it's better for the hobby if you can actually play a game if the models aren't readily available.

But then I don't really view wargaming as collecting in the sense some people do, unless you plan on keeping stuff nib. Being able to actually play a game wins out in my mind to someone feeling bad because you recast a model they bought for 10 times what it's worth from an ebay scalper. Though to me in that case I wouldn't be selling recasts and would hope anyone who is would at very least be clear they aren't originals.

 General Kroll wrote:
... one that does harm the hobby.

That is where things get a little grey, actually.

Everything I've read about copyright infringement has been fairly inconclusive about whether or not piracy actually hurts anyone. Those whose products are being pirated will usually say that it costs them sales. But there are several arguments against this... for one, there's the fact that some undefinable number of those pirated copies wouldn't have been purchased even if no pirated version was available - essentially, there is no way to prove whether any given act of piracy is actually a lost sale, or if it is a sale that wouldn't have happened anyway.

For miniatures games, there's also the argument that a game benefits from having more players, as the larger a community grows, the more it continues to grow. So someone showing up with an army is arguably beneficial to the game regardless of whether or not they bought their army from 'legitimate' sources or not.


Note that I'm not presenting these as arguments that recasting is ok - it's against the law, and so by that definition isn't 'ok'. But even experts in IP law are divided as to whether or not anyone is actually hurt by it.

I have no problems with recasts of OOP models, on the contrary. I'd love to get that King of Khand on Chariot, for me recast is less of a problem than people selling OOP stuff on Ebay for hundreds of €, when they paid only 10€ for them. When GW decided not so sell those anymore and there's still a demand for it, somebody has to take over. I thought that's how market economy is supposed to work.

It's something else with recasts of existing models. But even then... when FW is too expensive for me and I can get a cheap version of undoubtedly worse quality... then so be it.

 Hivefleet Oblivion wrote:
I'm entertained by the para-legal arguments to justify this First World sense of entitlement.

(snip)

But if you're holding up recasting as a morally beneficial act, you're endorsing something that is both immoral - and illegal. Theft.

I'm not holding up recasting as any sort of morally beneficial act, simply pointing out that you're working on a really, really debunked idea - clearly established for over 30 years now - and it's hard to have a serious conversation when one group of parties is intentionally missstating reality because they want to frame it a certain way.

 General Kroll wrote:
You're arguing semantics here. Theft =\= Copyright infringement. It's the same ball park.

It's not semantics. They are 2 completely different crimes with 2 completely different laws and 2 completely different sets of penalties covering them. Heart surgery and lung surgery aren't the same, even though they're both surgeries in the same general area. Jousting and Polo aren't the same just because they are both on horses. I mean, this isn't a really difficult concept.

I realize now that I'm sort of the donkey-cave for continuing to engage in this discussion, so my mistake.

 insaniak wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
... one that does harm the hobby.

That is where things get a little grey, actually.

Everything I've read about copyright infringement has been fairly inconclusive about whether or not piracy actually hurts anyone. Those whose products are being pirated will usually say that it costs them sales. But there are several arguments against this... for one, there's the fact that some undefinable number of those pirated copies wouldn't have been purchased even if no pirated version was available - essentially, there is no way to prove whether any given act of piracy is actually a lost sale, or if it is a sale that wouldn't have happened anyway.

For miniatures games, there's also the argument that a game benefits from having more players, as the larger a community grows, the more it continues to grow. So someone showing up with an army is arguably beneficial to the game regardless of whether or not they bought their army from 'legitimate' sources or not.


Note that I'm not presenting these as arguments that recasting is ok - it's against the law, and so by that definition isn't 'ok'. But even experts in IP law are divided as to whether or not anyone is actually hurt by it.

Those are actually good arguments well presented. I don't doubt that more players is better for the hobby, but were I a model making company, or sculpting artist, I would definitely see it as harmful for someone to be stealing my intellectual property. Harm doesn't have to be financial, though I would argue that piracy certainly does harm companies financially. Recasts also harm the second hand market, why should someone who's paid full value for a genuine product have their own collection devalued by people making knock offs? If you've built up a collection of rare oop minis. Let's say for example you have the original space marine, the one that was the basis for the anniversary model last week, there is an intrinsic harm being done when someone recasts ten dozen of them and starts flogging them on eBay.

So while it could be argues that there are some benefits to the piracy, the harms far out weigh them for me.

On a side note, I've always wondered what kind of crap these Russian and Chinese recasters use to make their resin knock offs, if they are happy to make knock offs, they aren't going to be too bothered about any harmful chemicals that might find their ways into the lungs of their customers.

 General Kroll wrote:
Let's say for example you have the original space marine, the one that was the basis for the anniversary model last week, there is an intrinsic harm being done when someone recasts ten dozen of them and starts flogging them on eBay.

Only if someone with an authentic model tries to sell it and gets less for it than they would have had those knock-offs not existed.

You would need to spend considerable time studying sales trends in order to prove that this actually occurs. I mean, it makes sense that it would at least in some cases (your particular example wasn't a great one, as that model never sold for that much to begin with... It's not particularly uncommon on the second hand market, particularly since GW were giving it away in the early 2000s...), but 'it makes sense' isn't proof... it's still just a guess.



Of course, that's ignoring the fact that copyright law was never intended to protect the second-hand market anyway...

 General Kroll wrote:
On a side note, I've always wondered what kind of crap these Russian and Chinese recasters use to make their resin knock offs, if they are happy to make knock offs, they aren't going to be too bothered about any harmful chemicals that might find their ways into the lungs of their customers.

I don't think any version of resin is made of, like, vitamins. You should be wearing a dust mask when sanding or grinding any resin product regardless of origin. Or any fine particulate matter, really.

 Ouze wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
On a side note, I've always wondered what kind of crap these Russian and Chinese recasters use to make their resin knock offs, if they are happy to make knock offs, they aren't going to be too bothered about any harmful chemicals that might find their ways into the lungs of their customers.

I don't think any version of resin is made of, like, vitamins. You should be wearing a dust mask when sanding or grinding any resin product regardless of origin. Or any fine particulate matter, really.

Yep, it's not the resin that's toxic, it's the fact that it's bad for you to inhale any small particulates, whether they be wood dust, resin dust or even acrylic paint dust from airbrushing. The only things that are safe to inhale aaaall the way down into your lungs would be air and steam. Luckily most particles will never reach your lungs because they're too big.

Hey, you guys remember the first time you basecoated models with an airbrush without a mask on, and then you blew your nose and had black/whatever color snot?

Pepperidge Farm remembers. And so do I, which is why I only made that mistake once.

 insaniak wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
... one that does harm the hobby.

That is where things get a little grey, actually.

Everything I've read about copyright infringement has been fairly inconclusive about whether or not piracy actually hurts anyone. Those whose products are being pirated will usually say that it costs them sales. But there are several arguments against this... for one, there's the fact that some undefinable number of those pirated copies wouldn't have been purchased even if no pirated version was available - essentially, there is no way to prove whether any given act of piracy is actually a lost sale, or if it is a sale that wouldn't have happened anyway.

For miniatures games, there's also the argument that a game benefits from having more players, as the larger a community grows, the more it continues to grow. So someone showing up with an army is arguably beneficial to the game regardless of whether or not they bought their army from 'legitimate' sources or not.


Note that I'm not presenting these as arguments that recasting is ok - it's against the law, and so by that definition isn't 'ok'. But even experts in IP law are divided as to whether or not anyone is actually hurt by it.

The difference between online piracy, and why you can't make the same argument is that online piracy is easy and essentially free. Buying recasts you're actively paying money still, but it's not going to the original creator.

I think a legitimate argument for online piracy is that pirates are often the people who buy the most, so even though they're pirating for free they're also putting a lot of money back in to the industry to help it grow.

While I guess the same is somewhat true for wargaming, I'm sure a lot of the people buying recasts are people who spend a lot of money in general, I think the best outcome is that the money spent on wargaming stays within wargaming, not siphoned off on to recasting leeches who aren't contributing.

I personally really dislike the "stick it to GW" argument for buying recasts. Just buy a different fething game from a different fething company. It doesn't work in the entertainment industry to show movie/game makers they are bad by pirating their stuff and it's not going to show GW either. It just makes the people buying recasts come across as self entitled.

I'm curious, those who are okay with recasting, how would you feel if you were a CCG player and your opponent turned up with photocopied cards?

 Ouze wrote:
Hey, you guys remember the first time you basecoated models with an airbrush without a mask on, and then you blew your nose and had black/whatever color snot?

Pepperidge Farm remembers. And so do I, which is why I only made that mistake once.

Never happened to me. Not even once. Not even before I set up my ventilation system. It's always made me curious when people say they have coloured snot after spraying, I just picture them hovering over the models and snorting the fumes. When I lived in India for a while I got black coloured snot, and it's partly why I'm not going to live there again in the future


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:

 General Kroll wrote:
On a side note, I've always wondered what kind of crap these Russian and Chinese recasters use to make their resin knock offs, if they are happy to make knock offs, they aren't going to be too bothered about any harmful chemicals that might find their ways into the lungs of their customers.

I don't think any version of resin is made of, like, vitamins. You should be wearing a dust mask when sanding or grinding any resin product regardless of origin. Or any fine particulate matter, really.

The concern with some Chinese resin is even after you get them, they smell bad. They're obviously giving off some fumes if you can still smell them after they've been shipped a few thousand miles across an ocean to get to you. How toxic are those fumes? Fethed if I know.

I'm sure whatever they use is cheaper than what FW uses.

I don't personally have a big problem with recasting figures that are OOP and in short supply, especially bits. I have piles of RT Space Marines with no metal backpacks, they've just been lost by previous owners. I don't see them for sale second hand, GW doesn't sell old bits and I need about 50 or so. So I'll be recasting the very few I have one day.

But the recasting of very OOP figures and very rare stuff, some citadel miniatures number in the dozens in existence, is not what most recasting is. Most recasting seems to be for currently available figures just to offer a cheaper alternative to the current manufacturer, that just isn't right, they are easily available and recasting directly cuts into primary sales.

If someone sells recasts of OOP figures they should be up front about it. I would buy recasts of rare miniatures because I'm a painter and modeller, not collector and investor. Some people want the genuine article and they shouldn't be tricked into paying collectors prices for something that's not genuine.

I will be upfront and say I don't think collecting wargaming miniatures for the sake of investment is a terribly great idea. Not unless you solely trade in NIB stuff.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I will be upfront and say I don't think collecting wargaming miniatures for the sake of investment is a terribly great idea. Not unless you solely trade in NIB stuff.

Not at this point in time. But who knows how valuable some of the rarer stuff will get in 50-60 years.

Maybe in 50-60 years time, but as I said, if you care about that you're probably going to be focused on stuff that's NIB rather than wargaming pieces.

EDIT: Not just because NIB is worth more in general to collectors, but also because a lot of stuff is going to be hard to tell if it's been recast so NIB is going to be the only way to have any hope of seeing that it's genuine.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I'm curious, those who are okay with recasting, how would you feel if you were a CCG player and your opponent turned up with photocopied cards?

That they are the worst person ever and should die in a fire.

Or not. Never ran into that, but would not care for it.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I'm curious, those who are okay with recasting, how would you feel if you were a CCG player and your opponent turned up with photocopied cards?

How dare you have fun the way I am without investing the same amount of money and devaluing my own investment!

/joke

I'm truly not fussed - when I play in GW stores as part of the conditions of using their service, it's stock or converted with plasticard/resin/plywood at the upper limit, quite apart from the fact it's simply rude to do otherwise. Outside, if you know *how* to play and can keep track of what you're doing and you want to play drunk hammer (absinthe shot glasses for centurions), use cardboard cutouts, lego or soldiers made of compressed cheese cast from freezer imprints for your dudesmen, i'll play you.

 Ouze wrote:


I'm not holding up recasting as any sort of morally beneficial act, simply pointing out that you're working on a really, really debunked idea - clearly established for over 30 years now - and it's hard to have a serious conversation when one group of parties is intentionally missstating reality because they want to frame it a certain way.

On of the hilarious things about the internet is the belief that quoting things from Wikipedia gives you legal authority. If you want to have a serious conversation, try reading the FBI's take on it.

Again, I work in ideas, sell them for a living. People who steal my work are stealing from me so, surprise surprise, I don't like it. I naturally assume that those who think it's ok to steal ideas don't have any worth stealing.

I'm with the other posters who say, if someone has the odd recast, it doesn't really bother me. I've done many things that are morally grey - kept mistaken cheques from dodgy companies for large amounts, for instance. But I don't try and justify them as morally OK, or good. Especially because I want my toys but don't want to pay the asking price.

 kronk wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I'm curious, those who are okay with recasting, how would you feel if you were a CCG player and your opponent turned up with photocopied cards?

That they are the worst person ever and should die in a fire.

Or not. Never ran into that, but would not care for it.

A fire fuelled by their blasphemous photocopies?

I would feel that unless they're still learning, it's disrespectful to the opponents to be taking part in a hobby that you're not putting back into.
It's not about finances in my eyes, a gifted figure is no less valid than a bought one, to me.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I'm curious, those who are okay with recasting, how would you feel if you were a CCG player and your opponent turned up with photocopied cards?

In my gaming group we do it regularly with STAW cards. You could buy them for 50€ on Ebay or you could simply print them out. It doesn't harm the game in any way. Seriousely, I'd rather play against someone with a completely painted recast army than against someone with unpainted legal stuff.

Yeah, I used to have to print heroclix cards because if you stored them safely and forgot where, you were fethed.

But STAW doesn't depend on the cards to function, they're less of a whole event than a CCG card or mini would be to the grand scheme of a game.
That's why I drew the comparison there I guess.

I see your point.
For me it really depends on how the player uses recast stuff. Did he get it because he can't afford expensive FW stuff, but nevertheless painted it nicely and participates in the hobby or did he just get the mini with the cheesiest rules and puts it in horrible recast unpainted in front of me? Of course you can't translate that part to a CCG, but I'm not into those .

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
I see your point.
For me it really depends on how the player uses recast stuff. Did he get it because he can't afford expensive FW stuff, but nevertheless painted it nicely and participates in the hobby or did he just get the mini with the cheesiest rules and puts it in horrible recast unpainted in front of me? Of course you can't translate that part to a CCG, but I'm not into those .

What difference does how they play the game make? If you want something that is expensive, you can save up for it. When I wanted the fw bloodthirster, I worked an extra shift, and walked home everyday for two months to save on bus fair. I actually ended up with the monstrous arcanium, tamarrkhan, and a set of skin wolves as well with what I'd put in the tin. If you genuinely can't afford fw, you can use citadel stuff instead. There is no entitlement to any product, especially in a hobby such as this.

Well, not everybody can save up for toys. Agreed, how someone plays the game is a different discussion. But if someone likes to play the game and puts effort in it I don't really care where he bought the minis. If you can afford FW, go for it, if someone else can't, there's no reason to blame him for looking for a cheaper alternative in the form of recasts.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:
Well, not everybody can save up for toys. Agreed, how someone plays the game is a different discussion. But if someone likes to play the game and puts effort in it I don't really care where he bought the minis. If you can afford FW, go for it, if someone else can't, there's no reason to blame him for looking for a cheaper alternative in the form of recasts.

If I can't afford a computer, can I come and take one from your house?

Of course, that's physical theft so let's try a different example. So let's say, you make a living designing computer games. Can I take your game, call it the same name, sell it at one fifth the price? Would you mind? People are looking for a cheaper alternative after all.

In the real world, I would probably behave the same as you. If I were playing someone who was a nice guy, I wouldn't take my army off the table. But I wouldn't condone it or say it's the right thing to do.


.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Ketara wrote:
So to clarify, you're basing your knowledge on how money they make from making plastic kits out of the summarised profit from their annual reports?

And the reasonable assumption that the LRBT example is fairly typical of GW's profit margins. It might not be exactly the same margin, but I would be extremely skeptical of any claim that the profit margins on that specific kit are so disproportionate to other kits that even a rough estimate of what would happen with a major price reduction is impossible.

So...what/where is the LRBT example? I asked where it was, and you told me you were extrapolating out of the yearly profit report, and didn't know what the margins were on a LRBT. But now here again you're saying that it's 'typical'? I thought you just said:-

I said they don't state specific numbers for the LRBT.

and then

But we know that their profit margins aren't very impressive and there's no reason to believe that the LRBT is exceptional relative to their other kits.

I'm completely failing to grasp what the LRBT example here is, on account of the fact you've told me that you don't know what it is! You've thrown out a very specific claim here, namely that:-

If they're barely making money on a $50 plastic LRBT

and

That would mean selling a FW LRBT with higher manufacturing costs at the same price as a plastic "main GW" LRBT kit with lower manufacturing costs and an underwhelming profit margin. GW is simply not making as much money as you seem to think they are.

To make the above statements, you have to know something about the cost of producing an LRBT, and you haven't told me what that is. Otherwise I can just say, 'Well the vast profit made on a Basilisk example says otherwise' (to which you'd legitimately reply 'How do you know that', and I couldn't really point to the annual profit figures as somehow substantiating it!)

Back to Forgeworld models:-

They are selling at a profit RIGHT NOW.

Excellent. So your statement:-

GW's prices are higher than their competition despite not making better profit margins.

when applied specifically to the Forgeworld model department and model costs, as opposed to to the entire company's annual turnover/profit/loss (which is how I've been approaching this the entire time) has nothing to do with what we're discussing anymore. Because I was discussing a compartmentalised section of their business (hence my constantly saying 'Forgeworld').

And guess what: a proportionate share of that goes to the cost of producing FW kits. You can not neglect those costs when determining what price the kit has to sell for to make a profit.

I totally, totally can, when examining the profit/loss of a compartmentalised section of a business. You keep conflating the ability to measure a profit on an individual item, the profit from a section of a business, and the profitability of the entire business, which is relatively meaningless in the context of the points I've moved on to making.

Not, I hasten to add here, a meaningless point in and of itself, or even meaningless within the overall original context of the discussion. Mentioning that 'GW does need to take into account financial drains from other less profitable sections of it's business when setting any price level' is a perfectly reasonable and valid point to make, and contributes to the discussion in a productive way.

But you're belabouring and repeating that one same point over and over even when the conversation has moved on. With that one point accepted and acknowledged (and it has been), continually insisting that you can't consider anything profitable unless the company as a whole is profitable doesn't get us anywhere, and is to remain focused on that point past any analytical utility.

The next stage of that discussion is to consider the place and profitability of Forgeworld within the company from that broader perspective and move on to assess other factors and options. So for example, whether Forgeworld could cut manufacturing costs further through actions like vertical integration in order to decrease prices whilst still retaining a higher profit margin, or whether cutting prices and better marketing could allow GW to utilise their market position to leverage higher sales (again whilst retaining that profitability level within Forgeworld). From a broader business scope, naturally, it would also make sense to assess whether or not the company could afford to trim the fat in certain areas in things like dividend repayments and frivolous expenses in order to be able to lower prices more generally (in order to remain competitive within the wider market). Or to split off the more profitable Forgeworld operations into a separate company altogether in order to allow more claiming of tax relief on the parts that aren't making money. Stuff like that.

We on the same page?

The raw amounts of Holier than Thou you can find in these kind of threads never ceases to amaze me.

Almost as some people again and again stating the same "facts" that have already been debunked several times in the past (CHINESE RESIN GIVES YOU AIDS).

 Korinov wrote:
The raw amounts of Holier than Thou you can find in these kind of threads never ceases to amaze me.

At the end of the day, I just see defences of recasting as being defences of self entitlement. At the end of the day, it's a luxury item that you have to have so much that you're willing to buy it from a source that does nothing to add to the wargaming community and does nothing to support the company you despise yet can't live without.

Just calling it as I see it. It's not "holier than thou", I have my own vices.... but this thread isn't about them so I'm not going to bring up now am I?

Almost as some people again and again stating the same "facts" that have already been debunked several times in the past (CHINESE RESIN GIVES YOU AIDS).

I haven't seen said debunking. Link? I've never tried to say Chinese resin is harmful, simply that the ones I've encountered do obviously smell of fumes and I have no idea what those fumes are. Generally when I smell fumes and don't have knowledge of what it is or what chemicals are in it, I do my best to avoid it.