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The seen and unseen issues with recasting
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Lieutenant-Emperor Corinthian Column
A hub for leftist wargamers. Also the official subreddit for Ogres (many people are saying this).
(To the admins I hope you don’t see fit to delete this as I hope sheds some light on why recasting is a no go on this sub and elsewhere, although I will understand if you do)
Clearly recasting is a contentious topic to be sure but one that pops up regularly, particularly during times of economic challenge as hobbyists look to save the most money. I thought it might be interesting to look at the impact of recasting as most places have a no discussion rule so I think a lot of people may not be aware of what the issues are or why artists, model makers, people involved heavily in the miniatures industry like me have an issue with it.
To start it’s important to clarify what I mean by recasting.
Recasting is a process whereby someone takes a pre-existing item, in this case a miniature on sprue, or parts of a miniature, and makes a cast of the item(s) which then lets them make the model again and again at a negligible cost.
Many countries or nation states have their own views on the legality of recreating IP for your own use; look up art works copying an original, fair use, fan fiction, digital media such as videos/music etc. for various industries takes on what you can and can’t do with IP. Generally though the legal approach in the western world is that if you are copying something you have already bought from the company for your own use, this is acceptable.
Making direct copies of items and selling the product that you don’t own the rights to is theft. This has been repeatedly proven worldwide in courts across multiple industries, various services, and countless products. To argue differently is factually wrong. Buying recast goods is for want of a better word, theft.
As you would expect the most common cause of recasting, and the most common reason that people don’t like their products being recast is down to money. The recaster wants to make it and the original seller wants to be the one that does that instead. The most common argument you will see in favour of recasting is that it’s not hurting anyone because they are a big business.
Target number one here is GW. I regularly see people justifying where they stand on recasting based purely on the fact that Games Workshop is a massive company and charges a premium for their miniatures. This is true, they do charge a lot, often above the rest of the industry for a similar weight in plastic, and this is also a fact. Without even going into an explanation about why GW costs more you need to understand that supporting recasting because you dislike GW also hurts the people you haven’t thought of; the little guy who isn’t charging as much.
There is a regular trend with recasting sites where they start with just GW and often take donated models from customers to make a mould out of, and they expand their stock. As they grow in size and renown on invite only sub Reddits and forums, they expand outward, maybe a model from Scibor, or Warlord, they are companies too right so what’s the harm? Well as the recasters grow again they start producing from individuals who make very limited money on the small range of busts or 75mm figures they produce, like Michael Kontraros Collectibles, or Raul Latorre. These are individuals who DO get hurt by this immoral and shady business practice (see theft).
I urge you to read Raul’s post below, and a call from Michael Kontraros to understand from people affected by the practice what issues you are causing.
In Raul’s case he is a one man company designing, developing, testing, making, and marketing his product which takes a lot of time for a slim margin. This time needs to be included in the end product’s price or it simply would not be possible for fantastic artists to be able to make these models. When someone manages to recast his model and dump it on the market incredibly cheap because they don’t have to cover any of the development cost, they can outsell the original designer 5 to one. These smaller companies and individuals that charge less often struggle to stay open as soon as their products start to be recast as they are already making such slim margins but are doing it because they have a passion for the industry!
Let’s put it this way, if you would object to your stuff being stolen, then don’t do it to someone else. In addition, if everyone in the hobby had the attitude of just buying knock offs then there wouldn’t be a hobby as no one could afford to make the miniatures in the first place.
The other big argument often thrown around is that the hobby is expensive and it’s your right to get whatever you want as cheap as possible. This is somewhat tied into the above section where I would question why your right trumps the right of the person who created the item to benefit from their hard work?
I do agree though, the hobby is bloody expensive and a lot of us spend more than we need on models we don’t actually need, it is a rare hobbyist who doesn’t have a pile of shame. It is also most definitely your right to get models as cheap as you can, within the confines of the law. Support your LGS, they often sell cheaper than GW. Find a bargain second hand, nothing wrong with picking up pre-loved miniatures. Look for different models and game systems as there are a swathe of designers and model companies out there that sell amazing products that you probably haven’t heard of but are competitively priced. Play proxy games with your friends until you can responsibly buy the models you want; using old soap bottles and cans is how several iconic vehicles exist in the 40k world right now! WORK THROUGH YOUR PILE OF SHAME! There are plenty of ways of saving money within the hobby as again, and I cannot stress this enough, you have no actual need to purchase plastic/resin/metal models. You are not going suffer because you didn’t buy a 2000 point GW army in one go instead of working at it.
My right to this or that gets thrown around a lot but then just drifts lazily away when it comes someone else’s right that isn’t their own. I have been called (and will be again for this piece I am sure), a GW shill and fanboy, for pointing out that companies also have rights, and yours don’t trump theirs. The reason companies have rights is because it sucks to have your stuff stolen (see the previous section). As mentioned in the previous section as well, what about the rights of companies that are a 1 man band? When in your mind do you justify them from moving from ‘we shouldn’t do this’ to ‘they are big and bad it doesn’t matter’?
A somewhat relevant analogy is that it would be far cheaper for me to buy a stolen phone because it doesn’t affect me right? It’s my right to have it cheaper so that’s what I will do! What if it’s your phone that gets stolen? Again we are back to the fact that theft hurts all those on the receiving end, I implore you to stop justifying it solely because it benefits you.
Aside from the cost saving options I mentioned previously you can vote with your wallets. If you think something is too expensive then just don’t buy it. Support manufacturers that you value the products of rather than benefiting from their work but simultaneously complaining about it.
When any manufacturer asks for feedback, give them a sensible, reasoned response. As someone who has worked on a sales team that looks at customer feedback, it is all read and studied. There is literally 0 point asking for feedback and chucking it, it takes more effort (and therefore cost) to go through the process and do nothing off the back of it. Screaming into the void about faceless corporations achieves nothing. Stealing from a company then complaining about why they don’t listen to you and why prices are so high achieves nothing.
Recasting doesn’t belong in the hobby, call it out if you see it. Personally I won’t take commissions from them, nor play games with recasts or people who are using them.
I have a great deal of friends and colleagues who work in many different areas of the industry who are impacted by the cost of recasting. There are also artists who post about the issues they face on social media, it’s not too hard to find people who are impacted.
I have access to (soon to be removed I am sure) several invite only forums and websites that deal in these products. I keep track of them so that I can see what products are being made and what they look like. This helps me identify recasts so that I can turn down the models from commission requests. It also helps me identify people trying to hide behind the anonymity of the internet to get away with theft and then cry wolf when they are called out on it.
For the benefit of those who may not understand why GW costs so much (and again I would love it to cost less to bring it more in line with other companies in the industry), this section is an incredibly inadequate but rough breakdown about the cost of running a company.
There are a few big areas that GW has to spend money; GW employs over 1000 staff from over 100 people on the design team (sculpting, painting, concept work, writers, book design, art work, packaging design etc) through to cleaners, retail, charity work, the School League etc. Each of these people deserves a wage and GW pays that and that is really not cheap. Each of these people have their own opinions that makes up the whole picture of GW so maybe think about them before you brand the company as a faceless evil that doesn’t deserve your time or money.
Stores and production floorspace are the second biggest cost. GW is one of the only miniatures companies to have a vast number of stores across the UK and expanding through Europe and America (over 500 in total). They also produce the vast majority of their products in Nottingham, keeping manufacturing local without outsourcing everything to the lowest bidder. Even if YOU don’t use the stores it doesn’t mean they are free to maintain, and it categorically does help to expand the interest in the miniatures hobby by having widespread availability across the world. There are generations of hobbyists that wouldn’t exist if they didn’t have a local store that got them into the hobby.
A third ongoing cost that I can’t quantify as it is not my area of expertise is the cost of the machinery and tooling although I understand it is significantly less than the previous two. As the hobby grows and the clamour for more frequent releases and greater demand at each release continues, more machinery is needed to keep up with demand. Each of these machines can cost hundreds of thousands of pounds and then has ongoing running costs. Each different plastic sprue also has a correlating metal mould that is used to make the sprue. These also cost tens of thousands of pounds each to make in the detail and durability required.
Don’t get me wrong, GW makes a lot of money but we need to stop trying to pretend that they have 0 outlay and that every decision they make is just to wring every penny out of you in a plot of machiavellian proportions.
Yes GW makes a lot of money, but it also grows the hobby we love, and a LOT of people get to do a job they love because of the money GW makes. Every time you support recasting to get at GW you are joining a group that indirectly effects over 1000 jobs (and increasing) and potentially stunt the growth of the hobby. Again, if everyone took the recast approach, there would be nothing to recast because the hobby wouldn’t exist.
TLDR for the whole post: Recasting is theft. You are hurting more people than just a faceless company when you support recasting. Your rights aren’t better than anyone else's. There is no moral grey area here.
As a final point my name is Ed and I paint miniatures for a living, I don’t try and hide this. I don’t hide my zero tolerance on recasting so to the user who contacted my work to try and get me fired because I said “Shame it’s a recast” on your post, fantastic detective work. It was interesting to see that you deleted your post to hide my comment and posted your same models again afterwards, got something to hide?
Target number one here is GW. I regularly see people justifying where they stand on recasting based purely on the fact that Games Workshop is a massive company and charges a premium for their miniatures. This is true, they do charge a lot, often above the rest of the industry for a similar weight in plastic, and this is also a fact.
I choose to stop it here and call it a day. There's nothing beyond this passage, nope.
What about discontinued models or forgeworld recast?
I have grenadiers for my Death Korps of Krieg, not because of price but because I love them and can't get official.
And then I have a Knight Atrapos as it's an amazing model but at $490 nzd? ...and that's the cheap knight for forge world.
Original comment: Can I get your thoughts one what is wrong here? I do genuinely want to see your point of view.
Edit: Upon re-reading your comment I genuinely don't even know what you took issue at? GW is expensive for their weight in plastic, and they are also the number one company that has their models recast.
I'm not paying for a full kit of two aleguzzlers just to get the peasant, fuck outta here
The people paying $6-$22 for a pdf from the Black Library for a single story are also rubes.
This is a niche, bourgeois, hobby and the obsessiveness about recasts and other costs is proof of it. Buy whatever you can afford (or pirate), wherever you can, so there’s more people playing the hobby. That is ultimately good for everyone
Yelling about recasting always reminds me of the argument that people downloading pirated ebooks doesn’t really represent lost sales because they’re probably people who wouldn’t have bought it in the first place, but here there’s not even the “well, it might normalize the practice and eventually have a material effect” argument because the recasts are a different product of generally lower quality
This is the issue with Muh copywrite for the workers, gw is a big company that I am sure sells its products at three times the costs if not more, even if we imagine fake merchandise to be popularized to the point 1/3 of the player base uses exclusively illegal products the company will still make profits, although even people who by recasts tend to pay gw for some other products so the whole issue can't hurt the workers more than the ones who still their value
who the fuck is outside my house scraeming "BUY FROM GW" show yourself, coward. I will never buy GW.
I’m not reading that and you can’t make me.
As a final point my name is Ed and I paint miniatures for a living, I don’t try and hide this. I don’t hide my zero tolerance on recasting so to the user who contacted my work to try and get me fired because I said “Shame it’s a recast” on your post, fantastic detective work. It was interesting to see that you deleted your post to hide my comment and posted your same models again afterwards, got something to hide?
it's always fun to imagine the weird argument that precipitates these kinds of posts but he gave us that too.
I personally buy GW solely because I prefer to shop in person, like a weirdo. I can't imagine caring about what anyone else does.
I will recast everything GW because fuck them. Between the artificial scarcity on female Stormcast models, the ridiculous price gouging on currency conversion for forgeworld, and the fact that recast is often the only way to get a good quality version of a finecast model? Fuck that shit, recasts all day every day.
I buy recasts of smaller boutique stuff if it's out of print. If you sold out your entire first run and can't/won't do another you're not losing a sale anyway so shut up.
I know we try to keep the cringeposting to a minimum but this is some next level bootlicking shite.
Edit: God, deliver us from the fury of "communists" who believe in intellectual property
Recast is nice, but since I had a 3D printer.... miniatures goes BRRRr
uhhhhhhhhhh now break it down for me
Recast bad. Hurt GW. Me paint for money; know model worth. Gib monies to GW. Not steal. Recasting = theft.
That's as far as I could break it down.
In an ideal society, sure. If everyone gets enough to live and does not have to worry about their livelihoods, about being able to afford to continue creative endeavours, copyright law would be very questionable (and large parts of its modern editions sponsored by disney absolutely are already).
But that's not the society we have right now . In a capitalist society, copyright law does have it's place. And you can go on about "we don't know if it would affect people", but we... kinda do. Copyright and intellectual property law didn't spring from nothing, it sprung from people reprinting books all over the place (often in cheaper versions than the original authors and publishers could). Was this time one you'd wanna be a creative in? Facing the pressures of capitalism, but with no way to reliably use your creativity to help you face them?
Dismantle capitalism first ; act in ways ideal in its absense second . In an ideal world, unions might be unnecessary since there wouldn't be capitalists to unionise against. Encouraging people not to join them in the world we have is still misguided at best .
As much as having the hobby be cheaper would be nice and possibly better for it, it's ultimately a luxury item and noone's holding anyones livelihood hostage by charging the prices they do for hobby stuff. In the face of that, the arguments in favour of recasting are just... really, really bad.
Like, maybe a society where "Your prices are too high for my tastes, so I'll pay a thief to steal your stuff instead" is a legitimate course of action is something you want. But if it's not? "But I want this and I don't want to pay this much" is... just not a good point. So what? Miniature games aren't a basic right or a necessity. For the supposed point of "But I don't like copyright law on principle ", see the first half (and in a capitalist society, being able to profit from your creative work... kinda is a right, and while reforming the bastardisation of the idea that copyright law has become is definitely a good idea, simply discarding it... isn't. Not yet. Not while the situation necessitating it persists.)
I don't find this argument convincing with regards to models that are out of print. Sure, it's a luxury item, but there is an upper limit to what I'm willing to spend on luxuries, as there is only so much utility to be had. As a result I'm not going to spend $150-$200+ on eBay for an official GW Throgg model, for example, when I can't even use it as a game piece, and would only be using it for display. And that's if you can find it at all, because sometimes they're just not being listed.
In that situation, when the original company will no longer sell me the model, I will just go to someone who will, and at a reasonable price for the quality.
You can say "it's their choice not to sell you that model" if you want, but that cuts both ways. If they won't sell it to me, but I want to buy it, then I'm just gonna go to someone who will.

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