Joseph Mallan, on 05 January 2015 - 07:20 AM, said:
No to craft that Mech takes a sculptor to sculpt the original then comes the molds that have to be fabricated and the peuter that needs to be melted and cast. AND PACKAGING and shipping! Once the data for the toon is done there is no more cost. No reason for a game Toon to cost as much as or more than a complete video game.
once the molds are made, those cost pennies to produce.
The in game models typically require a much large investment in time and funds to make the "original", that a TT mini does (crazy though it seems).
Not saying I agree with the prices, but realistically, even most things you can hold in your hand, as you put it, really cost nearly nothing to produce. It's all the attendant costs (shipping, warehousing, packaging, salaries, insurance, etc) that you really end up paying for, just as for your electrons, you are paying PGI's power bills, salaries, rent, etc.
And in either case, the more one sells, the bigger the market, the bigger the mark down one can afford.
Biggest issue, people assume that if you cut prices in half, you will sell twice as much, and market data shows not only does that seldom happen, but you actually need to sell more than double to break even, let alone see a net gain. Even with E-items.