looks like a knock off of the Wrong Crowd Productions DMD glare guard or is this something original?

Competition is good for the marketplace, except when it is not.

So what makes yours better, or different for that matter, from this one?
http://wrongcrowdproductions.com/glareGuard.htm

Amazing pricing! Just ordered 5!

Great pricing. Just ordered 5.

If you would provide feedback once you get them. Wondering about the quality of them and comparison to WCP Glare Guard.

Ripoff of WCP, new poster with no heart just using Pinside to hawk his ripped off product.
Adds nothing to the group, he is only here for the beer.

What a great idea… someone else had.

Oh, boy. This won't end well.

are they made in america?

pm sent

I don't care who had it first....as long as the quality is there and the price is good.

I have a bunch of Kim's guards and love them.
About a year ago I bought a few knock-off's at a show. The second I got home I realized the knockoff's were shit (way different in size, didn't have the diffused bottom, and protruded out too far at a weird angle). I don't know if they were the same as the ones featured in this thread but buyer beware is just my .02

Glad you spoke up as I was scratching my head wondering how quality could actually be a concern with this as umm.. it's just a piece of bent plastic ; not exactly hard to make

No, no, you see, this is entirely different product, this is for "Dot Matirx Display". If you have a normal dot matrix display it's probably not compatible.

Aurich, I have a Dot Matrix Dipslay. Is this new product compatible? Could you put up a chart?

Just curious as to why this comment has thumbs down?
Going back and forth in my mind and while the facts are;

-The OP signed up only to advertise and
-Copied a product on the market from what I assume is a respected and personal member of the pinball community

It made me wonder, if this guy/some other product was copied but enhanced, would they be boycotted or praised?

Pretty much all products nowadays are copied and altered.

Thoughts?

Depends on which side of the fence you're on.

By the way, the guy making these is Kevin Dabrowski in Brighton Michigan. You can draw conclusions from there.

Kim
http://www.WrongCrowdProductions.com/

Pretty sure you need an entirely different kind of plastic for a Diplsay. Totally different wavelength of light, won't be blocked properly otherwise.

Never heard of the guy, what does this mean?

Kevin is a good guy who has always been a pleasure to deal with. He has been involved with pinball for quite some time. I have been involved with machine deals with Kevin, I have never seen or used this product.

Brad

I was wondering the same thing. If he's not breaking any patents then what's the problem. No one got pissed when multiple people stated making pinball LED's.

I agree with this. Kevin is a very nice guy. Are these glare guards patented? If not, he has every right to make a competitive product. Remember guys, competition is good for us, the consumer.

--Scott

Oh, I don't know about that.

Don't you remember the epic PinballBulbs.com announcement thread here on Pinside a while back?

They are all made in China to exacting standards

You can't patent a bent piece of plastic.
Scott

This made me laugh.

The question is why bother making anything for pinball if someone is just going to copy it and undercut the person who came up with the idea in the first place.

Don't see any problems with this. The product is not patented. The price difference between the two is $8 per unit. That is a huge difference. If both products are comparable then either one person is making a ridiculous huge profit on cheap plastic or the other person is better at price sourcing for his product or doesn't mind if he doesn't make a killing selling them. Personally I'll just by the lower priced product and not care who came out with it first.

We see this happening all the time. Take the mirror blades. At one point I think there were four people producing them. If I could make a product that I already know sells well but at a significantly lower cost your damn right I would produce them to.

Hobbys are full of these cottage industry type products. Usually they don't make huge profits but do it to give back to the hobby. Looks like this guy was able to get cheap sourcing and offer that up to the community. Good for him. Pinball is pricey as it is, so more cheap good products the better.

Hello China. The "good" portion of the statement might be subject to further debate.

I was pretty much doing the same thing with splitter harnesses...when I saw how much people were asking for them when I was working on Tron, I refused to pay that crazy price. I built one for myself just as a proof of concept, found that it was REALLY easy to do, so started selling them. Shopped around for cheapest shipped prices on the molex housing and pins and whatnot to max out my profit, and sold about 20-30 of them at substantially less than either of the other two places selling them. Made them at my own pace, only sold them when I had them in stock ready to go for the most part, unless someone wanted all the ones I had available plus extras.

When Mike @ DKPinball came out with his little PCB mounted "splitter" thing at the same price I was selling a 1->3 harness for, I stopped making them...didn't whine about it. I still think it was a brilliant solution, and will be buying one from him when I need that type of product again.

What kind of country do you think this is? You can't just take a flat piece of plastic, put a bend in it and sell it for whatever you want...can you?

How much is shipping?

Let me see if I'm understanding this correctly...

When more people are producing stuff for the hobby at ever-increasing and exorbitant prices, it's only good for pinball. (e.g., Stern, JJP and boutique pins)

When more people are producing stuff for the hobby at ever-decreasing and reasonable prices, it's only bad for pinball. (e.g., glare guards, LEDs)

Is that right?

- Cheap
- Fast
- High quality

Pick two.

Ok - I see shipping costs on the site. Very reasonable

... and I'm absolutely mentally prepared for the day when someone copies that idea and starts selling it cheaper.

A friend of mine in the business told me, "You only get to 'win' when you make it first, then after some time, you have to make it cheaper." It's hard to believe but this stuff actually drives innovation. Make the same thing cheaper, or make the same thing better.

Fatsquatch - as they said in Forrest Gump... you're a god damn genius!

i don't see anything wrong with this, i see people copying other peoples stuff all the time, including here, so!

how much was it for canada?

Huh?

Mmmm....ice cream.

gump.jpg

I've always known about PinZero glare guards and thought they were a good idea, but never felt quite motivated enough to buy them for what they cost.

Just checked BentPlastic out, and at $40 total for five glare guards (shipping included)...ehh, I'm in.

Purchased.

As both a creator and purchaser of mods, here's what I like to do in inevitable cases like this. Before making my decision on which supplier to buy from, I like to give the original innovator the chance to either match the price of the competitor or justify their reasons for maintaining the higher price (ie. quality of the part). Reason being, I'm a huge fan of giving credit where credit is due. The original creator is the one who took the time to come up with the idea, do market research, create the prototypes, etc., and they deserve compensation for taking the time to do so. Sometimes the prices are set based on the material quotes they got at the time, so give the originator an opportunity to see if they can bring their prices down. You need to remember, as an originator of an idea you have the freedom of setting the initial price point for your idea (which can be difficult to do when there's no competitors out there), so give them the chance to compete.

More often than not the final price comes from the value one puts on the time involved making the parts. Most of us mod makers do this in our spare time, giving up time from our social lives and families. Obviously we're doing this for a profit in the long run, but sometimes the competition squeezes the market so tightly that the return on (time) investment just isn't worth it anymore.

bit of rambling.. hope that makes sense.

Pinball_customs: +1

I get what you're saying pinball_customs, but I would imagine that many of us would never think to play the "price haggle game", either because A.) we don't like to...or B.) we fear it would be insulting and douchey.

Both of those apply to me, and I just can't imagine ever contacting a parts supplier and saying "Look, I know you sell your widget for $50 plus shipping on your website, but this other dude started selling that same widget for $20 less. If you can match or beat that price, I'll buy from you."

Now, I'm sure that could be worded differently -- with excessive pleasantries and whatnot -- but I'd still feel like a tool contacting someone that way.

Now, if a supplier is selling something in a far less formal fashion, like directly on a message forum (instead of through an eCommerce website), then yeah, haggling doesn't seem too out-of-line.

no haggling is necessary on the part of the consumer.. let the competitors duke it out. Your patience will likely pay off, usually by getting the superior product at a cheaper price! Look at what happened with Mirror Blades

Ultimately though it's up to you, the consumer.

I am in this same situation with a mod I personally have. I am on and off the fence whether I should sell it or not. The price is 50%+ cheaper. From an ethical standpoint, I just don't think I can do it and really will probably just share it with a couple of my local pinheads. The other problem is I don't even know which person first originated it.

While it seems like your current supplier would bristle at that, it's more likely that he/she would appreciate it. There is a reason retailers do things like 110% price guaranty. They want to encourage people to bring lower prices to their attention. There are a lot of reasons why a price might be cheaper somewhere else.

It may be that the manufacturer dropped the price and your supplier doesn't know it yet. (Especially if they carry a lot of product) They'll be losing sales to competitors simply because they didn't know to update the price on their web site yet.

It could be that a Chinese competitor has produced a product and maybe it's lower quality. They'll now know that they should bring attention to the fact that their product is superior, made in USA, or whatever justifies the higher price.

In a lot of cases they'll call the manufacturer and say, "Hey, what gives? How's this other guy selling it cheaper" and it can result in the reseller getting an additional discount across the board.

The reseller would much rather know about a cheaper price someplace else rather than just sit and wonder why sales have dropped.

Saying this, I don't mean that some guy down the street is selling it 1% cheaper. I mean, if someone else has a similar or the same product for 30% less, and it's not a blowout or a sale or something, there are a lot of benefits for everyone involved if you call them and say, "Hey, look at this, what's going on here?"