Building a Better Bootleg
Dec 20th, 2007 by $eth
Thanks to Oke Rosgana for posting all these pictures here.
Rosgana had an interesting comment on how the seem between the metal rim and the plastic body was “perfect”. What happens when a bootleg’s quality surpasses that of the original?
There are a lot of bootlegs coming out of China now a days. Yo-Yo Jam, Yo-Yo Factory, L2, SPYY and Dif-e-Yo just to name a few. I’ve never played with an L2 so i can’t vouch for there quality. But Yo-Yo Factory, SPYY and Dif-e-Yo all take great skill and pride in making a perfect yo-yo. You don’t hear about a wobbly 888/Spyder/Tank. But ever week it seems there is a new post on one of the web boards talking about how a kid’s xconvict cracked or the nut ripped out of his Lyn Fury. Granted, in the USA we can’t buy the metal rimmed yyj knock offs. But what about the asian markets like Malaysia, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan? Thats a HUGE chunk of the market that has more access to these yo-yos then we do. And for a lot of the kids over there, they pay a lot more for a Dark Magic or a Hitman. I guess I’m getting after a quality over a cost. If an 888 or a Spyder plays and is made 10x better then the copy people will play 10x more for it. But if your getting basically the same quality for a fraction of the cost, it’s a no brainer.
And what happens when the bootleggers innovate and enhance the original? Sure it would be hard to grab an Aquarius with hubstacks. But if these guys are putting as much detail into the fakes as it seems they are, i wouldn’t be surprised if Z stacks or T stacks fit on this?
You know Seth I just can’t wait till they start selling bootleg copies of Save Deth DVD for $0.99 on ebay . Then let’s see how you feel about this bootleg thing!!! I bet the quality will be exactly the same because it’s a no brainer to bootleg a DVD.
Chill out buddy! I duno if my blog came off as pro-bootlegs but it wasn’t meant that way.
It was more a jab at Yo-Yo Jams poor quality and the fact that someone else can make the same quality product for a fraction of the price.
I agree,
YYJ’s quality is crap. They make decent products when they work properly with out cracks. But the chances of getting a YYJ that won’t crack is pretty slim. It will eventually. I had a NM2 (my fav YYJ of all time) I played with it daily. One day it came back to my hand pretty hard and the thing just shattered, the nipple popped right out of the hub.
Since then, every yyj I have ever owned has been a crackjob. (pun intended) I don’t have much faith in the company myself, they are better than yomega, but still… I don’t like their cocky attitudes. whatever, i’m going to start some crap I don’t want to.
I’m just saying.. I agree with seth. If i can get a bootleg of a yyj that’s actually built better and half the price at the same time.. i’m all for it. If YYJ made better products then maybe i’d purchase them, but for now I’ll stick with the other companies.
I have to agree with Seth’s comment and commentary on the whole bootleg thing. It’s a lot cheaper and easier to get bootleg yo-yos over here in Asia. I don’t understand the hate people show when someone is more pro-bootleg or not. I really think that you don’t understand the situation we have to go through to get a decent yo-yo. It might be easy for you but not for the kids over here. Imagine paying $50 for a Dark Magic from an internet store and that doesn’t even include shipping and I can get a bootleg DM, I dare to say with better plastic and it only costs me $15. Which would you prefer? I have dropped, string snapped and a bootleg DM flew off the stage 20 feet in the air and nothing happened to other that scratches on the rims. Do you really want to talk quality?
You know Fatt Boy, why don’t you move to South East Asia for a year and see what we have to go through?
This talk about has been around for so long that it irrotates the hell out of me.
To add to Dimi’s comment, there is also a matter of exchange rate.
The Malaysian ringgit (RM) is worth $0.29. The average crappy, retail job in Malaysia pays about 1,000 ringgit per month.
A Hitman goes for 175 RM. That’s 1/5th someone’s monthly salary, assuming they have a decent, crappy retail job.
I’m not endorsing bootlegs. I’m just saying that 1/5th your monthly salary is a lot of money to pay for something that may or may not explode for no damn reason at all.
YYJ better get it together, if they expect to compete with bootlegs that have improved on their design and are a fraction of the price.
I agree with Seth, Dimi, and Steve. People in a lot of the asian countries don’t make a lot. A crappy retail job in Malaysia gives 1000RM a month, which is about the same in China, but that’s if you’re in the metropolitan area. Some people that live further out of town make less than $50USD a month, and to spend that much on YYJ that breaks so easily doesn’t make sense when you need to feed. I only buy the real thing from other companies myself, but to people with different living standards, they need to find other alternatives. As of now, I think the quality is the driving force behind Bootlegs, and if YYJ made their shit better, I wouldn’t even pay attention to Bootlegs.
Also please do no be blaming the kids who are supporting the bootleg companies. Most of them probably don’t know what they are doing. Also like Steve said, not everybody is accustomed to buying an expensive yoyo.
I remember when my mom was sending some stuff to the Philippines, she said that some of the kids were ecstatic at what they received. And to think, the stuff I sent them was just “junk” to me.
I’m all for letting people in less fortunate countries enjoy yoyoing.
If you are from America, please try not to buy the bootlegs (I dont even know if you can), but also please understand how hard it is for some people to afford a hitman or darkmagic. It is only human nature, if you are given a choice of two products, and one is insanely cheaper, to buy the cheaper product.
Im not pro boot leg, but if a player around the other side of the world, whos countrys currency is worth much less then half mine, can get the same yoyo i can for a fraction of the cost, im cool with it. Im no company head, so i dont know how much american companys are selling to malaysia but i dont think its much with that exchange rate.
get solid color yyjs. the only one i have had crack is my green hitmann (my main 5a yoyo, it still completely playable) and sprocket speeder (sitll completely playable also). almost all my trans yyjs have some cracks and i rarely play with them. just buy solid color ones and you should be fine.
You guy’s are just slamming YYJ. I have never had a problem with my YYJ. Still Dale Bell does not deserve this kind of treatment. That is not all the bootleg thing is about.It includes Ben and Hans at YYF I know they hate this knock off yoyo thing. Then you have two guy’s that don’t deserve this kind of treatment at all Scuba Steve of Spyy. And Frank Difeo who really does not deserve this kind of treatment of exact copies of his hard work.
I know from past postings of your’s Steve Brown when you were at Duncan. I think you would have been really pissed off that they were knocking off your product that you were representing. In less that the reason Duncan started manufacturing yoyo’s in china so they could give the Pacific rim countries special lower pricing so they would not knock off Duncan products.
What really make’s me mad is Aduley is a large toy manufacture in China you think they could design their own yoyo’s.
Heck Shinwoo is able to make make semi original design yoyo and I bet their a smaller toy company than Aduley.
Yeah, I’m bagging on YYJ. But I’m also giving a financial explanation of how these things get a foothold…I’m not enouraging it, endorsing it, or apologizing for it. I’m just explaining how it works.
Any company that can maintain a higher level of quality will always beat the bootlegs, at least in a first-world market. When you are dealing with third-world markets, all bets are off…and no matter how superior your product is, it’s going to take a beating if you have to go head-to-head with an aggressive bootleg company.
My point was that everyone else who is being knocked off is in a position to say “Yeah, well you get what you pay for and these are shit”. The bootlegs of the YYJ stuff seem to get better reviews than their own products, which have spotty quality. As a company, they seem fairly responsive to it since Andre took the reins and started making demands. (Not slagging Rick, he just wasn’t able to make them see the light.) But while they are fairly responsive and responsible about replacing stuff, that doesn’t change the fact that you can get on any message board on any given week and find a post about those damn metal rings coming off. Maybe they need to just ditch them entirely, and stick with the HG material, since they seem to be able to hold their quality better with those?
As for bootlegging Duncan….their “Reflex” is a bootleg of a bootleg Brain, that actually needs Friction Stickers to come back. They obviously aren’t too concerned about that whole “quality” deal these days, so they are certainly a ripe target for losing market share overseas to bootlegs. But that’s no longer my problem, and believe me….I’m glad for that.
this is a tough one for me. as much as i love they way yoyojams play i have to say that as far as the metal plastic hybrids go they suck. yyj needs to stop making metal rimmed wheel and stick to the HG and the celcon/delrin.
i have never had a problem with any of their celcon wheels and my favorite products that they make are the LYN fury the speedmaKER and the kiCKsiDE.
but it’s sad when a bootleg is better than the original.
no wonder why the bootleg is so cheap.
The bootleg DM don’t have any metals, lol.
It’s only about 50-55 gr weight. And when i try the tester, the paint in the “metal” is chipped off.
But i think the gold one (the auldey bootleg DM) has the real metal rimmed.
hmmm…i think yyj should change their plastics to improve their poducts..
bcoz i buy 5 Aquariuses in every two months bcoz it gets broken easily..
If you make $290 a month. $30 bucks is a big chunk.
kuya sean ask yoyo to make their aquarius metal
The bootleg DM don’t have any metals, lol -> which one? the first picture or the second pic?