Now I'm not one of those guys who falls for every 'this industry is dying' prophecy that comes along. Yeah, kids on average prefer Playstation to plastic kits. Yeah, this hobby, as a business, isn't what it used to be. And what are we, the people who love this hobby, doing to secure it's future? Just what we should be - buying and building kits. Ultimately though, the future of this hobby as a BUSINESS lies in the hands of the manufacturers. If they aint putting anything out that's worth buying, people wont see the worth in buying it.
Revell, for me, is doing the best job at keeping buyers interested and keeping us spending out on their kits. Take the new 49 Merc. Whilst everyone else was jumping all over this release I was getting all excited about the 32 Sedan but I saw on in my favourite LHS at the weekend and had to check it out. By buying one, obviously. Actually, make that two. It would've been three but they only had two in stock. My (long suffering) girlfriend practically forced me to buy the second one, despite my attempts at self control. "You know you'll build a second one" she said, after I pointed out the custom wheels and building variations on the box.
Anyway, the kit caught my eye I think cos of the large box. A simple trick, but it worked. Anything in a BIG box is better than something in a SMALL box, right? It's a nice box too, as they go, much better than the 'they only open at one end' ones that they've used in the past. It's well packed too, with some awesome optional parts that I already got homes for on other projects. The rear lights look great on a Deuce I'm building and the steelies are good enough to be the starting point of a car built just to wear them. And that's the 'trick' Revell has stumbled upon, and again with the 'new' Deuce kit that's just launched, although its nothing new. Put extra bits in the kit boxes, and make the kit great to start with.
Its not exactly rocket science when written down, though obviously there's a little more to it than that in the real world, but Revell is doing the exact right thing at the right time with seemingly little compromise between the hobby and the business. And when you do that, people will keep coming back for more.
Three building options? I'd better buy three and another for parts-robbing! Different parts in different versions of the same kit (as with the Deuce variations)? I'll take two! And as for the Sedan kit I've been waiting for since last summer? The one with two engines, two sets of wheels and about a million building combinations when bashed with the other 32 kits? Well, got five coming right now!
Case closed.
JB
Revell, for me, is doing the best job at keeping buyers interested and keeping us spending out on their kits. Take the new 49 Merc. Whilst everyone else was jumping all over this release I was getting all excited about the 32 Sedan but I saw on in my favourite LHS at the weekend and had to check it out. By buying one, obviously. Actually, make that two. It would've been three but they only had two in stock. My (long suffering) girlfriend practically forced me to buy the second one, despite my attempts at self control. "You know you'll build a second one" she said, after I pointed out the custom wheels and building variations on the box.
Anyway, the kit caught my eye I think cos of the large box. A simple trick, but it worked. Anything in a BIG box is better than something in a SMALL box, right? It's a nice box too, as they go, much better than the 'they only open at one end' ones that they've used in the past. It's well packed too, with some awesome optional parts that I already got homes for on other projects. The rear lights look great on a Deuce I'm building and the steelies are good enough to be the starting point of a car built just to wear them. And that's the 'trick' Revell has stumbled upon, and again with the 'new' Deuce kit that's just launched, although its nothing new. Put extra bits in the kit boxes, and make the kit great to start with.
Its not exactly rocket science when written down, though obviously there's a little more to it than that in the real world, but Revell is doing the exact right thing at the right time with seemingly little compromise between the hobby and the business. And when you do that, people will keep coming back for more.
Three building options? I'd better buy three and another for parts-robbing! Different parts in different versions of the same kit (as with the Deuce variations)? I'll take two! And as for the Sedan kit I've been waiting for since last summer? The one with two engines, two sets of wheels and about a million building combinations when bashed with the other 32 kits? Well, got five coming right now!
Case closed.
JB
4 comments:
This Merc kit is great, I got 8 of them
EIGHT? That's a lotta Mercs Ben. That said, I've got about 10 Revell 32s here...
you 32 hogger send some my way lol
Send me some Mercs yo! ;)
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