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I forget what their previous name was but the got hit by the GW ip gods before and changed to http://www.coolcastornot.com/
it seems they have been hit again as all of their forgeworld and GW stuff has dissappeared again.

*point and laugh*

Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch.

Wow, I never would expected that.

Uh... go China?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Opps they missed one!

http://www.coolcastornot.com/at02-28mm-scale-resin-kit-railings-p-203.html

Love how they forgot to take off the plastic tabs from their photo

Wait a couple of weeks and a new website will spring up, this one will close down. Repeat ad nauseum.

The problem for GW is that they always seem to have a grace period of 3-4 months (at least) when they are selling stuff.

 Pacific wrote:
Wait a couple of weeks and a new website will spring up, this one will close down. Repeat ad nauseum.

The problem for GW is that they always seem to have a grace period of 3-4 months (at least) when they are selling stuff.

Was going to mention as much...though it deserves repeating.

There are so many recasters in China that trying to stop them in this manner is like attempting to deal with a termite infestation with a tweezers. They might get one or two - but I could probably find another 50 sources within an hour or less if I was so motivated. More than that, even if they do convince a host (or host country) to go through and remove the recasts...they will not be removed from the market, just shuffled around a bit.

Just searching eBay for Forgeworld with the "Buy it Now" option checked brings up over a dozen (stopped counting) different sources which are in all likelihood recasters.

I agree with Sean here.
There are dozens of these around China and they will just pop up again.

He was pretty lousy as far as recasters go, very limited selection, even more limited inventory... my group and I just placed a 1100 dollar order with all sorts of goodies from another source or two... >.>

Why not just buy from Forgeworld?

Because my 1100 dollar chinese recast order would buy me less than half of what I got from FW?

A shame I ordered a ton of stuff there and the casts were great quality(shipping took a while though, but that is mostly China's fault).

And 1 reason for it is because I don't want to buy 10 sets of FW just for the head to a kit. They broke down many sets into bits.

And contemptors cost $21. So there's that.

This site was the reformed miniatureshobby site. Give them a few weeks and they'll have a new site with all the old product back up.

And if you look at ebay, there is all of squat that GW or FW can do as these companies exist in areas that could care less about IP laws. The items were likely removed at the behest of paypal reacting to pressure from GW. The company will get a new site, a new paypal and go right back to doing it.

This url lasted about a year, so doing this once a year isn't really that much hassle.

 scipio.au wrote:
Why not just buy from Forgeworld?

To be entirely honest, I have bought A LOT from Forgeworld... and our group even more. I could handle the cost if the quality matched. This site actually had MUCH better quality than what I have experienced with FW.

Once quality was an issue as well, couldn't justify buying something from FW when they had it. If it wasn't I still went to FW though

Sites like that need to be wake up calls to FW and GW. The ONLY reason those sites exist is because people very much want the models and they feel that FW in particular is charging far too much for what amounts to toy soldiers.

Perhaps those costs could be justified with plastic injection, but I know personally how much effort it takes to crank out resin models once the molds are made and the prices are quite off. I understand they need to pay for design, overhead, production etc, but those could all be covered with increased sales volume at a lower margin.

If you don't want people to counterfeit your product, price them out of the market. GW and FW could quite easily make resin kits so cheap that China and Russia would be losing money trying to rip them off. As it stands, a Contemptor dread costs $21 in China which is somehow enough to pay the bills there.

And you know how long it takes to make that thing once the mold is done? About 5 minutes of actual handling. The rest of the time is resin curing. You mix, you pour, you wait, you demold. 5 minutes tops.

Copied and pasted from this week's "Why is Forge World's shipping so slow" thread:

Nerm86 wrote:
I ended up giving them a call and apparently it was 'stuck' in the system. The guy had to manually move it or something, anyway all sorted now.

Now I just have to wait a month for it :(

In my opinion, THIS is why the Chinese recasters are so popular. The resin is better, the quality is better, and it shows up in half the time for free shipping.

I don't think FW can, or should try to, compete with counterfeiters on price for reasons that Aerethan already said. On the other hand, they could fix a lot of their stupid shenanigans and stop running a subsidiary of a multi-million dollar business like 2 guys in a garage. They charge a premium price but the quality of their product is often shoddy and the handling is atrocious. The flat 15% shipping is a slap in the face and they should have dropped that years ago.

I think FW should try to compete by offering luxury, premium quality control and handling to go with their luxury, premium prices. I love their designs, but FFS, get it together.

 Ouze wrote:
Copied and pasted from this week's "Why is Forge World's shipping so slow" thread:

Nerm86 wrote:
I ended up giving them a call and apparently it was 'stuck' in the system. The guy had to manually move it or something, anyway all sorted now.

Now I just have to wait a month for it :(

In my opinion, THIS is why the Chinese recasters are so popular. The resin is better, the quality is better, and it shows up in half the time for free shipping.

I don't think FW can, or should try to, compete with counterfeiters on price for reasons that Aerethan already said. On the other hand, they could fix a lot of their stupid shenanigans and stop running a subsidiary of a multi-million dollar business like 2 guys in a garage. They charge a premium price but the quality of their product is often shoddy and the handling is atrocious. The flat 15% shipping is a slap in the face and they should have dropped that years ago.

I think FW should try to compete by offering luxury, premium quality control and handling to go with their luxury, premium prices. I love their designs, but FFS, get it together.

Don't forget that international buyers still have to pay FW's local sales tax for online purchases, which defies like 100% of internet commerce practice and is not required by UK law. I'm inclined to think that it's illegal to charge sales tax on out of state purchases here in the US.

So we pay 15% for the worlds slowest shipping, and then we pay VAT on top of that. All this for fairly light and often quite small resin pieces that can be shipped in medium envelopes with a little bubble wrap.

You know how much shipping I pay for bits from the UK? About $4 regardless of size. Why should FW be making profit on shipping when their markup is already insanely high?


And I totally forgot that coolcast offered free shipping on orders over $25-30, which was insanely easy to break due to how much you could get for that money.


For those who don't know what the prices were like(not that it matters now as the site no longer has GW items) here are a few examples in USD:

5x GK marine torsoes $2.5
12x GK Marine shoulders $2
1x GK Term Legs $.65
1x GK Term Torso $.50
5x GK shield icon $.30
1x GK Term Head $.15
1x GK Term shoulder $.20
1x GK Flamer $.40
1x SM Dev. Lascannon $2.50
1x SM Dev. Multi-Melta $4.00
1x Vamp Lord w/ Terrorgheist $24
1x Gamesday 2006 Daemon Slayer $16
1x Gamesday 2007 Ork Boss $20
1x Archaon on foot $18
1x Harry the Hammer $28
1x Kaptin Badrukk $12
1x Changeling $11
1x Kaldor Draigo $15
1x Firebelly $20
1x Captain Sicarius $12
1x Any etched brass $6.50
1x Contemptor Dreadnought $21
1x GK Dreadnought $18

 Aerethan wrote:
If you don't want people to counterfeit your product, price them out of the market. GW and FW could quite easily make resin kits so cheap that China and Russia would be losing money trying to rip them off. As it stands, a Contemptor dread costs $21 in China which is somehow enough to pay the bills there.

Nonsense. You can only make a profit selling at those prices if you remove the entire cost of designing the model (good artists don't work for free) by just stealing someone else's work, and then cast them in a country with no minimum wage laws or other pesky things getting in the way of minimizing your labor costs.

 Aerethan wrote:
he resin is better, the quality is better, and it shows up in half the time for free shipping.

You mean the resin is worse, the casting quality is far worse than FW's, and it takes 2-3 times as long to get it. I ordered a Malcador from them out of curiosity and I would've had a better product if I'd just lit my $50 on fire.

So we pay 15% for the worlds slowest shipping, and then we pay VAT on top of that. All this for fairly light and often quite small resin pieces that can be shipped in medium envelopes with a little bubble wrap.

Actually what you're doing is paying for the free express shipping I get on my boxes of superheavy tanks (and you probably don't want to know what those cost to ship). So, thank you for ordering expensive things that don't cost much to ship so that FW can continue to give me a good deal.

Because of all those guys that buy quality stuff cheaply from third party recasters, GW and FW are loosing their deserved profit from their hard work. Which in its turn leads to desperate actions to stay in business and avoid eventual insolvency, such as notorious price increases. And because of that small fat boys cannot afford buying the much needed Tactical Space Marine box, which is essential for the Humanity's Domination in the 40th Millenium and stomping over their mates at local GW shop.

Cheap hobbiests are cheap.

These fellers will always exist for any product that is popular,
As will hobbiest that want or believe they deserve their toys at a fraction of the cost.

Sooner or later this blip will come to someone's attention in China (ie if/when Gw becomes relatively wide spread there) and they will address these individuals with the usual subtle Chinese law interpretation. Recasting/IP copying represents a significant stain on Chinas reputation and one that they will expunge as move rapidly toward the modern developed state they want to be/are.

Then it will probably pop up somewhere else as those cheap hobbiests will still want cheap copies.

This would happen whether a SM costs 60p or £60, demand drives this as with all other scams.

You can't compete with free (in this case no design costs or marketing).

In a way, knock-offs are sorta positive sign for the state of the hobby. It means that there's a wide audience which buys stuff, otherwise these recasters couldn't make profit themselves. But obviously, it's a loss for GW (and in general, hobbyists).

 notprop wrote:
Sooner or later this blip will come to someone's attention in China (ie if/when Gw becomes relatively wide spread there) and they will address these individuals with the usual subtle Chinese law interpretation. Recasting/IP copying represents a significant stain on Chinas reputation and one that they will expunge as move rapidly toward the modern developed state they want to be/are.

Simply put...No.

Bigger companies have tried and failed to address China's counterfeit and knock off markets. In the best case scenario, they are ignored. In the worst case scenario, China actually rules that the original creators are in violation of the counterfeiter's right of production and sale within China and they are fined or locked out of the Chinese market for a period of time. China has no interest in addressing the issue - it isn't something which is in their interest to address, and their lack of action has nothing to do with not knowing about it.

In the modern economy, companies factor in Chinese knock offs into their business plan as assumed losses (not much different than assumed losses from shoplifters for retail stores).

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Sooner or later this blip will come to someone's attention in China (ie if/when Gw becomes relatively wide spread there) and they will address these individuals with the usual subtle Chinese law interpretation. Recasting/IP copying represents a significant stain on Chinas reputation and one that they will expunge as move rapidly toward the modern developed state they want to be/are.

Simply put...No.

Bigger companies have tried and failed to address China's counterfeit and knock off markets. In the best case scenario, they are ignored. In the worst case scenario, China actually rules that the original creators are in violation of the counterfeiter's right of production and sale within China and they are fined or locked out of the Chinese market for a period of time. China has no interest in addressing the issue - it isn't something which is in their interest to address, and their lack of action has nothing to do with not knowing about it.

In the modern economy, companies factor in Chinese knock offs into their business plan as assumed losses (not much different than assumed losses from shoplifters for retail stores).

QFT

If some of the biggest auto manufacturers in the world have got nowhere, GW have no chance.

TBH, it's a 'problem' throughout asia; they have a completely different concept of things like copyright and ownership of ideas. My personal record for how many times a single item can break copyright is 3, seen in S. Korea: A t-shirt depicting a lego Super Mario jumping out of a transforming Octopus Prime.

Regarding the topic at hand, I think it will only remain a 'fringe' issue. 99.8% of consumers will continue to buy legitimate products, and be completely unaware of counterfeits even existing. In fact, without any data at all to support my hypothesis, I would say that GW have probably spent far, far more money on solicitors than they would ever have lost from either instances such as this or 3rd party bits makers working in their garages.

Indeed. The main reason I've ever bothered buying fakes is to prevent GW from making those few dollars off of me, since they insist on treating veterans so terribly.

Their core demographic I'd imagine has no clue about recasts in any broad sense.

EDIT: and for the record, I don't feel that GW "owes" me anything. I never said my reasons for buying recasts were valid, but I will own up to them.

I wasn't even aware these existed...

I must live under a rock.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Sooner or later this blip will come to someone's attention in China (ie if/when Gw becomes relatively wide spread there) and they will address these individuals with the usual subtle Chinese law interpretation. Recasting/IP copying represents a significant stain on Chinas reputation and one that they will expunge as move rapidly toward the modern developed state they want to be/are.

Simply put...No.

Bigger companies have tried and failed to address China's counterfeit and knock off markets. In the best case scenario, they are ignored. In the worst case scenario, China actually rules that the original creators are in violation of the counterfeiter's right of production and sale within China and they are fined or locked out of the Chinese market for a period of time. China has no interest in addressing the issue - it isn't something which is in their interest to address, and their lack of action has nothing to do with not knowing about it.

In the modern economy, companies factor in Chinese knock offs into their business plan as assumed losses (not much different than assumed losses from shoplifters for retail stores).

Best example to back up your point (imo)... Apple... There are stores that sell Apple knock-offs that look like Apple stores...

 Alfndrate wrote:

 Sean_OBrien wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Sooner or later this blip will come to someone's attention in China (ie if/when Gw becomes relatively wide spread there) and they will address these individuals with the usual subtle Chinese law interpretation. Recasting/IP copying represents a significant stain on Chinas reputation and one that they will expunge as move rapidly toward the modern developed state they want to be/are.

Simply put...No.

Bigger companies have tried and failed to address China's counterfeit and knock off markets. In the best case scenario, they are ignored. In the worst case scenario, China actually rules that the original creators are in violation of the counterfeiter's right of production and sale within China and they are fined or locked out of the Chinese market for a period of time. China has no interest in addressing the issue - it isn't something which is in their interest to address, and their lack of action has nothing to do with not knowing about it.

In the modern economy, companies factor in Chinese knock offs into their business plan as assumed losses (not much different than assumed losses from shoplifters for retail stores).

Best example to back up your point (imo)... Apple... There are stores that sell Apple knock-offs that look like Apple stores...

To go even further, I seem to recall a documentary where there are entire shopping malls of counterfeit stores. China's like the IP blackspot of the world.

 Alfndrate wrote:
Best example to back up your point (imo)... Apple... There are stores that sell Apple knock-offs that look like Apple stores...

To be fair, in that case many of the Apple Knock offs aren't even really Apple knock offs...just Apple equipment which never makes it onto the boat. For the companies who have items produced in China, that is a similar (though different) problem that they face.

Although the exact numbers are hard to lock down, a friend has a company who sells vacuum equipment. About 10 years ago they relocated their factory from Mexico to China. Everything was identical...same machines in the factory using the same materials and the same tooling. The Mexican factory had a 2% reject rate off the QC checks (bad castings or other problems with the components). The Chinese factory has about an 8% failure rate, though based on his best guesses by watching the counterfeit market (and purchasing a few of them to compare the counterfeits with his product) the 6% change in reject rates largely has been items walking out the back door to be packaged up on the Chinese grey market and sold. The only difference between the two products are the serial numbers which are placed on the equipment stateside after they pass QC checks here. When he broached the subject with the Chinese factory managers, they assured him that he was mistaken and the reject rate dropped to 4%. The counterfeits also had the manufacturers number plate removed and replaced with a generic blank one (with no rating information, model number or other information).

Follow ups with the Chinese government were ignored and follow ups with the US government were effectively dropped by the US government (they said they contacted the Chinese authorities who assured them that that was not happening). Almost everyone I have talked to who has products manufactured in China have similar stories as well. It is just as much a part of business there as bribes are in other countries (and political contributions are in the civilized world).

It sucks they got shut down.

I had 61 items in my cart the day that site died. Sadface...

Their probably are similar and maybe even cheaper stores with more miniatures... right?