WotC changes how D&D mini's are going to be sold.

[DaveMage]

Is it something only China has access to? The materials are only found there?

I'm thinking cheaper labor might have something to do with it....

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Is it something only China has access to? The materials are only found there?

It's all about labour costs. You can pay someone in China a couple bucks (if that) a day vs. 10 times that amount in North America. Plus, painting minis is labour intensive so labour costs probably represent a higher than average cost.

When you're shipping tens of thousands of units at a time, the shipping costs are acceptable.

Bottom line? It's just not economical to make them in North America. Nor should North Americans want to be employed performing highly unskilled labour. Better to train up to be skilled labour at high(er) paying jobs.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Saving the DDM Skirmish Game

DDM is over:

I don't think it is. There's quite a bit of fight left in the DDM players. On Hordelings, Maxminis, and the WotC forums you'll find quite a robust discussion of how the skirmishers intend to reincarnate the game.

Guilds, donations, player tracking and rankings, tournament play including championships, it's all there.

Several of the people are themselves freelancers working on the restatting of the cards from Harbinger forward, so, they have at least a little bit of inside access.

Eventually, I can see WotC giving just enough permission for an official (not WotC official, but official nonetheless) guild to have rights to produce skirmish stats for the miniatures that will be released with the new packaging. Even Limited play may survive.

A tough bunch, those skirmishers.



Dave

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Printing in 3D in sufficient detail, and with several color plastics, is just around the corner...

Well, we'll see it in my life time, I hope.

We'll see it in my life time, I think, because the usefulness of 3D printing of this type is high.

but I'd bet on much sooner rather than later.

This is interesting. Tell us more...

 

[Henry]

This is interesting. Tell us more...

Just a minute of googling brought me this...
Shapeways: 3D Printing for the Masses, Contest at BlenderNation

Researchers have been playing with this for upwards of 10 or 12 years now, and cost and use have been prohibiting factors, but the idea that you can have a local manufacutring facility of only a couple thousand square feet or less, spread all across the world, producing specialty widgets that people pay good money to have shipped to them right now, like plastic machine parts or such, is a dream a lot of people have been pursuing. Ultimate dream: take a CAD computer, a printer, and a 50-gallon drum of "liquid-to-solid magic" plastic, and BAM! you've got a machine shop.

 

[justanobody]

I'm thinking cheaper labor might have something to do with it....

It's all about labour costs. You can pay someone in China a couple bucks (if that) a day vs. 10 times that amount in North America. Plus, painting minis is labour intensive so labour costs probably represent a higher than average cost.

When you're shipping tens of thousands of units at a time, the shipping costs are acceptable.

Bottom line? It's just not economical to make them in North America. Nor should North Americans want to be employed performing highly unskilled labour. Better to train up to be skilled labour at high(er) paying jobs.

That's just disgusting!

 

[Fifth Element]

That's just disgusting!

Getting a bit close to politics here. Such discussions tend to get into politics even if they start out as economics.

 

[Leatherhead]

Well this thread has gone places.

I will say that focusing on getting pc characters out there is a step in the right direction. In my experience, it really helps to draw people in when you can give them mini of their character that more or less resembles their character. However, 18 is kind of a small number to start out with considering all the different race class combinations. At the minimum, I still want to get at least 8 minis of each race in the phbs; A male and female mini of a heavy armor melee, light armor melee, caster, and ranged weapon user. I figure those can more or less cover every class I currently know about, but that number might go up if WotC starts to push a bunch of unarmored classes or one of the new power sources has a specific trait not covered in those generalizations.

I have a small collection of the more common humanoids (humans, elves, and dwarves) I can draw from. In a pinch, some elves work for eladrin and half-elves, a few humans could work for half-elves as well. So I am just missing a bunch of female characters, halflings, and the newer races at this point.

 

[darjr]

3D color printing.

Wikipedia's article has more info.

I've heard that there is a store in Akibara that will do 3D printing on demand. Large and crude, good for nothing other than a novelty, not to mention D&D mini's. But it's another start.

Color 3D printing is a factor in some of the technologies.

I think the demand for this will rise and make, first industrial, then at home, affordable 3D color printing technologies good enough for D&D mini's, inevitable.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I like everything about this except the price. I know why it's increasing, but we'll see if they can retain me as a customer. The key factor is, I think, whether the minis are useful enough to warrant purchasing. I.e. no weird ones that never see play.