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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?
Like a guy I knew who wanted to field a "Circus of Pain" but did not want to spend the money on the models.
Printed card on round wood stands.
I was surprised at my emotional response: I spent MY money (legally for this topic) to field my army, no freaking way.
Do these people play at a GW store with recasts?
I dare them to play with bare resin if they see no difference.
I make hard decisions on what I buy and they "cheat" by buying recasts?
There are many competitive options for models but the difference is people want that model and pass it off as the real thing.
A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
Napoleon Bonaparte
AllSeeingSkink wrote: 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?
The Holier than Thou when it comes to recasts is mostly people getting butthurt over other people getting the same product at half or a third of the price (edit: if you want an example, just check the post above this one).
If you feel like an idiot for paying 20€ for a single plastic model while someone else is getting it for much less, perhaps you're acting like an idiot.
I consider myself extremely amoral about this whole issue. Any producer/seller operates on profit margins, and counterfeit/replica items are as old as economy itself. Get too greedy with your margins, and it's only natural that unofficial replicas will appear. When people start saying that "a recaster will always be able to sell his products at a lower price", I always have to remember them that such a thing is not true. A recaster operates on profit margins like everybody else, and no recaster bothers with reasonably priced models. You won't find any recasted versions of the cheaper infantry kits from the old Fantasy range (the 10 models at 21€ ones).
Companies that offshore production to developing countries where costs are ridiculously low in order to maximize their profit margins without lowering the price of their products are in no higher moral ground than people who buy recasted/counterfeit items, and deserve all the gak they may get.
I haven't seen said debunking. Link?
A dakka veteran (can't remember exactly who right now) took the time, money and effort to have a recast model analyzed in a lab (I seem to recall it was over safety concerns regarding one of his kids being exposed to the material). Results showed it was only slighly more toxic than proper FW resin, and unless you inhaled a vast amout of its dust (which is like extremely unlikely if you don't work at the factory itself) it posed no more harm than standard FW resin.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/30 14:54:52
Progress is like a herd of pigs: everybody is interested in the produced benefits, but nobody wants to deal with all the resulting gak.
GW customers deserve every bit of outrageous princing they get.
Korinov wrote: If you feel like an idiot for paying 20€ for a single plastic model while someone else is getting it for much less, perhaps you're acting like an idiot.
Not really, given I don't but expensive character models from GW in the first place. Do you actually see that many recasts of the newer expensive plastic characters? I haven't checked to see, when I last looked at recasters it was almost all resin stuff they were doing, and mostly FW. I buy almost no FW stuff either, mainly some 6mm scale Aeronautica Imperialis stuff before it was dropped and I started a DKOK force but only got a couple of kits before I gave up on them.
For me it just gets tiring reading responses that come down to defences of self entitlement.
I'd have more respect for it if people just said "I buy it because I want it" instead of making up hollow excuses like how GW is evil but in their evilness produce kits you like so much you aren't willing to put your money where your mouth is and buy a product from another company.
And even if people are bitter that they paid $100 when you paid $50.... I think they have a right to be bitter. You're showing them you care about the product just enough to be muster the selfishness to buy it without supporting the people who actually made it.
A recaster operates on profit margins like everybody else, and no recaster bothers with reasonably priced models.
Of course a recaster can make resin stuff cheaper. Unless you expect GW to move their entire operation to China, close their stores and shut down the distribution chain that gets products on to the shelves of independents.
GW might be able to sell stuff cheaper than they currently do, but not as cheap as a recaster and frankly we have no idea how cheap they could sell it before the business becomes unprofitable, you are just making wild guesses.
You won't find any recasted versions of the cheaper infantry kits from the old Fantasy range (the 10 models at 21€ ones).
That's because those kits were bulk plastic kits. Large set up costs, large run, cheap per unit. It's not practical to recast that sort of stuff. You could set up a recasting business to make them cheaper than GW but the risk would be much larger than recasting resin kits.
I haven't seen said debunking. Link?
A dakka veteran (can't remember exactly who right now) took the time, money and effort to have a recast model analyzed in a lab (I seem to recall it was over safety concerns regarding one of his kids being exposed to the material). Results showed it was only slighly more toxic than proper FW resin, and unless you inhaled a vast amout of its dust (which is like extremely unlikely if you don't work at the factory itself) it posed no more harm than standard FW resin.
I guess I'll believe it when I see it. Most resins are fine once they're fully cured because the volatile fumes have cooked off in the curing process or reacted in to solid polymer chains. unless you cut it and inhale the dust in which case most resins are going to be bad for you.... but with the Chinese resin kits I've handled, it smells when you open the box and it smells when you cut it. It's unlikely that small amounts of it are going to be harmful, but without
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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 FWLRBT 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?
Hoo wee.
Peregrine really is peddling some abject nonsense, who stole your mojo? (Or has somebody just illegally copied it?)
GW, on average, make a very healthy profit on what they sell. It is, as quite rightly has been pointed out, impossible to narrow down the margin on a specific product. Even if it were, the LRBT would be a terrible example because at this point the cost of design and production of the dies to cast it would have been written down to almost nothing, as it's an older kit. Therefore there would be practically zero cost per unit, just the pennies of plastic and cardboard, the few seconds/minutes worth of labor to take the sprues off the machine and pack them and the tiny sliver of the cost of transporting it to a store.
But that's not how GW, or any company with a decent number of different items in production, do their accounting, so we can't possibly know the specifics.
What we do know, is that in the last half year report GW generated £55m in sales, and spent £16m on making those sales happen. That 16m includes the cost of designing and producing everything that is relevant to that accounting period. So their half year gross profit was £38.5m
That's quite healthy. The reason that the net is so small, relatively can be examined and discussed sufficiently to justify its own thread, and it has, but broadly speaking it's in a company's best interest to declare as low a net profit as it can, using as many accounting loopholes and avoidance techniques as it can, as this is the number that corporation tax is calculated on and in GW's specific case they have huge cost obligations in maintaining their stores, which cost them a significant amount of their revenue.
So the reason GW isn't making a massive net profit has nothing to do with the cost of making models, and everything to do with running a retail chain.
So their (relatively) poor net profit is almost exclusively a direct result of their business model and choices, and therefore essentially their fault if they're now obligated to charge ludicrous prices to stay in business.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Azreal wrote:
So their (relatively) poor net profit is almost exclusively a direct result of their business model and choices, and therefore essentially their fault if they're now obligated to charge ludicrous prices to stay in business.
But where are you going with this? Our expert analysis of their business is irrelevant (except if we wanted to work for them or buy the company). So the only significance of this argument is, "It's ok to recast because they're so expensive." In which case, how come Spellcrow or Kromlech prices are pretty much the same?
The GW pricing is irrelevant. They can charge what they want, and stay in or go out of business, when competitors do a better job, producing their OWN designs. But saying you find cheap recasts of GW stuff acceptable is the ultimate in hypocrisy - because you implicitly acknowledge the product or system is good, otherwise you wouldn't want it, but simply want to pay less (and give your $$$ to people who are even dodgier than GW).
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Stevefamine wrote: Actually I'd buy the metal shoulder pads in this case - as the metal is NICE/give the marine weight/I really like the Ultramarine metal shoulder pads I have. If I'm considering mass buying sternguard, I can afford metal shoulder pads off ebay.
to break even, It would cost me (to recast to 99% quality) around 100$ to produce around 100 shoulder pads. If I only need 30-40, I'd buy the damn ebay metal ones. If I had a whole battle company to do? The cost and time would out weigh the result/desire. I'm not painting 100 marines at once, I only will paint a dozen or so a week at most.
MrMoustaffa wrote: This is especially true for OOP games like Epic and Battlefleet Gothic. The only reason those communities exist is dedicated recasters keeping the game alive, because if you tried to collect a 100% legit army you could buy a car for what you would spend. And again, if GW wanted that money, they should've kept the game alive.
Only way Epic is alive right now. Seriously.
If you paid me $100 dollars to recast you a shoulderpad 100 times I would profit about 80 bucks. You must never ever have recast anything, or anything with precision, or you have sloppy technique or something. Mold 1 shoulder pad. Cast it 10 times. Mold those 10 casts, cast ast that
9 times. Beck it wouldn't even take more than a couple hours.
Copying a copy leads to poor out come my VHS days showed me that
2000 6000 with Reaver Titan guard 2k
2500 (imperial force)
2500 (trimming down in 8th)
TS 30k at 5k points
Yes I have a problem
Azreal wrote:
So their (relatively) poor net profit is almost exclusively a direct result of their business model and choices, and therefore essentially their fault if they're now obligated to charge ludicrous prices to stay in business.
But where are you going with this? Our expert analysis of their business is irrelevant (except if we wanted to work for them or buy the company). So the only significance of this argument is, "It's ok to recast because they're so expensive." In which case, how come Spellcrow or Kromlech prices are pretty much the same?
The GW pricing is irrelevant. They can charge what they want, and stay in or go out of business, when competitors do a better job, producing their OWN designs. But saying you find cheap recasts of GW stuff acceptable is the ultimate in hypocrisy - because you implicitly acknowledge the product or system is good, otherwise you wouldn't want it, but simply want to pay less (and give your $$$ to people who are even dodgier than GW).
The point is Peregrine was arguing that GW can't cut prices in order to combat piracy because they don't make enough money off the sale of models. I was showing that they make plenty of cash from the sale of models and if they've painted themselves into a corner WRT pricing then it has nothing to do with the cost of making models or the profit they generate.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Buying recasts acknowledges the product is good, true, but it also acknowledges that the pricing is in excess of the perceived value of the product.
As I've already said, some will pirate for ideological reasons, but for pretty much everyone else it simply boils down to the fact that the proce of the product is too high.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/30 15:58:19
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
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.
The Forgeworld models are not selling at a loss. Those are selling at a profit. Once you've taken into account the wages for the manufacturers, the materials used in manufacture, and an appropriate share of fixed operating expenses relevant to the department (utilities, pensions, managerial wages, office supplies, etc), the Forgeworld department is operating at a profit. It's bringing in more than it costs to run it.
They are selling at a profit RIGHT NOW. They would not be selling at a profit if GW cut prices on FW kits in half to compete with recasters. That would mean selling a FWLRBT 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.
If we look at the last annual report, we see the company spent millions on a frivolous redecoration of the HQ. We see vast sums wasted on a lawsuit, and a new website. We see nice sums being paid out in dividends.
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.
You don't have to guess...ok, you still have to guess because we don't know how many units are sold at X price but we can calculate a gross profit margin which puts GW at 11.37%. Now, before you go running to the hills screaming, "That's tiny!" we're talking about the company's gross profit margin, not a product profit margin, vast differences; to put this in perspective, the entire telecom industry sits at about 10% profit and heralthcare equipment (which is considered hugely profitable) is at about 18%.
One other thing to consider is that of total operating costs, GW only spent 2.5 million on product development and product and supply only cost them 1.5 million so let's extrapolate this out. The people, equipment, molds, manufacture, and storage of product, company wide, accounts for 4 million, about what they spent on the website to put it into perspective. There revenue generated was 55 million (pre-royalty) so product development and creation is only 7.27% of overall costs. That's tiny overhead when you consider that their business is completely geared towards the sale of model kits.
It's not accurate but it would be a fair assumption based upon this rough math that it only cost GW 7.3% ($4.01) to create the molds for and produce that $55 kit.
Yes, they are capable of lowering their prices but they can't due to the extreme costs associated with maintaining their loss producing retail store presence. This is why PP and CB are likely more profitable than GW (as a percentage) but we can't know that so it's just an assumption on my part. If GW curtailed the retail loadstone, at least in countries where it's not feasible to maintain such (i.e. US and Canada), they could produce HUGE cost-savings for the company and pass those savings on to the consumer. That they choose not to tells me that management is still wedded to a dead business model or is unwilling to differentiate their business model based upon the needs of the region of operation.
Let's put this another way. If GW is able to produce the upcoming Battle for Vedros kits at the stated prices, they could mirror those prices across their product line if they chose to do so.
Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do
The point is Peregrine was arguing that GW can't cut prices in order to combat piracy because they don't make enough money off the sale of models. I was showing that they make plenty of cash from the sale of models and if they've painted themselves into a corner WRT pricing then it has nothing to do with the cost of making models or the profit they generate.
No, he was making a valid point, that Forgeworld does have to help sustain the sorts of costs that a 3rd party company or a recaster does not (an accounting and legal department if nothing else). And he was correct that it would be an additional financial drain upon the profit margin of the items being sold.
Whether those costs are high enough to counterbalance the economies of scale GW make with regards to raw material purchase (and labour for 3rd parties) is another kettle of fish, and extremely hard to calculate or hypothesize about without the figures at your fingertips. Now I don't know how much their legal counsel costs, I don't know the salaries of all their chief executives (another drain on the company's profits) and so on. All I can begin to speculate on with any reasonable hope of accuracy is a) the physical manufacturing cost of the model, and b) the cost of running the Forgeworld department.
a) is easily calculated because anyone can create resin products, and the cost of the technology is a known factor.
b) is harder, but the level of cost can be roughly ascertained by examining the costs and prices of their competition, the third party companies who also have to take into account in their product price labour, design, and utility costs. If your average multipart resin 10 man model kit is £25-30 froma third party company, and that permits the creators to keep functioning and make a profit, it isn't unreasonable to hypothesize that Forgeworld will be making an equivalent to slightly larger profit at the same price if only those common factors and costs are taken into account. Those are the costs, in a nutshell, of the Forgeworld studio.
Now we can't speculate on c), the larger breakdown of individual departmental costs of running the business, because there's far, far too little data. It's impossible from this position. But using the data from a) and b), it becomes clear that if Forgeworld are charging roughly a price ratio to everyone else of 2.5 to 1, the Forgeworld department is making an excellent profit margin on it's own merit.
Using Peregrine's point that that profit has to sustain the largely immeasurable costs of c) though, it is possible that Games Workshop would take a sligh hit to profits if they dropped prices to comparative levels to third party producers. Perhaps they would shift sufficient additional quantity to offset it. Perhaps not. It's an unknowable. Peregrine's comment that it would bankrupt Games Workshop though is, I would say, hyperbole. They're a giant publicly quoted company with a retail chain churning out a vast amount of plastic kits. FW is ultimately boutique, even with the high profit margin per item, there's no way that that single small division of the company is responsible for all their profit (and if it was, as said, it would be their own fault for failing on those lines).
Still, it would hit their profits potentially, and so it is not unreasonable to try and ascertain other ways they could leverage their position to lower prices whilst still retaining or increasing the level of profitability.
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For these people claiming recasting hurts the industry, when was the ladt time you heard a sculptor company going under because people recasted thier stuff?
We know exactly what the costs of running the business are, it's right there in the figures, again, and runs to around £8.5m for the 6 months to 29 Nov 15
In the same period, the "Retail" segment made a £2.5m loss, and the FW/BL/GW.com combined "Mail Order" segment made almost as much profit as the "Trade" segment, despite generating approx half as much money.
That operating loss on retail was over double (£1m) YOY.
So, again, the cost obligations on FW have little to do with the cost of producing the models, or the cost of supporting the infrastructure needed to run a large company (not all of which will be unique to GW, and many of their competitors will be spending the same, proportionately) but on GW maintaining a business model with a very high cost base that doesn't even pay its own way.
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
i don't have any serious problem with recasts as such - though nor do i have any problem with recasters being prosecuted and jailed for it. after all, it is theft. I struggle to get too annoyed by GW's shareholders getting slightly less profits. I think that in many cases people who by recasts wouldn't have bought the original instead, so it doesn't really hit profits that much.
recasting stuff that is no longer sold is no biggy either - provided that when you sell it on you're honest about it being a recast.
personally i've never knowingly bought a recast, though i might be tempted if they were cheap enough. i tend to get round the GW Is Too Expensive thing by buying stuff on ebay and stripping / rebuilding it - or buying cheaper proxies from other companies.
my problem is that i think its out of order to sell recasts as genuine - especially when it comes to rare old miniatures that people pay good money for. providing a cheaper alternative is, after all, just standard capitalism even if there are laws in place to protect the monopolies of wealthy businesses. you'd have to be . but dishonest dishonesty really boils my goat.
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i don't have any serious problem with recasts as such - though nor do i have any problem with recasters being prosecuted and jailed for it. after all, it is theft
FFS.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Copyright infringement is not theft.
At certain levels it isn't even criminal.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/04/30 17:00:43
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
I believe you can thank the movie/music industry for people equating copyright infringement with theft. They really pushed that piracy was stealing back in the day.
Thought for the day: Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
30k Ultramarines: 2000 pts
Bolt Action Germans: ~1200 pts
AOS Stormcast: Just starting.
The Empire : ~60-70 models.
1500 pts
: My Salamanders painting blog 16 Infantry and 2 Vehicles done so far!
We find comfort among those who agree with us - growth among those who don't. - Frank Howard Clark
The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubts not; he knows all things but his own ignorance.
The correct statement of individual rights is that everyone has the right to an opinion, but crucially, that opinion can be roundly ignored and even made fun of, particularly if it is demonstrably nonsense!” Professor Brian Cox
Azreal13 wrote: We know exactly what the costs of running the business are, it's right there in the figures, again, and runs to around £8.5m for the 6 months to 29 Nov 15
You're doing the same thing Peregrine did now. You're looking at totals, when you should be looking at specifics. There's no section of the financial report that gives the breakdown of the accounts department, the customer services department, the legal department, how much management they have and what responsibility/wage level, pension contributions towards employees accounts, and so forth. You have absolutely no idea beyond one large aggregate figure. These are all services which the Forgeworld section will utilise and share the financial burden of (as they don't exactly belong specifically to retail now, do they?), but which will not make it into the costs assessed for category b), as I outlined above. Third party companies simply don't have to calculate those costs into the equation for the most part. Heck, depending on the size of the business, they might not even be over the turnover threshold for VAT.
Whether Forgeworld could be run on more of a shoestring without utilising those services is something of a moot point, without spinning FW off into a separate garage company, they will continue to utilise them, and so a share of FW's profits do need to be factored into helping to subsidise them.
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I had an interesting conversation with a former colleague recently, and for all the talk of fw propping up other arms of the business, it seems that the opposite is far more likely. I'm obviously not going to share figures (and I also don't expect anyone to accept my words without proof), but fw's turnover is far lower than you would expect, less even than bl ytd.
If someone stole my car, but I still had my car, that would be okay.
Not if you made your living making cars to sell for, you know, money, it wouldn't.
Wel, if I made a game while working for a big company, then I most likely made a salary, and probably not an adequate one, and then kept no rights to the game, saw little or no return from the sales, I'd probably be happy that a lot of people want to play it so badly. That will help me command a larger salary when I leave the big corporation to freelance for the smaller, feistier competition.
Really, GW is not the artist. GW is the company that shafted the artist and then tried to trick him into signing away his rights. GW then used profits made off of someone else's work and a kitchen sink of not-quite-IP theft homagery to squash competition, intimidate wrongfans, and harass legitimate, non-recasting bits sellers. 'Stealing' is wrong, but feels less wrong when you steal from a thief and bully.
If we are talking about some small studio or one man store, the harm is more demonstrable.
JamesY wrote: I had an interesting conversation with a former colleague recently, and for all the talk of fw propping up other arms of the business, it seems that the opposite is far more likely. I'm obviously not going to share figures (and I also don't expect anyone to accept my words without proof), but fw's turnover is far lower than you would expect, less even than bl ytd.
Just to clarify, are you just asserting that FWturnover is minimal in comparison to the rest of the company, or that Forgeworld is making a very minimal profit/being subsidised by the other arms of the company?
If it's the latter, I'm happy to accept that, but then I'm forced to speculate as to why Forgeworld can barely turn a profit despite charging 2.5 times as much as 3rd party manufacturer. The logical options here would be:-
-Having to pay in any degree for c) (as laid out before) is particularly burdensome and expensive for a business of that type, or
-The designers are paid a much higher wage than the industry standard, or
-An exceptionally high wastage rate due to unskilled casting meaning more quantities of raw materials wasted.
After all, it can't be more expensive raw materials, economies of scale should work heavily in their favour here. Which of the above, following on from your conversation with your former colleague, would you speculate as being the cause of their ludicrously high expenses for the industry they work in?
If it's just the former you're asserting though, then I'm actually inclined to agree with you there, it was Peregrine's assumption that Forgeworld profits were so crucial to the business that any dip in them would cause GW to go bankrupt.
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@ketara I was referring to turnover, I never ask for more information than I am offered... How much of the figure is profit I don't know, but given the actual turnover figure, it can't be high, either as a sterling figure or %.
JamesY wrote: @ketara I was referring to turnover, I never ask for more information than I am offered... How much of the figure is profit I don't know, but given the actual turnover figure, it can't be high, either as a sterling figure or %.
Roger.
I don't see an issue with profits not being high as a sterling figure, but given the data we've already discussed, I would be genuinely shocked if it wasn't high as a %. Heck, not only shocked, I'd be wondering just what kind of manager can't turn a good profit per item on a product being sold at 2.5 the price of the market average under economies of scale.
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JamesY wrote: @ketara I was referring to turnover, I never ask for more information than I am offered... How much of the figure is profit I don't know, but given the actual turnover figure, it can't be high, either as a sterling figure or %.
Roger.
I don't see an issue with profits not being high as a sterling figure, but given the data we've already discussed, I would be genuinely shocked if it wasn't high as a %. Heck, not only shocked, I'd be wondering just what kind of manager can't turn a good profit per item on a product being sold at 2.5 the price of the market average under economies of scale.
One that suddenly found themselves in competition with themselves just before Christmas most likely.
If someone stole my car, but I still had my car, that would be okay.
Not if you made your living making cars to sell for, you know, money, it wouldn't.
Wel, if I made a game while working for a big company, then I most likely made a salary, and probably not an adequate one, and then kept no rights to the game, saw little or no return from the sales, I'd probably be happy that a lot of people want to play it so badly. That will help me command a larger salary when I leave the big corporation to freelance for the smaller, feistier competition.
Really, GW is not the artist. GW is the company that shafted the artist and then tried to trick him into signing away his rights. GW then used profits made off of someone else's work and a kitchen sink of not-quite-IP theft homagery to squash competition, intimidate wrongfans, and harass legitimate, non-recasting bits sellers. 'Stealing' is wrong, but feels less wrong when you steal from a thief and bully.
If we are talking about some small studio or one man store, the harm is more demonstrable.
Case in point right here. You're not Robin Hood just because you like to think of GW as a big bad evil corporation. You're not entitled to cheap model kits or bits just because GW decided to protect their own intellectual property.
JamesY wrote: @ketara I was referring to turnover, I never ask for more information than I am offered... How much of the figure is profit I don't know, but given the actual turnover figure, it can't be high, either as a sterling figure or %.
Roger.
I don't see an issue with profits not being high as a sterling figure, but given the data we've already discussed, I would be genuinely shocked if it wasn't high as a %. Heck, not only shocked, I'd be wondering just what kind of manager can't turn a good profit per item on a product being sold at 2.5 the price of the market average under economies of scale.
One that suddenly found themselves in competition with themselves just before Christmas most likely.
Is it bad I genuinely can't tell if you're referencing recasters or internal GW sales policy there?
JamesY wrote: @ketara I was referring to turnover, I never ask for more information than I am offered... How much of the figure is profit I don't know, but given the actual turnover figure, it can't be high, either as a sterling figure or %.
Roger.
I don't see an issue with profits not being high as a sterling figure, but given the data we've already discussed, I would be genuinely shocked if it wasn't high as a %. Heck, not only shocked, I'd be wondering just what kind of manager can't turn a good profit per item on a product being sold at 2.5 the price of the market average under economies of scale.
One that suddenly found themselves in competition with themselves just before Christmas most likely.
Is it bad I genuinely can't tell if you're referencing recasters or internal GW sales policy there?
Ha ha I was actually referring to BaC and it's impact on fw sales. Recasting isn't accessible enough to make it a genuine problem for them yet, although there is no denying it will be affecting their figures.
Talizvar wrote: Like a guy I knew who wanted to field a "Circus of Pain" but did not want to spend the money on the models. Printed card on round wood stands. I was surprised at my emotional response: I spent MY money (legally for this topic) to field my army, no freaking way. Do these people play at a GW store with recasts? I dare them to play with bare resin if they see no difference.
I make hard decisions on what I buy and they "cheat" by buying recasts? There are many competitive options for models but the difference is people want that model and pass it off as the real thing.
As I posted earlier in this thread:
RivenSkull wrote: If GW wants to be a luxury item like Rolex or Louis Vuitton, then spending the "luxury" price for GW products just becomes the same ego feeding, dick measuring of "I have more money that you".
When both myself and some of my friends got into 40k just out of high school, we didn't have the money to spend on the hobby, but we really wanted to play because we liked the 40k universe. So we made wooden pegs or blocks, or used printed out papers, or even got a few things off of eBay. And we played 5th edition 40k using those things, and had fun. We got to play with different armies using PDF's of the codecies, because the proxy mini's didn't have any concrete model.
But clearly, we shouldn't have done that because it wouldn't be fair to people like you who spent their money on the real, official miniatures. "Keep the lowly plebs out of our HHobby" and what not.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Do you actually see that many recasts of the newer expensive plastic characters? I haven't checked to see, when I last looked at recasters it was almost all resin stuff they were doing, and mostly FW. I buy almost no FW stuff either, mainly some 6mm scale Aeronautica Imperialis stuff before it was dropped and I started a DKOK force but only got a couple of kits before I gave up on them.
Yeah. Looking at a number of the Space Marine, $30 plastic kits of a single model, and looking at a recaster's stock listing right now, there are a good number of recasts at 1/3rd the price. The non-FW stuff is really a mixed bag on price. Much of the single models sit around the $10 mark, while some of the squads range about 33%-50% lower than the plastic kits - making buying the actual plastic kits from an online retailer at the 25%-30% a better option.
I still feel that the plastic kits are over priced, but when the cost becomes a matter of 10%-15%, it's often worth the extra percentage to get the plastics.
For me it just gets tiring reading responses that come down to defences of self entitlement.
I'd have more respect for it if people just said "I buy it because I want it" instead of making up hollow excuses like how GW is evil but in their evilness produce kits you like so much you aren't willing to put your money where your mouth is and buy a product from another company.
I'll openly admit that I will buy recasts of FW because I want to get the model and that the retail price is far too high. Other factors (as explained below) also play into that decision. However, I would very happily buy directly from FW if the cost was much more reasonable. And while my GW spending (including recasts) has pretty much disappeared, I have been spending my hobby money on a number of other companies that offer their products at much more reasonable prices.
As I've already said, some will pirate for ideological reasons, but for pretty much everyone else it simply boils down to the fact that the price of the product is too high.
I'm somewhat in the middle of that. Yeah the cost of the product is one of the biggest factors, but I try and look at the company as well and how they act towards customers. And this goes across all platforms I pirate - Pirating Responsibly, as I try and look at it. Companies that treat me well and produce products that adequately reflected with the price will always see my monetary support. I will never pay for a Ubisoft game because of the way they openly treat PC gamers and the poor quality of their games on the PC platform; while I would never pirate anything from CD Projekt even though they don't have any DRM to worry about. They don't treat me like some lowly, money shoveling entity. In terms of recasters and the discussion at hand, I do try and look at more than just the bottom line cost of the models. GW doesn't see me as anything more than a fool with money - no market research and the "They will buy whatever we make" attitude puts me off to the company that unfortunately has been ruining it's IP's for years now. It's not that I think GW is evil or anything, it's just that why should I put up with their ridiculous pricing when they view me so poorly.
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Another argument against 'just copying somebody's IP is harmless' is something we all wish we had more of
money
in all countries copying the currency (which is nothing but IP regulated by the government) is more than frowned upon,
but all it is is bits of paper or metal with specific designed on it, it costs far more than the actual production cost which is why people want to copy it (and indeed governments are so large many see it as a victimless crime)
2000 
6000 with Reaver Titan 
guard 2k
2500 (imperial force)
2500 (trimming down in 8th)
The Empire 
: 
