Pathfinder 1E Paizo Announces More Details about Minis Line

[Dragonhelm]

You know, that dire rat seems awfully familiar. Hrm...

Nah, couldn't be!

 

[TheAuldGrump]

You know, that dire rat seems awfully familiar. Hrm...

Nah, couldn't be!

You're saying that Alf got... downsized?

Rats!

The Auld Grump

 

[Kerranin]

40% case discount, divided by 76 minis is $2.10 per mini or so....still seems high, but that might be reasonable depending on the choices and sculpts.

Care to explain where this 40% discount you've mentioned is from?

 

[Kerranin]

Because, regardless of how much goodwill one or the other might have, it's really rather silly to see:

"$4 minis from Paizo? Take my money!"

"$4 minis from WotC? Greedy corporate bastards!"

In much the same way that it's suspiciously weird to see frothing outrage when WotC does something and silence when Paizo later does the exact same thing.

Would XP you but it says I have to spread more around.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Actually, I am seeing more 'Take my money!' posts from folks who liked DDM than from folks who like Paizo. Folks who would likely be shelling out money to WotC if they still made the silly little plastic buggers. (Not a fan of random minis, regardless of company.)

The Auld Grump

 

[Kerranin]

Prices look bad initially, but when you go Case and discount, maybe prices won't be so bad (we'll see when they're available locally in Europe).

Care to bet that the usual price conversion will be in effect. Change the dollar sign to a pound sign? (Despite the fact that on the FX market £1 = $1.60 or more)

It will probably be cheaper to buy at the dollar price and ship it, even with tax and shipping it is cheaper than the 60% markup.

Sorry for the number of posts, came to this thread late.

 

[DEFCON 1]

.75 for commons? I'm there!

Heh... that's how I initially purchased my first giant batch of D&D miniatures. I bought about $120 worth of minis from Auggies, most of which ranged in price from .39 cents to .99 cents. Picked up things like a dozen Chillborn Zombies at something like .59 cents each, thirty to forty PC minis all for less than a dollar apiece, etc.

The commons aren't great obviously... but they were a fantastic base with which to start my collection, giving me more than enough to have most humanoid monster races covered, plenty of undead options, and more than enough animals and insects and the like to cover most needs for encounters. And if you can get close to 200 miniatures for $120 bucks... you gotta love it.

 

[mac1504]

Care to explain where this 40% discount you've mentioned is from?

I assumed it was the typical discount that retailers get when purchasing from the company (or through a distributor).

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

You miss my point.

If randomization stops people from buying your product, it's something you don't want.

That's not entirely correct. Hypothetically, lets say I wont buy their product unless they include a 6 pack of beer with it. Should they now include a 6'er for fear of not getting my money? I mean, it would be nice, but...

What you want to avoid is enough people not buying your product. However, historically, random lines have done rather wellcompared to non-random, of which the only 2 of note that I can think of are Reaper's Legendary Encounters, and the Rackham Confrontation pre-paints, which were backed by a skirmish game. Reapers LE line isnt very large despite being in production for several years, and Rackham went out of business. Oh and Heroscape, also canned. Wizkids still produces a lot of random clicks, and Mageknight is getting a re-launch.

At some point, you accept you arent going to get every potential customer, when the effort to get them outweighs the payoff. They said they would have some non-random packs, likely of the basic stuff. For guys that want more than orcs, goblins and undead, point them towards the secondary market for the stuff that's not profitable enough to sell directly yourself, and let the resellers deal with the headaches of grell vs otyugh inventory. Yeah, you lose some money off the direct sale, but you also dont have to pay for individual packaging and distribution related headaches. The reseller is still buying packs to open, so you're getting money that way. As a bonus, the rest of us get a wide selection of minis, and the line actually has room for growth.

Paizo makes it pretty clear that they felt they had no viable alternatives if they were going to get a decent line. If it stops enough people from buying the product that the product can't bring in a profit, then it stands to reason that minis producers are in a vicious little catch-22: The only thing they can do to get their line out there is ALSO the thing that will make the line a failure.

Yeah, if you pre-suppose it kills the line, I guess you can consider it a hypothetical problem. Its basically countered by "What if randomness causes it to succeed! They should do random!"

Bear in mind, Wizkids/Paizo arent WOTC, who must answer to their Hasbro overlords. Random packs have historically made money (its the bulk of wizkids busines). For WOTC/Hasbro, it wasnt enough that the minis turn a profit, it had to be ENOUGH profit that the resources werent better spent elsewhere, developing something else that would bring in bigger returns. Wizkids is owned by Neca, which makes more niche toys, and would appear more willing to take a leser return.

WOTC's line suffered from a few stumbles. They killed their skirmish game, alienating existing customers. The quality of both sculpts and paints took a significant nose dive. They lowered the number of figures per pack, and kept the price the same. They experimented with semi visible packs, which resulted in unicorn pegwarmers, and retailers stuck with unmoving stock. And also of note, this was all during a significant economic downturn. That's a lot of torpedoes aimed at you.

That presupposes that randomization is a problem, which, for the market in general, it might not be. Though certainly plenty of people are posting in this thread and elsewhere about why it's a problem for them, and they probably aren't unique anomalies.

The reasons for randomization have been spelled out over, and over, and over. Sure, you have a vocal contingent that just wants to stick their fingers in their ears, ignore everything people actually in the industry tell them, and squawk "We want whatever we want, whenever we want it, super cheap! Or ELSE!" They're an unpleasable fan base who doesnt care about the realities of manufacturing and distribution. If they cant be satisfied by the fixed packs of mooks or wont order a single figure on the secondary market, oh well. You lose their marginal purchases of certain figures, and console yourself on the fact that you didnt waste money on all the burdens that comes with individual sku's.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Care to explain where this 40% discount you've mentioned is from?

Lots of places offer case discounts. Auggies and Miniature Market are who I normally ordered from, never had a problem. IMO, any reasonable LGS should offer a pre-order case discount as well.