Due to an unfortunate misspelling in an email address, I have recently come into possession of a treasure trove of information, namely a modeler’s personal online diary. It was originally being transmitted from a nefarious government spy to an even more nefarious industry insider, in a very nefarious way, with equally nefarious intentions. However, now that I have intercepted their email, I feel it is my public duty to modelers worldwide to present this information in the hopes that someone will come forward to claim its contents. Or something like that.
Without further ado…
January 1st, 2017
Dear Modeling Diary,
I begin this New Year with high hopes that at least some of my ideas will be embraced by the modeling industry, instead of the past pattern of rejections punctuated by silence, despite the soundness of my arguments.
I’m not sure why my advice is not heeded by modeling manufacturers. I’ve posted many times on several prominent forums. Each time, most people agree with me that my kit suggestions are very good and valid. Often, up to ten or twelve people say they would even buy the kit. While I don’t actually know how many modelers there are worldwide, or how many kits are produced by the industry, I can’t imagine that if you extrapolate those “yes” answers, all the “+1” responses, etc., that it would not be any less than several million sales opportunities worldwide. Easily.
Yet they sit silently. Mockingly so. A few times I’m pretty sure that many of the answers in opposition to my suggestions are actually representatives of the model makers who disguise their identity just to thwart my honest efforts.
I mean – they have to read those forums, those Facebook groups. How else are they going to do market research? It’s simple math. When people say they like an idea, that means they will buy it. Period. There’s no denying that.
Yet year after year my suggestions go unheeded. Well…. mostly.
My calls for a correct 1/48 Spitfire Mk. IX were eventually listened to by Eduard. Seeing how easily they turned out the kit made me really wonder if they’d secretly had it for years, and were simply trying to NOT seem like they were responding to me. But I know the truth.
Airfix confirmed my suspicions this past year. They finally released a kit in 2016 that I’d suggested for years. I’d talked to a fellow at the IPMS-US Nationals while standing in the nachos line who knew an industry insider, and he’d confirmed that there were secret CAD files being reviewed by the modeling industry for a P-40B. I suppose the weight of my arguments eventually made not releasing it impossible.
My logic was sound. I’d repeat, over and over, “we need a definitive P-40B”. Except for those troglodytes pushing the Monogram kit, everyone agreed with me. If I said “whoever releases an accurate P-40B will have a license to print money” one time, I said it a thousand. (And despite arguments to the contrary, I did originate that statement.)
Finally it was released. Yet my victory was hollow. They DELIBERATELY messed up the nun’s hat on the underside. Just to mock me. How hateful.
I suppose eventually I’ll buy the kit and take a look. But I’ll buy it second hand. No way I’m giving them my money.
But I’m an optimistic, sunny person. I really do have high hopes for 2017. I think my weakness is not posting ENOUGH. Showing various photos, over and over, of the airplanes I KNOW for certain will sell, will have a psychological impact on them. And I’ll begin a letter writing campaign, to Eduard, Airfix, Revell, Zvezda, Tamiya, Hasegawa, Trumpeter and Hobbyboss, and all the others.
Their policy of not releasing kits that modeler’s really want, but rather releasing stuff just for money, will come to an end. They must see the hobby business is not about revenue, but about giving modelers what we want, fiscal soundness be damned!
I really see 2017 as the year I will lead an uprising of hobbyists. Not a violent, political one. But rather one of logical, impassioned, social media and forum posts, letters, and cornering their representatives in the nacho line at model events worldwide.
I have good ideas. Really, I do. Even my mom says so.
They must listen.
They must.
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