What is your view on a player with knock offs?

[Wolfshade]

The fact that recasters can do what they do is the surest sign that GW's products are woefully overpriced. If GW wanted to end the recaster phenomenon, the solution is bone-head simple - drop their prices to be at least in the ballpark of reasonable.

What is the ball park of reasonable? For me and my circumstances they are reasonable, they may not be for everyone and I accept that. Certainly I would wish for lower prices, after all that's more plastic for the pound!
GW profit is 13% on each model. Is that unreasonable?
Consider popcorn from the cinema, a mere 1,275%, bottled water 4,000%
[url]http://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-products-giant-markups-115730856.html[/url]

At around 13% that is more inline with the margins on groceries.

[Littha]

What would be better to look at would be an industry wide net profit margin: [url]http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html[/url]

Toys and Games works out at 10% while Toy and Hobby stores works out at -0.6%. Thus because GW runs both I would imagine it being around 9.4%

[Mike Lawler]

I use whatever I want.. so far that hasn't included recasters. I don't play any game to be part of any sort of kool-aid drinking cult.. I play it to have fun.. and if that means using this model for this game but also for that game.. then hey.. that's my choice. I do make sure that whatever I use actually represents what I'm doing and to the best of my ability that the model looks good. Past that, my models' origins aren't your concern. I don't play in GW events either before anyone starts on that. If I did though, I do have all GW forces.

[StingrayP226]

So I made my decision... I'm going to buy and use Mantic's Corporate Marines for my Elysian infantry since

A: they are very well priced
B: They look a **** of a lot like Elysian Jump Troops
C: I'm not supporting people who just rip off someone elses work so I don't have to worry about feeling the moral dilemma.

Ironically I understand this means I'd never be allowed to play my Army in anything sanctioned by GW (which I could with painted recasts) but I never planned to do this anyway. If someone has an issue with my infantry not being GW stuff then we don't have to play. Added bonus is that I might be able to still support LGS while buying these minis... win win all around.

[SquigBrain]

So I made my decision... I'm going to buy and use Mantic's Corporate Marines for my Elysian infantry since

A: they are very well priced
B: They look a **** of a lot like Elysian Jump Troops
C: I'm not supporting people who just rip off someone elses work so I don't have to worry about feeling the moral dilemma.

Ironically I understand this means I'd never be allowed to play my Army in anything sanctioned by GW (which I could with painted recasts) but I never planned to do this anyway. If someone has an issue with my infantry not being GW stuff then we don't have to play. Added bonus is that I might be able to still support LGS while buying these minis... win win all around.

Good on you.

And for those of arguing that recasting proves GW's prices are too high, seriously, you have to take into account more than just the cost of raw materials and a factory to cast them in.

You do have other options than buying recasts. Whether you take them or not is up to you. Me, I desperately want some forgeworld stuff, but since my hobby budget per month is about $10 these days, it's highly unlikely it's going to happen. But, I'm not going to buy recasts just because they're cheaper. I'd rather build my own, or proxy forever, than hand money to thieves.

[Harley]

What is the ball park of reasonable? For me and my circumstances they are reasonable, they may not be for everyone and I accept that. Certainly I would wish for lower prices, after all that's more plastic for the pound!
GW profit is 13% on each model. Is that unreasonable?
Consider popcorn from the cinema, a mere 1,275%, bottled water 4,000%
[url]http://finance.yahoo.com/news/20-products-giant-markups-115730856.html[/url]

At around 13% that is more inline with the margins on groceries.

GW makes 13% pretax profit as a business in general, that doesn't mean each model is marked up 13%.

Also, profit margins are always larger with smaller items such as a water bottle which is more in line with a paint pot from GW, who probably makes quite a large margin on them, along with other accessories like glue and dice.

[lobster-overlord]

One thing Ithought about while reading and mulling over the recast thoughts, I'd much rather play against a player with a fully painted, non-coherant army that is full of recasts and 3rd party "counts as" over a WAAC player who codex hops with net-lists, buys only GW, and never paints his minis and plays with proxies.

john m

[Chris Copeland]

I tend to agree with our crustacean overlord. I care a LOT more about playing against fully painted armies than about the origin of said armies. I've never tried to police my fellow gamers nor tried to regulate their hobby. I don't really see it as my job. I have a couple of caveats:
*If a TO kicked someone out of a tourney for having recasts I wouldn't complain (as long as that was a known rule).
*If I found someone gaming with someone else's stolen army I certainly wouldn't play them... and I'd try to get the word out to the rest of the local gaming community that I'd found said stolen army. This is a very local distinction. I'm talking about thinking, "Hey! That's John's army! It was stolen from the LGS this past winter! OMG! I'm not playing this guy! I need to call John! I need to call everyone!" That's about as close as I could ever see myself trying to police another player's army...

Cheers...

[SON OF ROMULOUS]

Wow i wonder how many hipocrits have pirated music right now on their pc's or in their itunes playlists... Guess you guys feel the need to police other people when it comes to miniatures but its okay as long as it's music... or pc games or DVD's or tv shows or what ever else you've downloaded or bought from someone who's pirated the items. heck I'm sure atleast 1/3 of your female family members or friends has knock off purses sunglasses ect. If somone wants to play me with an army they bough off ebay and it's painted or they are activly painting it then by all means lets roll some dice

[SquigBrain]

Wow i wonder how many hipocrits have pirated music right now on their pc's or in their itunes playlists... Guess you guys feel the need to police other people when it comes to miniatures but its okay as long as it's music... or pc games or DVD's or tv shows or what ever else you've downloaded or bought from someone who's pirated the items. heck I'm sure atleast 1/3 of your female family members or friends has knock off purses sunglasses ect. If somone wants to play me with an army they bough off ebay and it's painted or they are activly painting it then by all means lets roll some dice

For me, that answer is zero. I have no pirated movies or music.

I'm not trying to police anyone. Do whatever you think is right. I'm not going to decide to play anyone or not based on it.

But no doubt, it will reduce my opinion of people who do.