Orlanth wrote:Games Workshop what I know of them treat staff well, offer promotion and career and hold core manufacturing in western countries with employment standards.
For all the fuss with Finecast people forget why
GW changed manufacturing policy, they moved away from lead alloy ahead of other manufacturers for reasons of employee health, then moved away from white metal for the same reason. Despite scum like Kirby
GW has in some aspects very good business ethics.
I recall talking to
GW staffers, some who had moved on, and they said training/experience they got with
GW really set them up well in customer interaction and handling.
As for finecast I recall that the main reason
GW switched was because the price of metal kept going up and down very fast for them. Basically it was becoming very hard for
GW to forecast their costs to do business and manufacture because one of their core production materials was jumping around in price. Plus there was the fact that it was going up far more than it came down and places like china making a sudden big order could spike it very fast.
GW thus wanted to shift to finecast as a more stable material whilst also letting them use their current moulds so they could do the change fast rather than having to recast moulds for what was likely at the time, half or more of their range (a huge loss esp considering metal was used for a lot of hero and small sales volume models).
I do recall reading at the time that finecast was also found to be one of the safer materials to work with from a health point of view as well, though such matters are hard to pin down and it might only be rumour/hope/general commentary rather than specific proven science.
Suffice to say finecast had its issues too, but we've also seen
GW really push plastics to new levels and also open up to using them on basically everything from core troops to unique characters and huge expensive models.
