Shopping on Temu

[limburger 22353xp 2]

you say ‘GW is ripping off people’ … but how sure are we about that ?
Without a breakdown of costs and their margins you can’t be sure.
For all we know they do a pretty damned good job at setting a price that is reasonable for the amount of effort involved (and the overhead they have). I wished they made better games, because I know they can do it if they wanted to but I also know that isn’t what they are here for.

These copycats can afford to sell at 1/3 cost *because* they didn’t need to pay someone to create the original design and do the work to turn that into a mini that could be produced at scale. Let’s not ignore that there is a huge difference between a design that you can print a few items of and one that needs to produced in the thousands with zero human control …

Temu and Alibaba (Etsy. Ebay and Amazon as well because there are plenty of questionable source on there as well) have done nothing to protect consumers from buying things from sources that have rather questionable ethics. They rely on things being soo cheap that the cost of sueing them quickly outstrips any losses on our end.

One cannot compete against a platform that saves cost by ignoring quality control and copyright laws (to say nothing about worker rights …), because anything you do by following the law will always be more expensive.

btw: if you were into the hobby before GW existed then you ought to know what GW does what it does … so you really shouldn’t be surprised that they sell minis with games attached (unlike other companies …).

We should not need to go over descriptions in webshops with a magnifying glass to spot the lawyer speak that allows them to sell something that was never meant to be the thing the title claimed it was.

Yes it is ‘ha ha’ funny when someone sells the empty box of some expensive item to someone you dislike for whatever reason.
It’s not funny when that buyer is an elder relative who got duped simply because she wanted to buy something nice for her kids.

We need consumer protection to help those who can’t protect themselves from falling into these traps.
And that includes the future versions of us as well  …

And we as a community need to look out for our fellow beings as that helps us all.

/rant

[horati0nosebl0wer 20488xp 2]

I’d say that there is a cultural issue in the mix that may be the crux of the matter. ” Tofu-dreg project ” or ” tofu buildings ” (Chinese: 豆腐渣工程) in construction and the idea of, essentially, selling polished turds. The baked in cultural norm of Caveat Emptor and praise of “shrewd salesmanship” over stupid consumer is dialed up to 11.

Praise can be heaped on the price of a product, but if you’re buying minis through these sites its the same as if you went to a reputable restaurant that used “gutter oil” to cook the food (look that up and feel good that you don’t live in the PRC).

Avoiding the issue is easy with the local hobby community as has been mentioned. Buy local when you can. Paint as diligently as possible. Play hard and have fun.

[limburger 22353xp 1]

there’s definitely a cultural issue here where some countries appear to thrive on scamming everyone just because they can.

And it sucks.(period)

There’s so much hate and evil in the world that I definitely don’t want to deal with that kind of attitude in a hobby environment.

I wish there were viable stores in my area that actually sold more than the Warhammer and CCG’s.
So glad that there are decent webshops out there, but nothing beats seeing the stuff in real life.

That’s another thing I dislike about temu and similar websites. They lack a soul. It’s just a place to buy crap in boxes.

[Wolfie65 1270xp 0]

Speaking of ripping off someone else’s IP’s: The very first Citadel miniatures I ever came across were multipart metal medievals, very obviously inspired by Monty Python movies. This would have been in the late 1970s or very early 80s, in a full-page ad in some magazine. I don’t remember if it was White Dwarf – before it became an in-house only publication – Dungeon, Dragon or something else. So I suppose we might say that Citadel miniatures got their start by ripping off Monty Python.

Their entire universe is VERY heavily influenced by Michael Moorcock and John Tolkien, their High and Dark Elves are basically Moorcock’s Melnibonéans, their concept of Chaos is pretty much a combination of Moorcock and Lovecraft, their Tyranids are a clear and direct ripoff of Swiss artist H.R. Giger’s Aliens.

Are GW paying royalties to any of these people ? Doubt it.

The idea of an undying God-Emperor guiding mankind isn’t a GW original, either, the German Science Fiction series Perry Rhodan, published continuously on a weekly basis since 1961 and, as far as I know, still going, beat them to that punch by a cool 2 decades.

So GW have done quite a lot of ripping, not to mention dissing and, quite frankly, mocking their very own customer base.

While it is, as stated, crucial to pay VERY close attention when shopping on Temu, I do not find their stuff to be ‘polished turds’ at all. For example, I got a very nice old-fashioned writing set from them for about $20, complete with quill, ink well, sealing wax, stamp, and ink, which would have cost me well over $100 IF – and that’s a huge if – I would be able to find something even remotely similar at a local store. Which I can’t, because we have lost all art supply stores. There are none.

[limburger 22353xp 1]

and Tolkien ‘ripped off’ old Norse mythology … 😉

I’d argue it was more ‘inspired by’. The original Rogue Trader was a mix of whatever Sci Fi or Comic books had inspired the writers.

The challenge is deciding when something is a ‘rip off’ and when it is a parody/inspiration.
There are very few original ideas, so if you dig deep enough you’re going to find that there was an earlier source that did the same thing.

It’s not always realistic to expect royalties for others using your ideas. The moment you quantify that you just know someone is going to skirt the line and abuse the heck out of it as well, because any industry lives by the abuse of rules like this.

[pagan8th 13759xp 2]

I know that Tolkien used Norse Mythology as inspiration… because he said so himself. He didn’t cut/paste Norse myths into his own work. That’s not ripped off.

Star Wars used WW2 dogfights as inspiration for the TIE vs X-Wing battles. R2 and 3PO are essentially the two peasants who tell the story of like in the the Seven Samurai. The Magnifcent Seven is a reskin of the Seven Samurai. Does that mean that Star Wars and Magnificent Seven ripped off Seven Samurai?

[Wolfie65 1270xp 1]

@limburger – Tolkien did not ‘rip off’ Norse mythology. Norse mythology is an integral part of the racial, spiritual and cultural fabric and consciousness of the Germanic people – of whom Tolkien was a part. You cannot rip off something that was yours from birth.

Re: consumer protection – who, pray tell, is going to implement this consumer protection ? The same people who told everyone for several years to get injected with a sterilizing, mutilating, DNA-altering compound ?

[Wolfie65 1270xp 0]

@pagan8th – calling Star Wars a ripoff is being kind. It’s simplistic crap, loaded with the typical Hollywood agenda.

[horati0nosebl0wer 20488xp 0]

@pagan8th I’ll point out a correction on Star Wars. It was indeed a ripoff of Kurosawa but for The Hidden Fortress. When they met in person later George Lucas made a sideways apology in person by saying he was “inspired” by the film.

I’ll say @Wolfie65 that Star Wars may seem simple but the story stands on its own. Look at the source inspiration and then compare to the style of film it was made to be.

[pagan8th 13759xp 0]

@horati0nosebl0wer I thought I read Seven Samurai somewhere for Star Wars, but you may be right.

[limburger 22353xp 0]

@Wolfie65
(1) Not all art needs to be super deep with loads of hidden meanings.

I’d also say that by using an existing story as the framework the entire thing became better than anything he could have invented on his own. (/me points at the latest starwars trilogy as proof of that … )

(2) Why the heck has Tolkiens’ origin have to do with it ?
I guess it means you would have hated his story if he was born in China and had done the same amount of research for his stories?

(3) who’s gonna implement consumer protection ?
The governments across the world of course and folk thinking with their brains instead of buying the cheapest crap they can find on scammy websites.
It’s never going to perfect, but almost anything is better than nothing at all.
It’s been one of the few things the EU has been good for.
I can’t help you if you keep voting for lizards and believe random conspiracy theories that have no basis in reality though …

Temu is proof that existing consumer protection is not enough of a threat, which means we got to do our job and not offer them any money until they do what is right and proper. At the same time we need our governments to implement actual punishments for breaking such laws. Fines are not going to cut it if companies like Amazon can simply factor them into their profit margins.

[Wolfie65 1270xp 0]

Tolkien’s origin has everything to do with it. A folk’s religion, mythology, customs, traditions, language, music etc. are all part of a whole, it’s their blood, their soul, their DNA. As a person of Germanic DNA, Tolkien felt naturally drawn to Norse mythology and used it as a baseline for his stories, much like a Japanese person would use Japanese mythology for theirs.

Not all art has to have hidden meanings, but mythology isn’t really ‘art’, it’s religion, history and science. Legends, sagas, fairy tales are lessons in code, not fantasy stories for kids. Watch some of Varg Vikernes’ videos on Odysee and CArolyn Emerick’s on archive.org. They’re pretty close.

Governments ? The same governments who are flooding their own countries with armies of hostile aliens as we speak ?

The same governments who send 3 police officers to deliver a warning to a 16-year old school girl for saying that Germany is her home and not just a place on a map ?

The same governments who arrest a 12-year old Scottish girl for defending her sister from an alien child molester ?

The same governments who raid people’s homes with SWAT teams for ‘liking’ the wrong Faceborg post ?

I’ll pass.

Btw, ‘voting’ is a scam and the system falsely called ‘democracy’ a fraud.

And, again, Temu isn’t a ‘scammy’ website, you just need to pay attention to what you’re doing. Which is ALWAYS a good idea, anyway, especially online. Like when you see TheirTube videos showing a snow leopard cub that ‘followed someone home’…..

[limburger 22353xp 1]

It must suck to be so close minded that you think folk can’t possibly ever want to think outside of the box.

By your reasoning neither Magnificent Seven nor Starwars should exist because they used references from outside of their creators’ culture.

Except they do.
And what’s even more fun is that once you know they were inspired by you can choose to look at those originals too. You get to widen your own horizon a bit as well.

Temu & co know damn well that they’re helping sell counterfeit products and breaking the laws as well as the intent of those laws. Telling people to ‘pay attention’ is admitting that you don’t care about anyone except yourself. You don’t realise that it is going to trip you up as well. Heck, it may have already cost you but you haven’t noticed it yet because some effects like toxic substances in the things you’ve bought can be subtle … (it may explain your silly conspiracy theories as well 😛 )

As such you shouldn’t be complaining about GW either, because if you had paid attention to their business model then you’d know what they are and what they are selling. Yet here you are whining about GW ‘ripping off’ things, when all they are doing is using their power to do what they want in this ‘free society’ of yours.

[Wolfie65 1270xp 0]

@horatiOnoseblOwer – Star Wars is a typical Steven Spielberg production.

It’s sharks crawling into boats, it’s Spielberg’s grandma pointing at the sky saying that she wants to phone home, it’s a handful of plucky, wisecracking heroes taking down the Gigantic&Evil™ GermanWarMachine®.

In short, it’s complete agenda-ridden mind rot bs.

[Wolfie65 1270xp 0]

@limburger – If you truly believe the things I have listed are ‘conspiracy theories’, you must live in a very, very dark hole under a lot of rocks. Time to pull your head out of the sand and smell the coffee.

Far from ‘whining’ about GW, I am simply stating facts. While their business model was always very aggressive, it wasn’t always monopolistic, White Dwarf even ran ads and reviews of other companies’ products in the beginning, believe it or not. You used to be able to special order all kinds of parts and oop miniatures from the Mail Order Trolls, IIRC, they stopped that practice sometime in the early Noughties. Citadel miniatures and GW games were never cheap – even in the very beginning in the late ’70s when Minifigs, Ral Partha, Grenadier, TSR and Avalon Hill were the biggest names in the hobby – but they didn’t turn into outright highway robbery until they quit making metal miniatures and replaced them with all-plastics, which cost MORE than the metal ones…….something I find patently ridiculous. I am always glad that I have never lived anywhere where there was an official GW store, because I have a feeling that visiting one might be worse than going to FEMA-Mart (formerly known as Walmart) or the mall…..

Are there toxic substances in the Dragon suncatchers I bought from Temu ? The 3D printed miniatures ? The little leather-bound notebook I now have on my painting desk ? I don’t know, I guess I’ll find out when I get desperate enough to eat them….

 

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