View Single Post
  #11  
Old November 2nd, 2006, 07:04 AM
Euryon's Avatar
Euryon Euryon is offline
Master Custom Creator
 
Join Date: May 10, 2006
Location: * Ohio
Posts: 1,143
Euryon is surprisingly tart
Ok, I'll try and address some of the questions posed:

What do we charge?
Well this depends on how we sell the items. If they are one by one, we set a reserve equal to the expenditure, and allow a price war to begin (we hope). If we sell as a "Wave", then, I don't know, this would have to be heavily discussed. As a starting point, I'll suggest a reserve equal to the total expenditure (lets assume $20 for now), and hope a price war breaks out.

Who would sell it?
Something that needs to be discussed. What I can say for "fairness", is that it would be a long-standing trusted member of this site, someone who hasn't entered the competition, and someone willing to do so. If this takes off, we can start asking for volunteers, or approaching people who fit the criteria.

Would a new eBay account need to be made?
I shouldn't think so.

The problem of over-powered customs selling better than balanced customs.
This depends on whether we go for "saleability" or quality. If possible, I suggest going for both. As the idea is to produce 4 or 5 good quality customs, we could make something similar to "Orm's Return"; high powered heroes. As experienced custom makers here, i'm sure we could produce a set of 150+ point figures that are powerful, and therefore marketable, but not imbalanced. It's something to aim for, at least.

Being uncomfortable with the idea.
That is, of course, your perogative. As yet the proceeds may go to charity, the upkeep of this site, towards a prize from housemouse... I can understand people seeing ethical problems with custom sales; but this would be as legitimate a custom sale as there could be. However, it is optional, so it's completely up to each individual.

What figures will be used?
This all depends. I would be willing to part with any figure I currently own, from well painted Warhammer figures to Mage Knight. I'm expecting stipulations to be entrants must provide their own figure and send it to the centralized eBay account holder for sale, if they "win".

Out of interest - why is this referred to as a factory? It's a one-off competition, not a production line...

Will the figures be balanced to Barracks/Halls standards?
I would hope they would be of that calibre. This is something that needs more in-depth discussion following a concencus of approval. Halls/Barracks judges quality, and I don't believe quality and power are mutually exclusive. Jotun is powerful, Charos is powerful, Braxas is powerful - and they're all fairly balanced.

What are the legal ramifications?
I'm not sure what's referred to by "custom factory"; but I think it's an unfair name for this project. It implies mass-production and low-expenditure/high-income. This is meant to be a 1-off competition. Nought more. Legal ramifications - Truth has ok'd it. Hasbro want a disclaimer on all customs. Custom selling is legal on eBay. We need not advertise it as a Heroscapers product, nor put any link to heroscapers.com in the sale (unless Truth wanted it), all we would do is use heroscapers.com webspace to discuss and hold the competition. I think the legal issues with that are minimal...

If you make a contest what will be the prize and how do you ensure the prize does not cost more than the auction?
The prize will need to be discussed. Such insurance cannot be given other than placing a reserve on the item(s) that matches the expenditure of shipping goods to the centralized eBay account. If figures don't sell, then that's tough. The eBayer who put the items up would be able to keep the items as collateral against paying for listing the items. This is a low-risk occurence though, IMO.

Is it worth it given the time and effort?
Maybe, maybe not. The way I see it, the absolute worst case scenario see's a competition produce at least 4 or 5 top quality new customs which fail to sell on eBay, leaving 4 or 5 scapers out of pocket by 5 bucks, and a single scaper out of pocket by $10, but bonus 4 or 5 custom figures. Those are risks entrants would have to take, I suppose. On the flipside, you gain prestige, honour, and potentially money/heroscape goods.

The problem of a brain-drain/skills shortage.
We have had several custom competitions before. The one I entered, sure, I devoted a lot of my custom time to my entry, but I still churned out other customs. Every entrant would be allowed to enter of their own free will; if they chose to continue producing regular customs, thats up to them, if they wish to spend 24 hours a day on the competition custom, that, too, is their democratic right.

On my command, fix bayonets.
Reply With Quote