What is your view on a player with knock offs?

[Mr Mystery]

I wonder how many of those here who disdain Chinese recasts or knock offs have used non-name brand Cotton Swabs "Q-tips", or wore 4 striped "Adidas" look-a-like athletic shoes or pants. Perhaps ate store brand generic Honey O's cereal, made a phone call on a Samsung phone rather than a iPhone, or borrowed a videogame/movie from a friend and never returned it.

Not really interested in a debate about morals and piracy, but it's funny to think how thin are the glass houses we all live in everyday.

Hey! You just totally described me.

No. Really. You did.

[Darren Richardson]

Those who Purchase reproduction items from China are participating in a crime, this hurts the company whose items are being knocked off which then means that company, because of the loss of sales will have to drive their prices up even further, thus driving more knockoff sales, until such a point that the company goes bankrupt.

Of course when you buy items off ebay you will always be taking a risk on where the product was made, China is reknowned for it's counterfitting, which almost always is poor quaility and the materials used can be quite hazardous to your health as they don't have Quaility Control for these knockoffs.

Now it's a different matter when it comes to liencesed geuinine products that China makes for the big companies.

Myself I will NEVER actively seek to purchase knockoffs from China, I might end up with one or two peices from purchases from ebay from the bulk lots I usually buy, that to me isn't my fault if the seller commited such an unlawful thing as buying pirated products.

In the end if you are buying reproduced items that the makers don't have the right to make you are purpetuating the vicious circle of counterfitting and you should be ashamed of yourselves as your actions make GW raise their prices even higher to compensate the loss in sales and you will ultimatly kill this company by doing so, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day....

Now 3rd Party parts that are used for conversion are a differnt matter, as long as they are not direct copies but are similar enough in style to be compatible with GW miniatures and represent the figures you are converting other figures to represent, then that is a different kettle of fish, in the Model Kit industry there has been 3rd party manafacturers since Model Kits begain, and such a businnes is LEGAL.

So In summery:

Knock Offs are bad and you are commiting a crime by accessory to theft = bad for everyone.
3rd party compatible components manafacturers is legal = good for everyone.

- - - Updated - - -

I wonder how many of those here who disdain Chinese recasts or knock offs have used non-name brand Cotton Swabs "Q-tips", or wore 4 striped "Adidas" look-a-like athletic shoes or pants. Perhaps ate store brand generic Honey O's cereal, made a phone call on a Samsung phone rather than a iPhone, or borrowed a videogame/movie from a friend and never returned it.

Non branded items such as Q-tips are fine, as those items are either patentless or out of copyright, "adidas" look alike items withj 4 stripes isntead of "Adidas" trademarked 3 stripes are legal as long as the "Adidas" logo was not on the item, if the logo was on it then it's IP infringement and illeagal, generic own brand products are legal, many of those products are similar in recipe but not identical to the branded products recipes, so most of your statement doesn't apply to this case.

[Psychosplodge]

Well a samsung phone was ruled as an ip breach so hes got that one right...

Only in the US after it got thrown of court here and found in reverse in Korea iirc...

[Wolfshade]

I think that we need to de-liminate two different parts.

1. 3rd party retailers who sell "compatible" 28mm scale table-top war games. These are perfectly fine in my opinion.

2. Re-casts. These are not. This is a hobby, it is not like you need these items to survive. You have no entitlement to own these things so re-casts are ineffect theft. As fro re-casting for private use, I do not want to get into the legality of that here by I believe that there are different laws dpending on where you are in the world.

[Anggul]

Only in the US after it got thrown of court here and found in reverse in Korea iirc...

Indeed, that entire thing was a joke.

As for harming GW, it harms GW just as much to buy second hand from ebay and other players. GW still aren't getting money for their new product, it's just their old stuff being sold around between customers. As said by others, the only reason people buy knock-offs is that GW charge pretty silly money. If they didn't, these knock-off producers would have no business. I've never bought from them personally, but I don't think GW do a good job of giving anyone reason to do otherwise. I've seen some great casts from such companies so GW can't use the 'quality' argument. They do a much better job than Forgeworld most of the time.

GW need to up their game and stop screwing about if they want people to shop with them. I still do, but many don't and they have their reasons.

[Tudd Fudders]

I just made a profile for this. I lurk alot on here and really been into this subject with counterfeit goods for a long time.

I bought my Dark Vengeance set, IG battleforce, and made friends while doing it. Still buy several items from my local GW of official products.

Eventually I wanted to get into more specialized things and naturally FW provided. Ofcourse I don't have to mention the prices, but they are severely inflated, especially for the shipping (Seriously, ordering from the Ukraine is cheaper and faster).

I've been to China twice and I already figured there be knock-offs at this point. I've made purchases from one of my sites that I've used in the past. And to be clear, I would have never purchased these FW items at the current price. The quality isn't 100%, but it's good and it kept me interested in the hobby, all while still buying legit products and not shelving the game.

I have a friend who actually works in these types of manufacturing factories like Foxconn. They work for a pretty low wage, but gain skills on how to make a gaming controller/headphones, take the spare parts they get, and put it together and sell it for themselves. I can tell you with alot of things (Beats), they are no different from the "real" thing. Sometimes better, because you can get unique colors, specialized accessories, etc.

Is it wrong? Yes, but instead of dismissing it companies need to realize alot of this is a consequence of their company's decisions. From either outsourcing to a foreign country in the short term for profit and not looking into the copyright laws of said country, or sometimes having an outrageous pricing scheme that makes it almost impossible for some people to afford their product. I was pretty surprised to find out GW and FW actually outsourced to China for model making, but it explains alot.

Yesterday I put an order in for two Scion squads, at $70 for 10 models... I could have easily waited a week and probably get something from my china source for like $30 free shipping at about 85% quality. The reason I do it is because I care about my local GW and personally enjoy the owner and people there and want to support keeping that open. It just sucks the company overall isn't like that and tends to try to distance itself from logic.

TLDR version

Pirating like this will always exist unless companies make their service more convenient then what a pirate can offer. Also Companies need to stop thinking exploiting low wage countries doesn't have any consequences. If you pirate, still support the creators somehow, because their ideas are worth something.

[Wolfshade]

I was pretty surprised to find out GW and FW actually outsourced to China for model making, but it explains alot.

This is wrong. GW do not manufacture in China, they did but this was wrapped up at the end of 2010. It is covered in the 2011 Priliminary results.

Product and supply. This includes the design and manufacture of the products and incorporates
production facilities in the UK, North America and until November 2010 in China.

[url]http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Preliminary-announcement-2011.pdf[/url]

[Tudd Fudders]

This is wrong. GW do not manufacture in China, they did but this was wrapped up at the end of 2010. It is covered in the 2011 Priliminary results.



[url]http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Preliminary-announcement-2011.pdf[/url]

Doesn't really change their pricing situation or how they treat their customers. True Religon jeans manufactures in US, but they also have knock offs. It's just easier for disgruntled factory workers to copy something they make everyday. Though their just ripped up/stylized jeans, so not that hard to make yourself.

Also,

[url]http://natfka.blogspot.com/2014/04/an-inside-look-at-limited-edition-void.html[/url]

And I noticed some things:
1) On the box it's written: "Made in China" (All plastik kit were always Made in UK before)

Looks like they changed their mind.

[Denzark]

So if I can take a midway summary between both sides:

Knockoffs are an essential and obvious consequence of GW's prices - they are therefore responsible themselves as such it is OK

and

This is a non-essential luxury items. Knockoffs are theft at all levels, drive up prices for the rest of us and are the province of immoral lazy people.

Further:

Recasts (especially of old OOP stuff) is OK.
Receiving stuff unwittingly off ebay or similar is OK because you have not tried to source knockoffs.
3rd party accessories are not the same as knockoffs.

[Wolfshade]

Doesn't really change their pricing situation or how they treat their customers. True Religon jeans manufactures in US, but they also have knock offs. It's just easier for disgruntled factory workers to copy something they make everyday. Though their just ripped up/stylized jeans, so not that hard to make yourself.

Also,

[url]http://natfka.blogspot.com/2014/04/an-inside-look-at-limited-edition-void.html[/url]



Looks like they changed their mind.

No, no, oncve again. The only production facilities are the UK and USA. (latest half year results: [url]http://investor.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/2013-14-Press-statement-final-released.pdf[/url])

Now the made in china may very well be in relation to the box it came in, printed, cut in china and shipped to the uk/usa for putting the model in.

As for the price, well yes of course we would love cheaper stuff and re-casts should be a fraction of the price. GW profit is only 13% of their revenues, that means that the overwhelming revenue is just covering costs. To put it another way, for every box of scions you buy GW make £2.73. If GW cut prices across the board by 10%, fixed costs remain the same, their profit drops to 3% or 63p per box of scions.

They cannot really afford to drop prices much more. Certainly, they might be able to do things internally to improve efficiences and stuff.

But consider the costs of GW (or any manufacturer/retailer) and the small reproduction.

The copier requires no original talent, but enough opporutintly/raw materials to copy the item and send it out by post. Their costs are the postage, the raw materials.

GW needs to pay people to come up with the original content, they need to pay for a place for them to work, they need to pay for heating, lighting, electricity, they need to pay for all the raw materials, the national insurance of the employees, the pension contributions of the employees, tax to the governement, public liability insurance, they need to cover the costs of the sales teams, the manufactures, the finance department, the web team, the play testers, the legal team (whether or not that is effective use of money is not for this discussion), the board of directors, staff training and development, writers, editors and a whole host of other things.