Kenneth P. Katz Posted February 6, 2014 Posted February 6, 2014 http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/End-of-the-line-for-hobby-store-a-replica-of-a-5135091.php
Kenneth P. Katz Posted February 6, 2014 Author Posted February 6, 2014 Too many kids playing with computers and iCrap and social media; too few building things.
Guest Jason L Posted February 6, 2014 Posted February 6, 2014 (edited) Too many kids playing with computers and iCrap and social media; too few building things. Just because it's not physical hardware, don't assume kids aren't building things digitally. This was built, block by block: Good old physical lego is still as popular as ever across a wide range of demographics. I dabbled in plastic models as a kid/teen. They were pretty cool, but they never felt like building things, they felt like arts and crafts and fiddly assembly. Lego, especially the robotics stuff was always more fun to me. I've usually got some little lego thing on my desk I fiddle with when I'm trying to work out a problem. Hell, I still play with technics and the old RCX lego mindstorm stuff once and a while, and I used the RCX brick for several university projects. It's actually a reasonable little micro-controller. Edited February 6, 2014 by Jason L
BP Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 Funny seeing this thread just now. As I was driving home from work today I got caught at the light right where a local hobby shop used to be located. During the real estate boom some doofus developer bought the tiny parcel with delusions of grandeur. And of course he lost it to foreclosure. Now it is used as overflow parking for the farmer's market nine months a year, but just a vacant lot. Nicest family ran it for decades. Somehow that little business, packed to the rafters and every nook and cranny, had more interesting stuff than two Hobby Lobby stores.
NickM Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/End-of-the-line-for-hobby-store-a-replica-of-a-5135091.php I used to shop at this place; the 'squadron/signal' paperbacks were my primary lure.
bojan Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 (edited) Too many kids playing with computers and iCrap and social media; too few building things.Garth, creative people still find a way, even if it is not models per see.A lot of younger people are interested in cosplay and while a lot of them will simply buy a costume there are other who make them from a scratch, with stunning range of skill they have to show to finish it. Eg. this was almost 100% hand made... Edited February 7, 2014 by bojan
Marek Tucan Posted February 7, 2014 Posted February 7, 2014 I would say that similar as portrait painting suffered when photography came, plastic kit suffers from digital model making. Doesn't mean creativity is going, it means that you have more advanced tools if you want some "model" stuff (ie details and all that).
Paul G. Posted February 8, 2014 Posted February 8, 2014 I used to frequent 4 hobby shops in the region. 2x gaming, and two models. Three of them I know are gone, dont know about the fourth. Its all on-line shopping now. But then it's pretty much the same for book stores too.
Archie Pellagio Posted February 8, 2014 Posted February 8, 2014 Plastic model building is nowadays really just an adult male hobby and it's only going to get worse because the lack of availability to kids. There are a combination of factors.1. Computer games are a big one, whether they be the proliferation of military themed games like first person shooters (call of battlefield of heroes of duty 7) appealing to the same demographics that twenty years ago would've made models as well as (also dinosaur niche products) flight sims.When I was a kid 'flying' my models and making machine gun noises was a big part of the experience as much as the construction and painting because that was as close to recreating dogfights I could get, why bother when you can actually be in the pilot seat yourself? 2. Availability, the self fulfilling prophecy part kicks in here a bit too. When I was a kid, every kmart, big W, Myers type department store would have a whole aisle of models, paint etc, they got rapidly smaller in the late 90s and by the early-mid 2000's had disappeared entirely. Even dedicated toy stores often don't have them. I went looking for a model to build just after I got out of basic and the local toys r us didn't even stock them.Nowadays you need to seek out dedicated hobby shops, which there might only be one or two in a city or some toy stores to find them. Kids don't have organic transport, which means mum or dad need to go out of their way to visit the hobby store, usually in some out of the way industrial area or the other side of town, not simply the mall on the weekend.I was one of the kids that was really into models between age 7-13, but even other kids usually built at least one or two over the years.If you can't find them easily, you can't buy them, and can't build them. 3. Cost. It's not a cheap hobby, kits are the equivalent of a month's phone credit, plus basic tools of a scalpel (which in many states can't be legally sold to someone under 18 now!) paint (until you build up your stock can cost half as much as the kit) some paint brushes, turps for cleaning (which again kids often can't buy over the counter any more).And that's just for basic building, if you want to make more professional looking products, you're talking airbrushes, compressors or canned air, more paint and weathering supplies, aftermarket parts, that's into the realm of hundreds of dollars more. Then once you've built it, they are mostly dust collectors. Think of the cost of buying an xbox, a sim like birds of steel or world of tanks and how much entertainment value can be had for >$300 versus a model.
Guest Jason L Posted February 8, 2014 Posted February 8, 2014 Lots of kids do still do building and painting of W40K and the like though. Although the biggest demographics for that are 16-20, 20-25 and 25-30 now.
Max H Posted February 8, 2014 Posted February 8, 2014 WH is priced out of the reach of younger modellers
JW Collins Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 WH is priced out of the reach of younger modellersPart of the reason I loved the Dawn of War games before THQ went under. Never had the money for a nice WH army.
istvan47 Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 (edited) Too many kids playing with computers and iCrap and social media; too few building things. Ah! you are right! iCrap is a good description! Incidentally, this issue was raised on TNF already around 10 years ago... and the situation have not changed. Pellagio is right on his side, the world is evolving. I think there is another no to marginal problem: time. When you can have a flight sim already, just start it, why bother with a long, and uncertain building process? Anyway, building material things is still a good reason to be pride of something. With all the respect for the 'virtual reality', of course. Edited February 9, 2014 by istvan47
Chris Werb Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 I recently gave up miniatures wargaming and am in the process of selling up for the following reasons. 1. I hate building and painting things2. It's very expensive and if you want to do a wide range of eras/scenarios extremely so3. It's a 28 mile round trip to the nearest venue, which we have to pay to use. In the winter in Scotland that can be a problem.4. I detest decisions coming down to the whims of an arbitrary and carpricious umpire5. There are no motor skills involved (if you exclude driving there and back)6. It just plain isn't exciting. WoT at one end of the spectrum and Command at the other are, very. The saving I've made by giving up this hobby more than pays for SCUBA diving, which is much, much more interestiing and exciting and which is a lovely way to spend time with my wife. Shetland still has a (relatively) thriving wargames club, but it tends to be older guys (and one lovely lady on whose age I can't comment) that play. Orkney has two people that play regularly, both in their mid 50s. Pretty soon tabletop wargaming will be a historical reenactment of itself.
BP Posted February 9, 2014 Posted February 9, 2014 The saving I've made by giving up this hobby more than pays for SCUBA diving, which is much, much more interestiing and exciting and which is a lovely way to spend time with my wife. Hmmm. Might be the perfect hobby. Still exotic enough that it allows women plenty of Facebook bragging, you don't actually have to talk and get some peace and quiet during bottom time, and hey, it's can still be a dangerous sport, so if air lines get cut or respirators piled off by an eel...
Chris Werb Posted February 10, 2014 Posted February 10, 2014 The saving I've made by giving up this hobby more than pays for SCUBA diving, which is much, much more interestiing and exciting and which is a lovely way to spend time with my wife. Hmmm. Might be the perfect hobby. Still exotic enough that it allows women plenty of Facebook bragging, you don't actually have to talk and get some peace and quiet during bottom time, and hey, it's can still be a dangerous sport, so if air lines get cut or respirators piled off by an eel... Unfortunately someone went and invented underwater wireless voice comms, but I haven't told the missus about it.
Guest Jason L Posted February 10, 2014 Posted February 10, 2014 WH is priced out of the reach of younger modellers At the cost of that stuff it should be priced out of everyone's budget.
rmgill Posted February 10, 2014 Posted February 10, 2014 I dunno, Chris, I really miss Miniature wargaming. I still have my kit. I'm just not setup in my house for a good wargaming space. Perhaps when I rework the basement I'll have a good space for it, but that'll require re-engineering my basement space which is just a glorified deep crawl space. If I had bought a house instead of inheriting the one I have, I'd have a VERY large 20'x15' (at least) wargaming table, with lights and potentially two annex rooms so I could run games that had a command and control component. I'd REALLY like to combine a good table top game mechanic with some computer systems and displays to make a sort of electronic sand table game.I always liked painting the figures and making the terrain. I got pretty creative. But then I like fiddling with things. At this point, I jokingly refer to the re-enacting/vehicle collecting as 1:1 scale Wargaming. The dice get really hard to roll sometimes though….
Corinthian Posted February 11, 2014 Posted February 11, 2014 (edited) I think there is another no to marginal problem: time. When you can have a flight sim already, just start it, why bother with a long, and uncertain building process? When I was a kid, I played PC flight sims and built models. Both "fed" on each other. When I played Aces Over Europe, this fueled my interest to build WW2 aircraft. When I built tanks, this got me interested in playing Steel Beasts. When I played sci-fi games or watched sci-fi shows and cartoons, I wanted to build their model equivalents or build what-ifs. I recently gave up miniatures wargaming and am in the process of selling up for the following reasons. 1. I hate building and painting things2. It's very expensive and if you want to do a wide range of eras/scenarios extremely so3. It's a 28 mile round trip to the nearest venue, which we have to pay to use. In the winter in Scotland that can be a problem.4. I detest decisions coming down to the whims of an arbitrary and carpricious umpire5. There are no motor skills involved (if you exclude driving there and back)6. It just plain isn't exciting. WoT at one end of the spectrum and Command at the other are, very. The saving I've made by giving up this hobby more than pays for SCUBA diving, which is much, much more interestiing and exciting and which is a lovely way to spend time with my wife. I gave up building models because (and I've mentioned it here before) 1. Backstabbing and politicking hobby club members spoiled the hobby2. Loser hobby club members, e.g. "This hobby saved my life!" says one guy I know who was obsessed[/i] in these things - to the point of spending each and every cent on the hobby, neglecting much more important things like, say, getting a decent job and taking care of his sick mum. I saw him and the others who seemed so bitter against a rival club, and saw how they talked, interacted with people, etc. and I said to myself "I do not want to be like them."3. It was becoming self-destructive. See #1 and #2 above. My room was a mess. I made a mess at home when building models. My health was deteriorating. My finances weren't improving.4. Mountaineering and mountain biking are more positive pursuits. See #3 above. Models cost a lot of money, especially if you count the paint, tools, etc into equation. The hobby reached a point in my life where I found myself hoarding model kits, ordering aftermarket parts online. The cost of these was substantial. If taken together, some kits + paint + tools + aftermarket parts would cost the same as a decent piece of mountaineering kit or mountain bike part. The savings I got from quitting the hobby has funded my mountaineering and mountain biking adventures. It even has funded four mountain bikes and a commuter. I've climbed mountains, gone to places I've wanted to go to. I've ridden trails with my sister who also does mountain biking (I re-introduced it to her when I restarted, and I got her a full sus all-mountain bike for her last Christmas so she can join my rides in gnarlier territory; I am also training her to become an enduro rider mwuhahahahaha!). The savings have also funded some little philanthropic projects I've done for some isolated communities in the mountains (e.g. helping fill their libraries with books). I've been enjoying the outdoors which has always been my first love thanks to all those adventure books and National Geographic magazines I read when I was a kid. These would not have been possible if I continued building models. I sometimes hear of the bickering and politicking from the more bitter guys in the club, and I just shake my head. It's people like them that has turned me off from the hobby altogether. The cost is another, and when I see a model kit and it's price tag, I immediately equate it to the cost of a bike part or gas money which I can spend to go to the jump-off point of a trail. My cabinet has since been cleared of unbuilt and half-built models. There was a time when I opened the cabinet and saw the stack of boxes and I told myself "Yeah, money down the sinkhole." Now, I look at my mountaineering gear and mountain bikes and I am pleased to see my money going to something more beneficial. Edited February 11, 2014 by TomasCTT
Chris Werb Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 I can totally see the appeal of the 1:1 scale stuff, but I don't have the space or budget for it and am unlikely to in the near future. FWIW I also sold all my guns except a 12 gauge O/U and a couple of air rifles that I use to control pests around our rural home for much the same reason - immense expense for exceptionally little return in terms of pleasure.
DougRichards Posted February 14, 2014 Posted February 14, 2014 Plastic model building is nowadays really just an adult male hobby and it's only going to get worse because the lack of availability to kids. There are a combination of factors.1. Computer games are a big one, whether they be the proliferation of military themed games like first person shooters (call of battlefield of heroes of duty 7) appealing to the same demographics that twenty years ago would've made models as well as (also dinosaur niche products) flight sims.When I was a kid 'flying' my models and making machine gun noises was a big part of the experience as much as the construction and painting because that was as close to recreating dogfights I could get, why bother when you can actually be in the pilot seat yourself? 2. Availability, the self fulfilling prophecy part kicks in here a bit too. When I was a kid, every kmart, big W, Myers type department store would have a whole aisle of models, paint etc, they got rapidly smaller in the late 90s and by the early-mid 2000's had disappeared entirely. Even dedicated toy stores often don't have them. I went looking for a model to build just after I got out of basic and the local toys r us didn't even stock them.Nowadays you need to seek out dedicated hobby shops, which there might only be one or two in a city or some toy stores to find them. Kids don't have organic transport, which means mum or dad need to go out of their way to visit the hobby store, usually in some out of the way industrial area or the other side of town, not simply the mall on the weekend.I was one of the kids that was really into models between age 7-13, but even other kids usually built at least one or two over the years.If you can't find them easily, you can't buy them, and can't build them. 3. Cost. It's not a cheap hobby, kits are the equivalent of a month's phone credit, plus basic tools of a scalpel (which in many states can't be legally sold to someone under 18 now!) paint (until you build up your stock can cost half as much as the kit) some paint brushes, turps for cleaning (which again kids often can't buy over the counter any more).And that's just for basic building, if you want to make more professional looking products, you're talking airbrushes, compressors or canned air, more paint and weathering supplies, aftermarket parts, that's into the realm of hundreds of dollars more.Then once you've built it, they are mostly dust collectors. Think of the cost of buying an xbox, a sim like birds of steel or world of tanks and how much entertainment value can be had for >$300 versus a model. You use turps for cleaning? White spirit (dry cleaning fluid) much better for enamels, meths best for acrylics. And yes, the hobby has become damn expensixe.
Yama Posted February 15, 2014 Posted February 15, 2014 (edited) I've noticed a real change in last 5-7 years....only hobby shop in the town became largely airsoft store and then shut down completely, and model kits have largely disappeared from supermarkets. I don't go to model expos, but people who go have complained that they have declined signifantly. It's a bit of mystery for me why this has happened right now - I mean, it's not like there were no computer games and whatnot 15 years ago already. I don't think it's the prices, I don't think model kits are particularly expensive. Already in the '80s I scarcely ever could afford a Monogram or Hasegawa kit. Revell was cheap, but their kits were usually crap. Nowadays even Chinese manufacturers like Trumpeter (well, they're almost all Chinese...) offer high-quality kits. Warhammer was real big with kids up to like 4 years ago, then it has declined signifantly. Cost of entry has got high, especially as games have got bigger and it requires a huge investment from a new player to get to same level with oldies. Veterans don't want to bother with 500 point games and building a 1500+ point army from scratch is beyond the time & money of most kids. Nowadays young ones rather play TCG's which offer instant gratification. They're also much easier to promote for gaming stores. Some other tabletop wargames boast growth, but it is almost entirely just old Warhammer players moving to new games. Edited February 15, 2014 by Yama
Leo Niehorster Posted February 16, 2014 Posted February 16, 2014 Might have to do with the short attention span most younger people have nowadays. Quick results are what count. Having to wait a day for a part to dry before being able to work on it again is boring. Also, if you make a mistake, you have to buy a new model. With computer games, you just start over again until you get it right. One time investment — assuming you bought the game in the first place.
Leo Niehorster Posted February 16, 2014 Posted February 16, 2014 Speaking of no longer modeling or wargaming: anyone interested in my thousands of Wiking, Mercator, Skytrex, (plus some unknown manufactuer), 1:200 metal vehicles?Pretty complete (1:1) 1943 panzer division (including most of those pesky softskins); British armored brigade; Soviet tank brigade; US combat command. Mind you, I live in Germany, and shipping them anywhere would cost a mint.
scj1014 Posted February 16, 2014 Posted February 16, 2014 Hi... I agree with the short attention span issue and the proliferation of computer gaming causing a decline in model-building among younger people. My son was really into HO trains when he was younger up to about 12 years old and then he simply didn't want to bother with them any longer.I can't get him to even try to build a model...I helped him with an airplane one time and he lost interest part way through the build. He won't even try building a model car and he absolutely loves cars.Over the last couple of years, he sold off almost every HO train-related item he owned, at least three thousand dollars worth of engines and rolling stock, plus track and buildings.Once he got his own computer he has been sucked into on-line gaming and that is where he spends most of his free time.Now that he is 20 years old, I doubt he will ever be interested in model building...too bad, because I have probably several thousand dollars tied up in modelling tools that will probably be tossed when I die. Kind of strange, because he goes with me to AMPS Nationals and AMPS East every time I go. He has probably been to AMPS Nationals 3-4 times and AMPS East about 5 times. He started going with me after my older brother, also an AMPS member passed away. He not only enjoys the models but the seminars, as well. I haven't been able to go to either the last two years because of my health problems, but he is really looking forward to AMPS Nationals in April. He wants to go to AMPS East in September, also. I know he wants to go, because he brought the subject up. He does have his own membership at the gun club now. Considering that he probably shoots more rounds per year than I do now, that's a good thing.He has even started buying his own firearms, so at least he has one interest other than online gaming.
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