Re: photo catalog was: 6-10mm ST Bugs

"kh.ranitzsch" wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Casquilho, Daniel" <Daniel.Casquilho@disney.com>
> To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2001 1:23 AM
> Subject: RE: 6-10mm ST Bugs
> 
> It's a very general problem hardly related to copyright. There are
lots of
> sales sites on the web featuring Orcs, Roman Legionaries, Napoleon's
Old
> Guard or Waffen-SS Officers without pictures. Even if you have an idea
of
> dress and equipment, this doesn't tell you what they really look like.
But
> this isn't confined to websites. I have lots of paper catalogues with
no or
> very few pictures, or perhaps just sketches. Pity really.
> 
> I know it takes effort and money to build a graphic website, but a
plain
> text list is a deterrent to buying, especially if you don't know the
company
> and have no idea of the quality of their product.

Paper catalogues can't really be compared to websites. A website can be
put together for free (well, almost) and just about every free webspace
service provides enough space for a huge numbers of pictures. There's
not really any excuse for even the smallest manufacturers not to provide
pictures of everything. A paper catalogue on the other hand costs money
to produce and the number of printed pages does become an issue. Also,
many manufacturers have large ranges which would require
telephone-directory sized tomes to include decent pictures of every
model they manufacture (just look at the Citadel catalogues) which would
have to be charged for. 

F/SF manufacturers face a slightly different problem to those of
historical miniatures. If a well known manufacturer of 20mm WWII figures
comes out with a new range of (say) early war Polish cavalry, and I was
in the market for figures of that type, then I'd happily buy them unseen
as long as I was happy with other figures from that manufacturer. On the
other hand, if an SF manufacturer of previously good repute produced a
new range of 15mm figures, I'd want to see them first to check out the
style, see if they fitted with other figures I already own, make sure
they scaled in correctly etc. 

-----------------------------
Tony Francis
Senior Software Engineer