I am struck by the parallels here as to the exact same discussions in my (ex) flight sim business and I mean exact almost word for word, take out 16 tonner and add (insert aircraft of your choice), so I'm bravely going to add the perspective of the producer of 'low cost toys' and run the gauntlet of disapproval.
You see there are basically three levels of model, base model, intermediate and advanced, as a publisher you have to decide which market you are going to aim for, the base model is stack em high, sell them cheap no bells no whistles errors here and there (not through design, but by lack of reference.....that always turned up three days after publication). The intermediate level obviously has more detail and more accuracy but a higher cost and the advanced, well, obvious really.
We sold in the basic to intermediate market and I'll be frank we made a lot of money, around 80% of our customers were youngsters or new people into the 'scene' wanting something cheap to test the waters before splashing out £50-60 on an uber detailed model from the top end of the market, most came back and bought more, many moved on, but all were satisfied customers to a large extent.
The issues came when peole started to demand uber detail for base model prices, or worse, uber model producers sneering down at base model producers, our models are better blah blah, fine, go away and leave us alone to do what we think is best, do not try and tell us that your way is the only way.
Another frequent criticism leveled was 'if only they had tried a little harder', now that has been posted here and I raise this not as a slight at the original author in the slightest but as an indication that it has been said elsewhere. This is a valid point, but how much harder do you try, how much more do you add? There does come a cut off point and to be frank, you cannot please all the people all the time I'm sad to say, much as we wanted to we never could.
Anyway to cut a very long story short, models did advance and we moved to the upper end of the intermediate market, sales dropped, prices went up and customers were still demanding more, however the real danger was that there were no base models anymore and over a good few years the number of 'simmers' began to drop and sales were down through out the whole community, in short, no new blood was being injected into the market place. Ironically near the end (when I retired) there was a growing call for the good old days, simpler models at lower prices, what's called kick the tyres and light the fires models, sadly it wont ever happen, why, tribal acceptance, no producer now would dare lower standards to try and attract new business.
So back to Dapol, may I respectfully suggest that the argument is not the number of faults, but, is it worth what they are charging? Clearly they are aiming at a lower market than most expect here and I'd suggest they are aiming at perhaps the garden market where simple details like brake block alignment (would the blocks be better aligned in S7?) isnt really an issue. Dapol clearly know where their market stratergy is and it will be working for them (they are still in business) and trying to force them to a higher level will have several effects, there will be no lower market for people to get entrapped, their products will cost more and perhaps only be marginally better and finally there will still be calls for more detail and if they had just tried a little harder.
At the end of the day we all have the choice to buy or walk by and there is a need for models to be made right through the whole spectrum of details and fidelity, the business needs it and so does then community to grow and propser.
Finally, would I buy them? Depends on their prospective use, if I had a large garden railway and they had the companies I wanted and I was happy with the cost, then yes I would buy, one could argue that I'm only continuing to support
models but that's a very subjective debate. If, on the other hand I had an exhibition or detailed depot, shunty plank, terminus, goods yard etc where you get up close, then no I wouldn't purchase them, I would go for a more detailed model from another supplier.
If nothing else at least Dapol are giving us a choice and that can only be good for everyone. I do think we should strive for better, but we must also accept and support those who are quite happy at the simpler end of the spectrum, we all started there at some point, be it N, OO or O gauge and it would be wrong of us to deny that pleasure for future generations IMHO.
I suspect I'll now have to watch out for the uber modellers assassins at Telford or Sudbury LOL.
Kindest, Mick from his deepest Viking bunker LOL.
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