AGD E-guns R&D?

[GT]

[AGD]

Well the cost to buy the first inventory for a new electronic gun is at least 500,000 dollars. If you thought you were gonig to be in court any time soon over them would you spend that money up front?

AGD

[RRfireblade]

This is just completely off the top of my head but.....

Why does it seem that it costs AGD like 10X more than anyone else to produce a product.I'm not trying to be a wise guy,I'm just noticing that product seems to come from many other sources at higher volume in faster time and for less overall cost than the figures Tom keeps giving out.

Why should it cost 1/2 a mil to produce a product with a $500 retail? I could understand if your starting from scratch with no facility or anything,but we're talking about an idea,some aluminum and under $100 in electrical parts and your at prototype stage.......or not?

[Mindflux]

You just said it

Higher Volume = Less per part.

for starters.

Faster to get to sale = No product laying around losing value.

In case you haven't noticed, agd isn't high volume or very fast with new products.

[RRfireblade]

That's purely for full production.

It's got nothing to do with designing and building a prototype.After that there is always preorders and such to defray the costs.

No one says you have to design and build 1000 markers and then try and sell 'em.

[Remington]

Originally posted by RRfireblade
This is just completely off the top of my head but.....

Why does it seem that it costs AGD like 10X more than anyone else to produce a product.

Because AGD puts more time and effort into its R&D, which in turn produces a better quality product. Companies that just pump out product after product will start running into flaws after the product has already been released to the consumer, whereas AGD takes its time to ensure its products are done right the first time.

Take all the time you need Tom, we'll still be here when you're done!

[Muzikman]

You also have to remember that AGD does not have a production machine shop. They farm everything out?

[RRfireblade]

Originally posted by Remington


Because AGD puts more time and effort into its R&D, which in turn produces a better quality product. Companies that just pump out product after product will start running into flaws after the product has already been released to the consumer, whereas AGD takes its time to ensure its products it are done right the first time.

Oh,I forgot,AGD never released a product that ended up having issues.

[nerobro]

Have you looked at how long it takes SP or other companys to get it right? AGD... you might see a revision or two. And those are usually free. (think superbolt to LX, you paid what was effectively the difference in price between the two)

Smart Parts is on the sixth or seventh generation of impulse. And they still don't have it down right. (WDP, AKA, and Indian Creek all got it right, right away..)

They worked on the shocker for... oh... 8 years? And in the end scrapped the design becuase they could never get it fast enough. Yet we the consumers paid for their prototype guns.

WGP took more than five years to get the cocker fully sorted out. 94-99. 1999 is the first year I would have taken a stock cocker out on a tourny field without being nervous.

The level 7 valve has been in production, in it's current form since.... 94? No revisions that I've seen. and then the only substantial change was valve chamber size.

The retrovalve, hasn't changed. Period. The RT regulator, is unchanged from the day it came out in the original RT. You still use the same parts kits. You use the same pistons. Same on/off's.

This is the difference between AGD and "the other guys" AGD releases guns that work. And are a final design. Without KNOWING we're doing it. We do not pay for prototypes. (we KNEW the superbolt, and superbolt 2 early releases were prototypes. You can't be angry when a prototype part doesn't work.)

It takes money to properly develop and test guns. You should see the prototype AIR's that I've seen. And the prototype bolts. And the bodies. The ULE bodies have existed for a few years. But testing and development was being done, so they weren't released. (I saw aluminum, cocker threaded mag bodies at the supertour.) And as you can all see, the ULE bodies are flawless.

RRfireblade: Preorders are a bad bad practice. Using preorder money for development is effectively turning customers into investors. There's no garuntee they will get a good working product in the end. If you want a good example of this. Look at the Shelby Series 1.

[Kevmaster]

sure R&D is expensive and they have lots of expensive tools, but i am with RR on this, 500G seems excessive. shoot..you could buy a NICE 5-axis CnC machine, pay two people 40hours/week for one year for half that

[GT]

Originally posted by AGD
Well the cost to buy the first inventory for a new electronic gun is at least 500,000 dollars. If you thought you were gonig to be in court any time soon over them would you spend that money up front?

AGD

You have 3 choices

1. Not make any E line ever again
2. pay the stupid sp fee
3. fight them dollar for dollar in court.

1 and 3 will possibly hurt your fan base. Little time and money spent in R&D can cause users to become unintrested in the product line, i.e. we need stuff to buy or dream about to be loyal AGD fans. Or we could simply pay the [er gun fee and go on, but never forget. I am sure this oversimplfies the problem. I wish I could chat with you in person as I am sure there are many angles of this issue I dont see.....

[Bolter]

i think agd and indeed many other pball companys are caught between a rock and a hard place.

[nerobro]

Originally posted by Kevmaster
sure R&D is expensive and they have lots of expensive tools, but i am with RR on this, 500G seems excessive. shoot..you could buy a NICE 5-axis CnC machine, pay two people 40hours/week for one year for half that

There are a few other things to think of as well. Count the cost of "some" advertizing. If you want to sell parts, you need hype to go with it.

Count the costs of the first run of parts.

And the costs for jigs.

And the costs for broken tooling.

And the costs for raw material.

The first run of boards, will cost about $30 a gun, without displays if they decide to go that way. You'll need to pay a programmer. And an engineer to design the board.

I could see $500k being eaten up really easily.

And... if we wait. The SP thing will be defeated.

Gtrsi: The "stupid" SP fee is evidently large enough to put many paintball buisnesses out of buisness.

[GT]

Originally posted by nerobro
Gtrsi: The "stupid" SP fee is evidently large enough to put many paintball buisnesses out of buisness.

who and how much?

[C_22]

nerobro, I'm with you on this. AGD = guns that work. Period.