Hi guys, I don't mean to sound like a broken record or a wet blanket, but the only reason people buy from recasters is their desire to get a bargain. Their desire to get a bargain trumps their desire to play by the rules.
The only reason people recast figures and sell them on Ebay is to make money. They are not doing it to be charitable, they are doing it for profit. They're meeting a need in the market for cheaper figures, and they are doing so by stealing.
In a word, it's pure greed.
As our hobby has matured over the past decades it has grown to become a multi-million dollar global industry. As the industry has grown, the price (and quality) of kits has risen exponentially and we modellers have benefited, but we have also had to bare the increased prices.
It's not a cheap hobby anymore, and when times are tough, the first thing you tend to sacrifice are the expensive little luxuries and non-essential pleasures and indulgences. That's why I'm increasingly looking at sculpting my own figures!!
We all agree that we can't stop the practice of recasting and it's virtually impossible to police the internet, so rather than shake our fists impotently in the air at them, we must find a smart way to remove the financial incentive and starve them of their profits.
I appreciate that manufacturers rely on selling figure kits for their livelihood, but they must accept some of the responsibility for the high prices modellers have to pay for figure kits. It is these high prices that have attracted these parasitic recasters to the industry in the first place.
Recasters wouldn't bother recasting a kit to make $1 profit, but if they can sell a recast kit and make $40 profit, (and that price is half the recommended retail price that you and I would pay) the recasters will always be able to sell their cheap knock-off goods and they will always make money doing so.
The issue is how manufacturers can reduce their costs of production in order to maintain their profit margins, while selling their products at substantially lower prices? This is, IMHO, the key to defeating the recasters. Lowering the cost of production allows manufacturers to maintain their proft margins while reducing prices. It's simple market economics.
If retail prices and production costs are reduced, the recasters lose their price advantage, and the quality of the legitimate products starts to outweigh the perceived value of the "bargain" knock-off. Take the profits out of recasting, and the recasters will eventually go somewhere else.
In my view reducing kit prices and making our hobby more affordable would also attract many more younger modellers to figure modelling and therefore make the industry more sustainable over the long run.
The figure modelling industry started out very much as a small cottage industry dominated by artisans, friends and hobbyists, and still appears to be run along those lines. But it is now an expensive hobby dominated by men in their 40's, 50's and 60's who grew up on cheap plastic kits in the 1960's and 70's, and can now afford premium quality products at premium prices. These premium prices are what's attracting the recasters.
The figure industry must recognise that it is now a global industry with combined net turnover in the tens of millions of dollars, and that the old gentlemanly ways of doing business are not capable of protecting the industry from pirates.
So long as there are good profits to be made from stealing artistic works and recasting them, the practice will continue and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it.
Manufacturers have to fight back by reducing costs and pricing their products so that the incentive to recast them is not worth the time and effort to do so.
I hope my argument makes some sense, and I welcome any responses from manufacturers about the issues I've raised. I'm sure none of you want to reduce your own profits, but I would like to hear if you think prices can be reduced as a response to recasters.
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