Make This, No Make That

I belong to several groups for army men and it seems the same in every scale.

People don't understand the economic realities of this hobby. It can take a major company three to six years to design and produce a set of figures. The cost to produce a set is thousands of dollars, even tens of thousands of dollars or more depending on where they are made, who makes them, number of poses, etc. If you make a dollar profit on each set, you have to sell thousands of sets to recoup your investment. I have read people who write long passionate letters who beg for a particular set saying they have always wanted it and would buy as many as three sets if someone made them. So three dollars profit, on an investment of ten or twenty thousand dollars.

Typically the only sets that get made are the ones that have wide appeal, like the Alamo, World War Two US and Germans, American Civil War and Romans. We don't get sets on the War of Jenkins Ear because no one ever heard of it. Then there are several basic ideas on what people want from a set. Some want to make dioramas and want figures that are seated, drinking, shoeing a horse, reading a book or a map. Others want to play wargames and want 27 different standing firing figures, while others play wargames and want 27 different marching poses, and still others want a variety of everything.

Generally companies only make plastic figures that will sell in large numbers and those sets have to appeal to a broad audience, so in some ways we will all be both disappointed and pleased with each set, because you can't please everyone. Sets linked to important historical events, like the Alamo, sets linked to major blockbuster movies, like the 300 Spartans, sets linked to eras that have proven perennially popular, like the American Civil War are the sets most likely to see the light of day.