I don’t pay much attention to the other forums so I don’t know. Does all of this stuff like MTH vs. Lionel go on in HO, N scale etc? [banghead]
Brand “favoritism” exists in most scales, but “brand wars” are pretty much exclusive to the O gauge segment of the hobby. I’m involved with Z scale, N scale, On30, Standard Gauge, and Large Scale, in addition to O gauge, and in my experience none of the forums or groups devoted to those other scales have ever experienced anything like the raging brand wars that often dominate O gauge.
Just proves the saying that “some folks never grow up.”
But things have been relatively quiet lately, so folks can enjoy the respite that will likely continue until there’s some decision made in the MTH vs. Lionel appeal. Then you’ll certainly see things heat up to a fevered pitch.
This rivalry is quiet unprecendented.
Over here there are also many toy-train companies in poor condition. Hornby scooped up Lima and Rivarossi. Roco is not out of trouble yet. We will see what the future brings. Some folks say that what happens in the US will happen in 30 years from now over here… Honestly, I do not believe that. I think that the MTH-Lionel rivalry is rather typical American. All issues have more sides: to look from the positive side at least something happens in the usually dull toy-train business scene.[;)]
Since I also have small layouts in “N” and “S”, I visit other forums from time to time. I don’t remember seeing what I would call “blind brand loyalty” much on these forums. For instance, I’ve never seen anyone taking pot-shots at Kato products.
The “O” debates can be amusing at times to the “seasoned” members, but they can be very confusing to people new to the hobby, especially when the track and transformer they just got with their new starter set is implied to be “junk” or otherwise “lacking”.
That being said, I think the people on both forums try to be helpful, and don’t try to put people down. It’s just easy to think that everyone should have what you have. Joe
There are brand rivalries in the other scales; tho less intense than here.
For instance, in G scale, there are brands that produce 1/32 (scale Gauge 1) and others that produce 1/29, NOT scale.
And, 1:20.3 vs. 1: 22.5 (or thereabouts) for 3 ft 45 mm gauge.
My oh my is there a flame war at some times; again, not as bad as 0 gauge.
Then in HO, there’s the Code 100 vs the smaller codes that are 95% more prototypical.
It’s the same same everywhere. For example Malcomb Furrlow did a really cool piece on a Southwest USA/MExico theme that was flammed really bad about a year ago. I thought it was neat but others said it wasn’t reality.
It’s like a blood sport on AOL. There’s one guy who could be charged with libel or slander if the honcos at Lionel ever read it.
[(-D][zzz]
U can’t be charged with libel or slander if the party is a public official or company (usually).
If you post an opinion that’s one thing, if you make stuff up to intentionally to damage a company and its CEO, that’s libel or slander in my books.[banghead][:O]
The AOL boards were really the birthplace of the brand wars in O gauge, and because they are unmoderated boards (although AOL tried moderation from time to time), they eventually self destructed, not just for O gauge but for all scales that previously had separate boards there. Today, those boards are populated by a mere handful of folks who generally cast bricks at each other, and that’s about it. Most of the train boards there now have zero posts for weeks and months on end.
As alternative forums popped up–This one, for example, along with the OGR forum and others–people gravitated away from AOL (the earliest of the discussion-type forums) and moved to more comfortable surroundings–a perfectly logical thing to do since this is, after all, a hobby and most folks just want to learn and enjoy, not get involved in dim-witted debates about who is “best.”
I was with AOL from very near the start-up of those boards, and they were a lot of fun in the early years. My feeling is that the “brand wars” mentality did more to kill off those boards than any other single factor. They never recovered and, indeed, have simply degenerated to the point where they really are not train boards at all, but rather are just venues where a rather bizzare and very small assemblege of personalities delight in insulting each other.
But even the moderated boards–CTT and OGR, for example–have had to step in and control brand war passions from time to time when things become particularly heated and personal. This invariably raises cries of “censorship,” but that is, of course nonsense because all the moderators are really striving to do is maintain a civil environment for reasoned discussion where every parrticipant can feel comfortable.
My feeling is that “brand wars” splintered the hobby to such an extent that it not only stunted a whole lot of the scale’s growth potential, but actually drove some folks away from O gauge and to other more congenial scales. Kind of a sad thing to s
Toy train manufacturers fostered the brand wars years ago, Lionel and American Flyer among others. Ironically, the two went bankrupt and the remenants ended up in the same company. Other scales don’t have brand wars like O. There is a little bit over DCC (Digitrax vs everyone else). But they do argue over other things like whether 4x8 layouts are any good, the merits of weathering, types of track plans, operations, who is a “real” model railroader, etc. Some folks still get passionate over which scale is best.
Most of it seem to be some version of: “What I am doing is the right thing and if you do something else you’re wrong”.
Personally, I enjoy a discussion where people have opinions and make the best case they can for them. But when it degenerates into name calling and personal attacks then it’s time for the moderator to shut it down.
Enjoy
Paul
What Allan says is true, IMO. However, although Allan and I have long disagreed about this, I think it is fair to say that one of the manufacturers in particular has been culpable for having contributed mightily to the brand wars with their public remarks by company officials, their advertising materials and their general contempt for the competition. Both the hobby and industry have paid a price for this, including the perpetrator company. They do seem to have finally understood that this approach, while entertaining, encourages bad behavior by their fans and ultimately is a scorched earth policy from the standpoint of marketing, for the reasons Allan mentioned. The lack of collegial competition and the lack of collaboration at setting standards and minimizing waste, have both contributed to the disenchantment of some hobbiests and made the slower sales of the last five years that much more difficult to deal with in the industry. Even the magazines have played a role in that there is perceived to have been bias and taking of sides in the brand wars in some instances. Indeed there is some evidence for that IMO (and I’m not referring to CTT or Neil Besougloff’s editorial about the lawsuit here).
Bottom line, the individual hobbiests certainly have been the major force in the brand wars, but they have been encouraged in their behavior by one of the leaders in the industry. The chickens came home to roost big time :).
“Personally, I enjoy a discussion where people have opinions and make the best case they can for them. But when it degenerates into name calling and personal attacks then it’s time for the moderator to shut it down.”
I couldn’t agree with you more, Paul!
Diverse opinions should not only be welcome, but should be encouraged. After all, that is how true learning and understanding evolves. It would be kind of sad–not to mention downright boring-- if everyone liked the same things and felt the same way. But when things become personal, rather than topic-focused, that’s when it’s time for the moderators to shut things down. And for the most part, that’s precisely whay they do, and properly so.
The brand wars go way back further than Lionel and MTH. I know Joshua Lionel Cowen and Harry Ives really didn’t like each other, and the claims Lionel made in its catalogs against Ives (although it didn’t mention Ives by name) weren’t fair. Some of it was true, but some of it was the exact opposite of truth–such as the “toughness” of Lionel’s enamel versus Ives’ lithography. When short-lived brands like Katz and Hoge started undercutting American Flyer’s prices, AF responded with some not-so-nice advertising. When that didn’t work, AF dropped its prices.
Cowen and Louis Marx didn’t hit out all that much in their advertising, but he certainly wished Marx wasn’t in the train business. Cowen often threatened Marx: “I’ll release a cheap train set and put you out of business.” To which Marx was said to have retorted, “Then I’ll release an expensive set, but mine will have twice as much stuff in it as yours.” Both Marx the man and Marx the company outlived Cowen and Lionel Corporation, but by the 1970s Marx wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire either.
The Internet has brought a lot of this stuff out into the open air, but the rivalries don’t seem to be much of anything new. And while O scale/gauge partisanship seems to be worse than what you see in HO or N scales, you see similar partisanship when it comes to computers (Apple vs. anything that runs Windows), pickup trucks (Ford vs. Chevy vs. Dodge; domestic vs. imports), motorcycles (Harley Davidson vs. imports), cameras (Nikon vs. Canon vs. Leica), and I’m sure there are other fields too. When people have a lot of money tied up in something, they tend to invest a lot emotionally in it too. If they had a bad experience with one and switch to another and have a better experience, then they tend to invest even more.
If you donr care for it just dont read it.
Dave’s points and history lessons are well taken.
One other facet of the brand wars fairly unique to three rail trains is that when advertising, public statements by manufacturers, or derogatory comments by other hobbiests are made about something one really likes and derives great pleasure from, one doesn’t feel kindly toward the yahoos who are making the remarks or the company behind the advertising. It’s one thing to tout your own product or how much you enjoy your brand of trains, and an entirely different thing to rain on someone else’s parade intentionally, persistently and “loudly.” We have a lot more of the latter than the former in the recent history of this hobby, and, as Allan notes, that is where the bitter disputes arise, IMO.
With your “public figure” designation, you are confusing “defamation” with libel and slander. Anyone may be charged with and sued for libel and slander regardless of who is the target.
And the relative anonymity that most Internet posters enjoy (hide behind) can disappear in a second thanks to a court order. And having “Freedom of Speech” does not mean you can say anything you want about someone or something on the Internet and not be held liable.
The O gauge community is a sensative group compared to other scales. On HO and N scale forums you can call it whatever you want… Junk, crap,…no one gets offended. With O gauge, call it that and it’s like ripping up a picture of the pope.
The worst thing about it is there are those who lurk in all the forums and wait for the subject to come up and then start bashing the “enemy” or apologizing for their preferred brand, in certain subtle ways. Almost like a “drive by” shooting; throw a few rounds out and then sit back and watch the confusion. Most of them rarely if ever post any thing on any other train related subject, contribute any positive information to the forums or even talk of their own trains or layout.
I feel sorry for these types of narrow minded people who have such blind hatred for one and loyalty for another that they can’t enjoy playing with all the toys instead of just the ones that they think are best.
The division of the 3 rail O market into camps has had several unintended results, including lost sales and interest.
One of the primary differences in 3 rail O versus HO or N is the the lack of standardization and interoperability. I doubt the HO or N world would tolerate for very long DCC decoders that could not be operated by any manufacturer’s DCC control system. Proprietary track designs that don’t match up with other manufacturers’ track has been mostly restricted to train set sales because of the repulsive nature of proprietary lock-in in HO and N.
The fact that DCS 1 is not totally compatible with DCS 2 which is not compatible with TMCC has caused me to not bother with any command control system in 3 rail O. Frankly, I don’t care which has more useless additional crew voices, or which one is “best” according to mthrules or his Lionel counterpart. The incompatibility means I have to spend extra time researching the compatibility of what I buy with what I have, or be willing to spend hundreds of extra $$ in overlapping equipment to be able to operate whatever I buy.
Add to this command control incombatibility the prevailing general disagreement as to what constitutes a reasonable minimum curve radius that equipment should be designed for, and proprietary track systems that do not play well with each other, and I have made 3 rail O my secondary scale instead of primary.
a pox on both their houses
Fred W
“Almost like a “drive by” shooting; throw a few rounds out and then sit back and watch the confusion.”
That is, indeed, pretty much how it works. Some folks seem to feel the need to be salesmen for a certain brand they prefer rather than just being hobbyists who are having fun with the wealth of products that are currently available. In all the years this “brand wars” stuff has been going on, I’ve never been able to understand the intense focus on manufacturers rather than the far more meaningful and individually rewarding focus on the hobby itself, and what it offers.
I’ve always contended that the only thing killing–or at least harming–this segment of the hobby is the hobbyists themselves. I still firmly believe that to be true.