Phil - I saw this when I was in the faucet business. It's the same business model that wal-mart is built on. Get the lowest cost product from where ever in the world you can get it. Sell it to maximize your profit and put the rest of the responsibility on the manufacturer. I saw this first hand in the faucet business. The big box stores approach the company and want an "exclusive" product only for their stores and promise "X" amount of shelf space. The retailer determines the selling price point and what "style" they want to see AND what they will pay for the product (to ensure they make money) - and then they dump the rest of the responsibility on the manufacturer.
So instead of a quality product being built and priced as such - it is just the opposite. They figure a consumer is more willing to spend money at a particular price point, figure in their profit, and then cut every corner possible to make a product just good enough to get by. This is why so many jobs have been shifted out of this country and why a warranty is almost a thing of the past anymore. It was so bad - it was almost a wash for me to buy a faucet with my employee discount (50% of MSRP) thru the company I worked for vs just buying it a Lowes or Home Depot.
The other thing that happens is product life cycle has also been grossly reduced. Many products are now only in production for a few years. This makes investing in the manufacturing processes very difficult then you have all this equipment and tooling that essentially only makes you money for a few years and then essentially gets thrown away or you end up married to the equipment and thus have to put work on it you would rather walk away from - simply because you still have payments to make on it. This is why so much labor, and equipment building and tooling and the like is now done outside of this country - it's simply cheaper (in most cases it is cheaper - not lower cost, lower quality as well).
Sorry for the rant - but I have seen this first hand and a game cam is no different. Also saw the whole warranty issue with my Lacrosse boots as well - as they wouldn't apply the full warranty to the replacement pair they sent when those I originally purchased failed.