Posted 18 April 2013 - 04:43 PM
Myself, I think it's great if they can get one more figure out of the mold.
As far as the Kickstarter goes, I look at my pledge as being a pre-order. That is pretty much it. If I get freebies along with it, great!
Any profit they make from the Kickstarter is just that, profit. If they make enough to pay for an additional mold cavity and additional figure per run, then great.
The extra figure isn't "free" to them. They have to pay for the cavity and they have to pay for the 6th figure from the mold. Whether they get the the money to pay for that from the profit from extra Kickstarter pledges or OMFG sales after the fact, it really doesn't matter, it still has to be paid for by them.
This Kickstarter will probably hit $16000 or so. Assuming $16000, right off the top you have $1600 (10%) approximately to Kickstarter and Amazon Payments.
That leaves $14,400 to have the mold cut, 900-1200 sets produced, packaged and shipped to them. Just to give you an idea of costs, it costs about $100 to have 200 sets shipped from George in southern California to me in Northern California. Multiple that by 5 and increase the factor for international shipping (which is absurdly high these days).
Based on what I know about the costs to get a mold cut and figures produced, I don't see them making very much margin on this. Really, I don't.
Lastly, if they hit $10k or $20k, it is the same ratio of pledge dollars to figures. The only thing that becomes progressively cheaper the more you produce is the per figure average cost for the mold.
Injection costs, plastic costs, labor costs, shipping costs, per set, all remain the same for each set they produce. And based on the way the dollar is devaluing, I'm not surprised that these costs have gone up every year. Look at how much it costs you to fill up your car these days? PVC uses oil. So if oil goes up in dollars, so does the cost of plastic, the cost of shipping, etc.