Sooner or later it had to happen: Durgin Paint Forge is now sailing in the perilous seas haunted by pirates!
Some days ago, one of our mighty followers contacted us to warn about a Chinese recaster that is selling (among other stuff) our products. Or, better, fake versions of our products.
I thought a bit about how to deal with this issue, because as you may imagine even just talking about recasters is a kind of free advertise for them.
We all know that piracy is a problem, and we discussed a lot about it, but I'm not here to make a classic angry post about it: it's not my style.
Rather, I think that we can see the bright side of this situation, because after all there is always a bright side (well, at least if you're not watching Death Note: the live action).
1) If somebody recasts some of your stuff, it means that you're doing it right.
As Wilde pointed out, the worst thing that could happen is to be ignored.
I confess I was worried about piracy: everyone has been recasted but us. I was pissed of: how did they dare to ignore us?!
Now that we entered in the "pirated club", I finally have the sensation that we are making great stuff: after all, nobody would spend time and efforts to recast something that is worthless, am I right?
2) Enlarge your audience.
The "talking means advertising" stuff works in both directions. I don't know Chinese language, (I barely know English!) so it's difficult to make our stuff known in that huge reality. Chinese pirates help us to be known also in China, for example.
Surely, they gain unfair profits from our work, but I think that among those X individuals that see their clearly fake miniatures, some of them could think "Wow, I didn't know about these guys, let's buy some original stuff!". Maybe I would never reach those customers, without piracy.
Am I too optimist? Maybe, I am, but I think that the best way to deal with piracy is...
3) Accept the evil.
I'm a naive person, for sure. But as we say here in Italy, "I'm not born yesterday". The market is a dangerous place without laws and rights, where people fight to brutally claim the final victory against their competitors. It's just like a normal all you can eat buffet, in a fancy holiday resort, after all. My dwarves have to claim this supremacy at all costs: if they won't and fail because of a bunch of Chinese recasters, It will be my fault. Chinese recasters make the game harder, but after all when the game becomes harder, the toughest gamers begin to play!
4) People know the difference.
You are not stupid. You know the difference between a fake product and an original one. I'm not talking only about the quality of cast and resin, but in general the long term difference between buying an original product and buying a fake one: with the fake one, generally you save some money (which is good, cynically speaking) but with the original one, you are investing also in future products.
However, if you want to buy a fake miniature, I really can't avoid it: it's business, after all.
I can decrease my products cost by 50%, but there will always be a recaster that will propose you 50+x% sale.
If you've bought a fake one, or you will buy it because of reason, I hope that you will see the brightness of our ideas, under that creepy and badly casted resin. If you see it, if you see how cool our ideas are, toast to us, at least.
Uh, and please be careful the next time you turn on your car, you never know what can happen.
Never, ever forget that we are Italians.
5) I like pirates.
When I think about piracy, I can't help but imagining a crew of colorful individuals, sailing the seas in search for treasures. "Veers to the mould side!" "Fasten the resinsail!!" "Picks the picklock!!".
Funny people, the pirates.
I know that probably they actually are not how I imagine them, but I confess that there is some kind of adventurous in this situation that makes me feel like I'm living a proper Quest!
Shall I defeat the pirates? Or shall they succeed?!
Only you can decide!
Seeing piracy in these terms it's way better!
So, here we are my friends, sailing this new sea full of dangers and troubles. But our ship is solid and the wind is blowing our sails!
Soon, I will give you fresh news about the Second Government range: time is running up, and the Kickstarter event is coming!!
Will you join our crew, in this new adventure?!
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