(snide attempts at insult handily flushed... too much good stuff in here to bother with 'em ATM):

Quote - Michael 3 was released fall of 2003
Apollo was released June of 2005
Apollo will celebrate his two year release date this coming June.

Ah - my bad. Then let us amend the search criteria for the time period: "Apollo Maximus" v. "Michael 3" from Feb of this year (3 mo. ago) back to 23 months ago (June 2005): AM: 304 M3: 1000+ My point stands. During the time when AM was for-cost (and even thereafter, assuming a free base AM during any of that time period), it lagged behind M3 by a huge margin. Only after AM was released for free did its popularity pick up any (as evidenced earlier). Since RO's gallery search engine stops at 1000 for results, it would be time consuming to gather more fine-grained stats... but it can be done, and anybody can duplicate the results!> Quote - > Quote - Penguinisto wrote: it had been on sale for a long time before, and the market seemed lukewarm at best overall during that time

wrong.

Apollo was a top seller every single week he was available at both sites. His user interest spanned 3+ Apollo topic forums, often the most requested supported figure, over M3, in polls and figure request threads, and not one documented return.

I refer you again to the stats above. I have provable and repeatable evidence up there showing actual use, while so far you're pointing at forum threads and forum polls. Forum requests and forum polls != general consumption figures. The galleries in RO are the best metric of that. > Quote - Unlike M3, there was no Apollo free base,  during the 10 month period Apollo was available.

Agreed - only recently has AM been made a free figure. My point still stands: You cannot compete against free unless the figure is so far above the thing you're competing against, so as to make it valuable enough to warrant the sales price. > Quote - Penguinisto wrote: ...the fact that he would have little to no sales plan, or an internal team, to turn a free version into profit (not just cost recoupment - profit), there would be no real point in his building one upon demand.

wrong. Then prove it wrong and build a free female figure, then blast V4 out of the water with it. ;) Basic economics and basic business practices say otherwise... unless you've suddenly sprouted a team of paid modellers and/or a company, I fail to see where you would succeed enough to release a free female figure. 'course, if you want to release one anyway as a free figure - go for it. /P