I keep seeing videos about Wh40k and recasting - there's one big thing that really bothers me.

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**Stormonu**

Aszubaruzah Surn wrote:

Another thing that bothers me is the "alternatives" that basically ripoffs of GW designs that of course mysteriously don't have their own setting and rules. It also shows how GW hegemony and continued loyalty of the current "GW are thieves" crowd to it stifles creativity and closes opportunities to creators to create their own thing because people turned the dystopian "GW hobby" slogan into reality.

Anyone who gets angry at "ripoffs" of GW minis ought to know that GW has ripped off a lot of IP from other companies first. Starship Troopers, Alien, Gundam, Predator, Dune, Judge Dredd, Terminator - just to name a few. If IP law had been as strict back in the 80's as it is now, GW would have been sued under in the first few years of its existence.

**Daedalus81**

Valkyrie wrote:
I have come across recasts in the past, and to be honest asides the odd mould-slip/fault they're on par, if not better, than anything I've bought from FW in years. Seeing stuff like this makes me less sympathetic for FW keeping their prices so high, even less so when products are regularly removed from their range to be replaced with some ultra-niche product like a Necromunda bounty hunter or Rhino MkXVI Rhino Doors.

I mean...it does cost a ton less to copy a product in China and not worry about marketing, salaries, or benefits.

**yukishiro1**

Not a single person I know who has purchased recasts does it exclusively. I'm sure those people exist, but I would guess my anecdotal evidence is probably representative. Most recasts are stuff that is either OOP and can't be bought period, or stuff that is prohibitively expensive (FW big models, bits you need 5-10 of that only come one per kit, etc). I'm sure you'll find that guy whose entire collection is recast, but I think he's pretty rare compared to the guy who has a recast FW tank and the rest of his army is GW plastic.

Based on their financial results, GW's bottom line clearly isn't suffering significantly, so I don't think you need to be too worried on their behalf. And I assure you...GW as a company doesn't care about anything but that bottom line. Gone are the days when GW was some company of gamers for gamers, it's all about profit these days, and they aren't hurting on that front.

IP laws aren't about morality, they're about societal utility. Trying to turn them into a moral discussion is usually a sign that someone's losing sight of why the laws exist in the first place.

**Gadzilla666**

Daedalus81 wrote:

Spoiler:

the_scotsman wrote:
Damn, I am less good at sarcasm than I think sometimes

I'll make an explicit post then. I'm responding basically to this:

"Another thing that bothers me is the "alternatives" that basically ripoffs of GW designs that of course mysteriously don't have their own setting and rules."

For whatever reason, when it comes specifically to things within the realm of nerd consumption hobbies, people get extremely weird about what they consider "stealing someone's idea."

The job of basically any free market system that works is to provide two things: the...the name of the thing, essentially. A market, that is free. Anyone who's not literally taking someone else's work, directly copying it, and then passing on a cost savings to the customer by not paying the original designer, is participating fairly in that free market.

When you look for models that are alternatives to those constructed by GW, 99% of the time they fall within one of three categories

1) higher quality sculpts, made out of easier to work with material, which are cheaper (Example: Eldar aspect warriors not originally sculpted from clay in 1988 and rendered in fossilized shaving cream)

2) ideas compatible with Games Workshop's universe but which GW does not produce (Female models for guardsmen, alternative guard regiments or space marine legions inspired by different historical sources, new designs of tau suits, pain engines, space marine armor marks, etc)

3) ideas originally created by Games Workshop that they no longer produce (Tomb Kings, models for various discontinued guard regiments, DKOK units)

The logic behind getting mad at someone for purchasing an alternative army of, for example, scottish Highland guardsmen from Victoria miniatures rather than an army of cadians from Games Workshop is no different from complaining that someone painted their ultramarine miniature blue with something other than official games workshop paint, or complaining that someone gets paid for doing commissioned artwork of other peoples' Dungeons and Dragons characters because Wizards of the Coast somehow owns EVERYTHING relating to the ideas constructed in Dungeons and Dragons.

Vastly more blatant copying of ideas and innovations happens in almost every other industrial setting in the world, and I'll let you in on a little secret. Come close.

It's a really good thing for you, the person who lives in the world.

Any industry dominated by a single producer for a long period of time is an absolute hellzone. As someone who is an engineer and who has entered into industries right when one of the giants falls, typically there's straight-up bonkers stuff that that industry didn't do, just because companies get UNBELIEVABLY lazy when they've got any kind of market cornered.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
And also, in case someone is going to call me on this: I understand that the poster is just someone who dislikes games workshop and wants people to stop playing games workshop games and liking games workshop properties, so he resents the fact that many third parties make things inspired by GW IP.

I would consider none of this "recast" except maaaaybe the third.

In the case of those, I've always wondered, why doesn't gw just allow 3rd party manufacturers to purchase a license to produce products that they no longer produce? They would lose nothing, gain whatever they charge for the license, and the products would gain the gw "Seal of Approval", allowing players to use them with no stigma attached. Seems like a "win win" to me, though I'm sure someone can come up with a reason they don't do this.

**Arcanis161**

drbored wrote:

I don't know too many people that 'occasionally' get recasts. It seems to me that once someone has tasted the recasting drug, they go all in.

I have recasts entirely by accident. Don't want to discuss without risking the rules.

Suffice to say, some were from collections of people around my area, and some were from not realizing people would be dishonest about whether or not something was actually Forgeworld.

**Klickor**

I have recasts and will buy more in the future. For me it's mostly a service problem and not as much of a price problem.

If GW sold separate bits or had the physical lotr terrain in their local store so I could check it out, half my reasons to buy would disappear. If they then stopped selling crap resin for overinflated prices and remade the stuff in plastic or went back to metal I would have even less reasons. If some of the models that have rules were actually sold and not OOP another reason would be gone. If FW prices were same as normal GW price I don't think I would have a reason to get recasts anymore.

I have bought a lot the last few months that have been recast but also spent even more on genuine models and even ordered some genuine FW stuff. I prefer the quality and material of most GW stuff but stuff that will get cut up for a conversion or is higher price for equal or worse quality(GW resin sucks) I will go where it is cheaper. GW earns money on my recast purchases because I do more fun stuff that involves buying real things that I then bling out with recast bits. Wouldn't buy them to begin with if there were no alternatives.

**yukishiro1**

Yeah, that sounds like the typical story to me, and why GW doesn't really care all that much. If the price of keeping people in the GW ecosystem is turning the blind eye to the occasional recast (or third-party bits, for that matter), that's a price they're happy to pay.

Like I just invested quite a bit in GW products to build some GSC acolytes, but I only did it because I found some third-party heads I could use to make them look tallarn. Now that isn't recasting, but from GW's point of view, there's no real difference: the reason I'm making a purchase of GW products is because of a non-GW product I bought. This is functionally no different for GW's bottom line than if I had instead recast a bunch of old tallarn heads instead. And I can assure you they don't particularly care which it was. The got a sale either way they would not have in the absence of a third-party supplier.

**ingtaer**

Okay people this is a little bit of a tricky one so please bear with me, firstly thanks for everyone putting in alerts we do appreciate it as it allows us to (hopefully) keep on top of things!
Secondly and to the meat of the matter. While each person is certainly entitled to their opinion that it is morally okay to steal via copyright infringement (aka recasting without permission from the copyright holder), Dakka as a site will not be party to conversations that help promote such a concept, as we (the owners and moderators of this site) do not believe that it is morally okay to do so and therefore do not want to promote such activity...not to mention that such promotion can help to bring negative attention from the copyright holders to Dakka.
This does not just go for GW as we aim to be a place where other companies are free to come and talk about their games/products and we would be doing such people a grave disservice if we fostered a community here that was actively encouraging people to promote such activity.
This makes discussion around the hypotheticals of recasting tricky, a purely moral or philosophical discussion may be possible but we do not accept "I do not like this company/their practices/their policies/capitalism and the free market etc." as justification for violating companies IP. As such that leaves very little room for maneuver as to whether a thread like this has a place on the site and can still function.
This does of course leave a grey area where discussion concerns recasting for personal use like press moulding icons etc. generally this kind of thing is okay but a tutorial on how to recast a model would not be.
Hopefully I have explained that well enough but given it is 2235hrs here I can't be sure! If you have questions or concerns about this feel free to PM any moderator, or if it is of a broader policy nature, set up a thread in N&B.
Thanks all,
ingtær.