No, it’s up to US, as a group, as to whether they are or aren’t… Not much in the way of solidarity around the modeling community though… Except in “We want ALL the extra detail-parts in ONE box!” crowd. Speaking for myself, I’d rather get it cheap and THEN decide what details I want to pay for or scratchbuild, rather than the other way around…
You’re completely missing the point. Do you know how much profit, if any, Fujimi is making on their F-22 kit? How much tooling cost do they have to amortize? What is their breakeven point?
If Fujimi doesn’t sell enough kits at prices necessary to make a profit, they’re the ones that go bankrupt, not the modelers. Units sold alone don’t equate to profitability.
I’m reminded of Chevrolet’s long-rumored strategy for the Corvette - they always built one less than they think they sell. That’s how they maintain pricing power.
Mark
Not everyone has your level of scratchbuilding skill. Some of us LIKE the aftermarket bits because we would rather finish a kit every few months, instead of a kit a year. When the bobbles are in the box, it makes our lives easier. Good luck scratch building a whole airplane when the kit manufacturers stop making new kits because nobody will pay new kit prices. Revell, Fujimi, Academy, Hasegawa are not in business to make US happy. They are in business to make their stockholders happy. They pop a new kit out because they think they can get a return on their investment. Not because someone on FSM whined enough that the monogram 1/48 B-17 is old. For us it is a hobby, for them it is a business.
If you want the kit, pay the money or wait to see it on a table at a show. If you don’t want the kit, why are we even having this discussion? I buy what I want, I build what I buy. That is probably why my stash is around 20-30 kits at the moment all of which I will likely build. Compare that to some of you who have hundreds of kits, many of which you have no intent of ever building. I guess when you maintain an inventory that large with such low turnover kit prices are a real issue. So yes, maybe I do have too much money. I have $150 a month I will allow myself to spend on my hobby. Do I always spend it? Nope. But it is there if I need it.
And no, I don’t need a $229 badge. It’s my money, I don’t need to ask anyone’s permission to spend it.
C’mon… You can’t sit there and tell me you LIKE paying these kinda prices… I know you DO pay them, but I don’t think its because y’all are worried about a company’s bottom-line… It’s because you wanna build the best model you can… Just with the least amount of actual work and imagination…
And the “Not everybody has scratchbuilding skills” arguement is weak… Fact is, most do, they just don’t develope them simply because someone else has already done the work… Fact is, if a “cheat” is available for anything, it’ll be used… Once it’s used, it’s relied on… After it’s been relied on, it’s the “norm”, and once it becomes the norm, it’s standard…
I don’t LIKE paying $2.00 for paint. I do it. I don’t like going to work either, but I do that too. It costs what it costs. many times I pull my kits off the consignment pile at the LHS and pay less than $20. However, if I want the newest kit and I want it now I know that means I have to pay the money. No, I don’t give two craps about the company’s bottom line. I do give a crap about building and buying good kits. I don’t really like filling and sanding.
If I need to scratch something I can. However, if I can save a weeks worth of modeling time by paying $5 for a resin bit so what? If it reaches the same goal it is hardly cheating. What is your time worth to you? Is it wrong to buy aftermarket decals? or is that “cheating” too? I could spend hours on the computer researching and putting together my own sheet and then finding a way to print them. Or I could pay $10 and save myself a lot of headache.
Sorry, short of stealing someone else’s work without paying them I don’t see much as far as modeling ethics.
I do. I want model companies to make reasonable profits so they can stay in business and reinvest profits in research and new tooling.
Eventually the market dictates what products will be produced and offered for sale.
As much as people want to complain about $60 1/72 airplanes, as long as enough people are willing to pay the price, then that’s what it’s going to be.
Mark
I think lets all calm down and watch the Videos on Hobby Link Japan’s Video site , where they visit companies like Fine Molds, Studio 27, etc.
Very interesting videos showing the whole design and production process plus interviews with the Bosses, etc.
Guess that’s where the disconnect is between you and I … I don’t care if a kit takes me an hour or a year to get done, and why I have 20 or so kits on the bench, lol… It’s the journey, not the destination with me… As for what my time is worth, well… Nothing… I get paid the same whether I work or not… Plus side of retirement, I reckon… I can be at the bench 365 if I choose…
Whether or not AM decals is cheating, no… Not anymore than changing a paint scheme, and anyway, that’s not the same as being held hostage to what a manufacturer puts in the box… You have the option of using the kit decals or going to the rack… Should be the same with a basic kit… What’s in the box… If there isn’t enough in there for you, you should have the option of going to the rack or scratchbuilding the extras… Either way, the choice is yours, rather than the manufacturer… Puts the power back into the hands of the modeler… Ain’t that where it’s supposed to be?
No there isn’t much in the way of solidarity but that’s fine with me. We all have different interests, economic circumstances, skill levels, and amounts of time we have availabe to model. This battle cry to band together and boycott it every time someone releases a kit they feel is over-priced kills me. Why should I boycott something based on someone else’s individual preference?
If you’re happy building old Monogram kits you pick up for $5 at a swap meet. good on 'ya, I have guys in my club who do just that. If you want to drop $150 bucks on Trumpeter’s latest 1/32 offering and then another $250 in aftermarket for it, good on 'ya. I have guys in my club who do that too. They both enjoy their models so that’s all that matters.
Bottom line: this is a hobby if you feel $68 is justified, buy it. If you don’t, leave it on the shelf, no real dilemma here.
Gocha, Lufty… Vote of “Present” recorded…
[dto:] …I can’t get on my high horse. I whine about some of the same sticker shock and walk away…then yesterday I plunk down $40 for an Aires RF-4C camera bay for my 1:48 Hasegawa kit that cost me about the same! [proplr]
Nah, that ain’t the same thing, Hutch… You bought something for 40.00 that you didn’t GET with the kit… You had the option, and that’s cool with me…
I don’t care what is in the kit. a 1/72 kit should not cost more than $20. I am sure someone will come in and try to defend this ridiculous price, and they are welcome to, but this is just price gouging, pure and simple. Using a fancier box and color instructions to justify these prices is just dumb. But as long as they can find people to pony up for these kits, they will continue to cost too much.
You’re assuming that the kit costs less than $20 for Fujimi to manufacture. The fact is that none of us really know how much it cost Fujimi to research, engineeer, tool, mold, package and ship this particular kit. I’m not defending excessive high prices, but some kits are just going to cost more than others, that’s just a fact of life.
Model companies aren’t charities. They have to make a profit to stay in business. As long as there are modelers willing to pay $68 bucks for a 1/72 kit then that defines the market. It’s just simple economics, If you don’t like it, or can’t afford it, nobody is forcing you to buy it.
I’d like to own a Ferrari, but that doesn’t mean Ferrari is obligated to build one in my price range.
Personally, I have no intention of buying one. I build mostly Navy aircraft and really don’t have any interest in an Air Force plane, so the price is irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. If I was passionate about F-22’s, then I guess I would have to decide if I could justify the price. I think the most I’ve acutally paid for a 1/72 kit was $30 something for a Trumpeter RA-5C, but it was something I really wanted and was willing to pay the price. I’m actually a big fan of the old 1/72 Airfix and Revell kits and get a lot of satisfaction from adding my own scratch-built details.
Mark
I think I’ve been approaching this from the wrong angle… I mean, ok… I’m not gonna change, ya know? If I won the frikkin’ Powerball for Eleventy-million dollars tomorrow, I’d still buy a 12.00 Revellogram kit rather thana 50.00 Tamigawa or 200.00 Trumped-upeter and scratch-build the parts I needed or wanted… I don’t think I’d enjoy the “kit that has everything” nearly as much, since there’s nothing special about it… Nothing in it that makes it “Mine” and mine alone, that nobody else has… THAT’S why I am the way I am… I always got beat by the guys who could scratch-build, and I couldn’t let that go… I HAD to “Out-Catholic the Pope”, as it were (Not making this a relgion issue, just so happens that I’m Catholic and have no other common frame of reference)… Shep Paine was/is my “hero” and the guy I set out to beat… Never did, but not for lack of trying, lol…
The definitive “Creative Gizmologist”, a term he coined to describe himself and one which I’ve hung on myself… Because it’s true…
Anyway, he always went to the scrap-box, the old kit, the sheet, shape, & strip bags, and turned good, inexpensive kits into spectacular works of art… I mean, he used the one-piece 1/32 Monogram figures in some of his dioramas, notably the M-16 Half-track, the StuG IV, Panzerspahwagen, and many others… Figures that most would pooh-pooh in a second… I followed his techniques and advice, learned what he taught, and was rewarded for it…
But this kind of work, the amount of time one has to spend learning it, well… it’s not for everybody… But that didn’t stop folks from still wanting the brass ring… They just went another direction and started demanding the makers do more and more of that kind of work FOR them… “Hang the expense” was the theme here… It wasn’t about building, it was about winning, and winning costs money…
Anyway, I fell further and further back in pack, unil it became pointless to even try to compete… I couldn’t, there was no way I could bring myself to add 50 or 75 bucks worth of ‘stuff’ onto a 10.00 kit… I spent probably about a dollar per kit in raw material… Now I ain’t talking about guys who bought stuff to correct what was wrong with a kit… A lot of kits NEED accurizing, although, not many need it to the extent of that which some go… Dial-for dial and switch-for-switch cockpits were a personal satisfaction thing, and judges didn’t care about that. They only care that, “if something is open, there better be something in there”… At least, that was my approach to judging models… I didn’t walk around the tables with the operating handbooks, or a binder full of reference photos, but I DID look inside, and I shined a light in there too, if I could (I had a “Chamber Light” right-angle fiber-optic-exstension for my Mini-Mag… Really!)
Anyway, I pretty much left competition altogether because of the kit prices and the fact that my kind of work takes too long to acomplish to compete with the guys that can knock out 30 or 40 kits a year since everything they need/want is in the box, and it’s just a matter of money… Kind of like the car guys, the ones that build their hot rod or muscle car with their own hands in their own garage, with their own tools, scrounge junkyards, swap-meets, and flea-markets for months and even years trying find the right part, turning their knuckles into hamburger, hand-rubbing 12 coats of laquer onto a machine that’s totally, 100% theirs, and then getting beat out at the car show by the guy who took a clapped-out frame and body to Boyd Coddington’s shop, said “I want a hot rod”, and opened his checkbook… Or called Orange County Choppers, and told Paul Sr., “I want a chopper”… Y’all following me? There’s nothing of “them” in it…
On the upside, Eduard is probaly the closest to “getting it right” with their “Weekend” edtions and the like… Those allow us Old School guys the chance at a new kit with new tooling to build, yet on a much more affordable level, and still whittle away at a chunk of plastic and stretched sprue that will eventually be a throttle quadrant and trim wheels… But more makers need to do this kind of stuff, IMNSHO… I can sand a main gun tube without leaving a flat spot over the seams, I don’t need an aluminum gun tube, so I don’t want to pay an extra 25-30.00 bucks for a StuG that has that and few PE parts that’re mostly unidentifiable… (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Tamiya… 54.00 for a 3/4-inch long barrel and a couple PE screens?) I’d rather take that 25-30.00 bucks and buy another of your kits…
So anyhow… That’s it for me… I’m still gonna build the classics, still gonna go “old School” and I doubt that you’ll ever see my work on a table, except maybe the “Display only” one… But… if you see a guy in wheelchair hanging around one, with a flashlight that has a funny right-angle attachment on it and taking notes, you might wanna buy me a cuppa coffee… In the meantime, my “door” is always open for you that wanna learn a thing ot two about being a cheapska… err, Frugal Modeler…
I love you guys’ work, and will always admire a well-executed piece, regardless of how you got it there…
EOM
[dto:] Hans, that is twice I’ve ditto’d you on this thread. I think you sum it up quite well. Your Hot Rod analogy is spot on.
[whstl]Keep an eye open for a crowd with torches and pitchforks, k? [t$t]
Guys, Don’t look but Fujimi just issued another price shocker kit.
1/72 F-35B Ligthning II STOVL.
Good luck for anyone finding a new Aircraft or Military kit-release in Japan for under $20+.
Not sure how some people here expect a kit to become cheaper after the importer bought it and paid for shipment, etc.
It is a buyers market out there and the kit is aimed at the japanese modelers who will pay that price as it is reasonable in Japan. 2nd-hand kits for $2~3, etc don’t exist in Japan(or atleast never found any during my travels there).
It is a Hobby and people will buy and build what gives them the most pleasure.
If another competitor can come out with almost similiar work for much lower price.
I don’t know what is the reason for the so call Research or new tool justification?
Those who bought it and think they are paying a justification price, probably a paying off for the high yen and manufacturer high pay check.
I hope Fujimi will just go bankrupt and this will teach them a lesson for failing to keep up globilisation.
Harshamn II.
Wait till you see what Hasegawa charges for their F-22 kit.
Looking at the kit instructions over on Hobby-Search the Fujimi kit looks like a very nice kit, with removable engines and engine trolley, etc.
Other makers sell in similar price-range according to Hobby-Search, HLJ, R10, etc.
Said that Fujimi was never considered a manufacturer of cheap kits.
With the Dollar now barely buying 80Yen now is not a good time to buy japanese products.