Official posts on DDM changes

[justanobody]

Most of what you state is true, but the profit margins are mostly the same. Retailers get the roughly the same reduction in price from the distributor per MtG box as they do a case of minis.

Some products will have a different % reduction. GW's LotR miniatures game has a smaller reduction in price to the game store. The explanation from GW is that they have to cover the royalty fees they pay Tolkien's estate.

The over all reduction in price is usually based on the total volume the store orders from the distributor.

Thanks,
Rich

Actually due to the price hikes involved near the end of 1.0, and the price changes going to 2.0 I noticed many shops that stock DDM lowered there profit margins by a few dollars not only to keep people buying the minis as boosters, but also compete with other stores.

The price increases for CCGs aren't that great, and extra quarter here or there, and the overall mark-ups were something in the range of 33% for CCGs and 26-27% for CMGs.

Sometimes even more for CMG's to get the older ones off the shelf to make room for the newer, less space taking, and quicker selling CCGs. So the CMGs may go nearly at cost or only about 10% mark-up sometimes because the overhead was too much.

Consider a booster case of minis is 12 packs, and a booster box of CCGs is around 24-36 packs depending on the game, the cost of CMGs nearly requires you to mark-up to about 40% to be able to get back all your costs which people would not pay. For a CCG booster box to cost the same as a CMG booster case it is a no brainer to stop carrying so much CMG and carry more CCGs.

So even with the same 33% mark-up a store is making less profits on CMGs than the CCGs. That is IF the store can sell a CMG for the regular mark-up or MSRP.

Don't get me started on LotR, as there is much more to them and other games than GW will not actually tell you. For example their price fixing agreement many people must still sign to be able to carry there products, not to mention the base product line you must carry including LotR even in an area where people may not play it. If you don't have the LotR on the shelves if/when a GW rep may pop into your store, your account is canceled to purchase more GW products of any kind.

Anywho, this has little to do, but some with the DDM so lets leave GW alone and just that ALL minis games cost a store owner more than it looks on the outside and bring in little to no profits because of it. CCGs is where the money is now for MANY reasons to both stores and players. CMGs are slowly dying for every company, and the ONLY way to keep their heads above water is with massive prize support for anything mini related to get players in to buy the minis products.

Retailers also don't always get the same "discounts" as some don't even get product they ordered because distributors have a favoritism system as to what retailers get product first no matter when it was ordered. Diamond Distributors/Comics, Alliance Games, etc all do this be it CCGs, or minis, or anything else! So discounts are based on quantity you buy, in addition to IF you are allowed to buy something to begin with if you are high enough on their "preferred customer" lists. Only getting directly form WotC do retailers get a fair shake, and WotC doesn't have enough stock to supply everyone directly as the wholesalers have.

At least that is my experience with it all, YMMV

 

[mhensley]

The conclusion you should be jumping too is that by the end of 2006 most people playing D&D had bought all the miniatures they needed for their game tables. Any purchases after that were just for cosmetic purposes and the occasional skirmish player. It is the most logical and obvious reason for the decline.

That is most certainly a major factor. It was the main reason why I quit buying them after the first year or so. Of course, I would have probably bought some more if the prices didn't keep going up while the paint quality kept going down.

 

[Darth_Asparagus]

That is most certainly a major factor. It was the main reason why I quit buying them after the first year or so. Of course, I would have probably bought some more if the prices didn't keep going up while the paint quality kept going down.

I have to agree a 100%. The last minis I bought had such a poor paint job. Some are just ink-washed and then a few dots are added. Also, it did not sit with me too well that the look of some races is very inconsistent (e.g. the size of gnolls and now the re-imagination of troglodytes).

I love miniatures and I do not expect pre-painted master pieces. But the current quality is not enough for me.

 

[megamania]

As a DM I LOVED the randomness. I loved getting a monster that I'd never ran a game with before and just thinking about how I could put that into a session.

I pulled a rage drake last year and just stared. What the heck was this thing? A dragon without wings that also happens to be amount? Huh? However, I loved the sculpt and eventually created an entire story behind these creatures that now lived in the desert and were highly territorial. Had I not pulled that mini I wouldn't have ened up ever using the creature since I didn't have the MM it came in (this was before 4e and it's induction into the MM).


I'm going to miss the DDM line, but it was a fun ride while it lasted. Hopefully the next line of minis has a high quality and great number of weird and different creatures along with those orcs & skeletons we all want tons of.

Ktulu

Ditto here.

I have been collecting / buying since Dragon Eye. I have all the figures minus two from Against the Giants.

What do I feel about the figures?
The paint quality has been in flux. We have the Emerald Mage which is a fantastic looking figure next to the Gealub. I use the figures exclusively for RPG and more so... 3.5 RPG. The restructuring of sizes and in some cases appearances really bothers me. There is only so much template use one can use explain size changes and the such.

From there... the general economy has me at a great disadvantage currently. On the secondary market I can get the two figures I need for 10 dollars after s/h but lack the money even for that.

From there... there is such a thing as a line line. How many Orcs, Kobolds and goblins do you need? In the flip side... how many figures did you not get that most folks would hate having? Never did get a Rust Monster (have 2 Ral parthas from the 80's at least) or Darksun stuff. Its been many years which for a figurine game I thought was good.

As for all the new proposed changes... I have to wait and see. Time, money and availiability will all be a factor on whether I buy any.


hint hint.... Darksun and more Eberron would influence me greatly

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Anyone who bought minis on the secondary market knew long ago that sales were down. It was obvious from the spiraling decline in the number of online sellers.

My own purchases showed the same thing. I peaked around War Drums and have been much more selective ever since.

Adding to the problem, quality has declined over the past few sets. And repetitive minis being produced (bugbears anyone?).

If things continued as before, DDMs would be out of business within a year or two (if it's even still profitable now). WotC probably knows that it should be supporting D&D with DDMs, thus the re-emphasis on PC minis.

To be honest, I think the higher price point will kill the new DDM sets. Yeah, the quality is better. That's great. But players only need so many PC minis and DM's will only spend so much (more) money than they already have.

What killed the golden goose, IMHO, is oversaturation. Too many minis too quickly.

 

[Sketchpad]

I think this is smart marketing on WotC's end. People have been clammoring for a few years about how much the randomness sucks when trying to play the RPG side of things, not to mention if you want to build specific groups in DDM. I actually liked the way that the newer Chainmail sets were produced a while back and would love to see some return to that idea for both DDM and SWM. I just hope we see something similar with SWM in the near future as I'm tired of getting a horde of Clone Troopers when I run a Rebellion era or KOTOR era game.
How about making a skirmish rule book like the 3x Minis Handbook and give conversions rules so people could continue playing skirmish if they want to? It's not like it'd be a huge feat to convert some of the concepts from 4e to minis anymore.

 

[sfgiants]

I know some have mentioned this but I think that the real reason sales have dwindled is tied to a couple of factors:

-oversaturation: only need so many goblins
-switch to 4e: I stopped buying when they went to 4e mostly because I used the stat cards a lot to speed up play (that and they also were creating a lot of monsters that were really only useful for 4e)

I am sure I wasn't alone

 

[justanobody]

What killed the golden goose, IMHO, is oversaturation. Too many minis too quickly.

Yes and no. The same number of minis were made as were made, the thing is how they got out there. Secondary market was cheaper to get thing vs boosters at local stores. Local stores are becoming a thing of the past because of all the overhead that online stores don't always have. More people went for more of the cheaper online minis, and local stores couldn't compete to sell them and had fewer people buying so fewer people playing in the stores for the skirmish games.

IF the stores had any chance to compete with online retailers then it would have helped, but they cannot afford to just sell locally for packs or singles.

So it was more the availability in this day and age and the fact the people weren't buying JUST the random packs.

Think 10 years back and they would probably still be selling slowly as people tried to get some as they were not available in all locations, but now people could get what they wanted quicker, for those who could afford to, and then stopped buying when they got what they needed.

As with all collectible games, the minis did come out quicker than normal people could afford to buy and keep up, and the concept of type 2.0 that rotated sets out put people off because minis are much more expensive than cards to keep up with and store or try to resale for those who didn't collect and packrat minis.

It was the same with Mage Knight and every other CMG since that sets came out before people could keep up, and the system burnt out for the masses. The biggest problem was the collectible aspect and not being able to get what you want. Collectible games other than CCGs are declining because the cost of thing are too great except for cards.

"Hey I just spent $26 on a booster pack and got nothing worth a flip to show for it! Done wasting my money!"

Games Workshop has been going difficult, for still going for decades because you can get EXACTLY what you want, which the PC Heroes will help with now, but the game is already dead to help skirmish.

If the hang-ups with SKUs and collectibility was thrown away them there could have been a greater chance to make money and a popular game.

you could even keep the rarity base with painting and cost models by making only 3 SKUs per set. Give away the rules for free to anyone who needs it, make a DDM set of maps as a product (Fantastic Locations), and sell the minis singles based on rarity.

Common, $1
Uncommon, $2
Rare, $3

People would eat up minis like candy where I am if they were sold like that.

Make the cases to the stores random then.

120 minis per case
60 commons
40 uncommons
20 rares

This would have kept the secondary markets from taking over the local stores profits with the cheaper minis and higher price singles.

Once people stopped buying X mini, they could have been offered as prize support for non-sanctioned tournaments, of the store owner could bundle the singles as a discount encounter package offer to get rid of the ones that not everyone wants to buy as singles anymore.

So I don't think it all about too many minis, but too many of ones people didn't want, and not enough of the others to go around for both uses of them. RPG players don't care that a beholder is rare and costs $50, nor should they be expected to pay it just to be able to use one in their games while that big Mammoth minis that takes more plastic costs 1/3 of the price.

Collectibility and availability of certain minis did the most damage.

I have me an umberhulk and didn't need to spend $70 to get the Delver.

I still think there will be problems similar with the new model in how RPGers actually want minis as can be sen with the need to buy random packs of monsters, this still doesn't help RPG games, only players. Once players have their mini, what more do they need with no game to use them for?

So I am watching for cheap minis now from disgruntled skirmish players at online auction sites to compelte some standard encounter needs.

 

[Benimoto]

I know some have mentioned this but I think that the real reason sales have dwindled is tied to a couple of factors:

Not to pick on you, sfgiants, since several people have said it, but this thread collects all the official statements about the change, and none of them says that sales were low. Maybe it's a failure on my part to read between the lines, but I didn't get that from any of the official announcements.

What I did get out of it was:

• Rising costs were making their profit margins on any type of sales unacceptably low.
• Reported numbers of skirmish games were declining, to the point where the resources spent on that were better spent elsewhere.
• Raising the price of boosters and lowering the production costs (quality) were both unacceptable options, so they decided to lower the number of figures.
• To offset the higher price-per-figure, an attempt was made to add value via higher quality, less randomness, and the 4e player power cards.

 

[sfgiants]

No offense taken. Just my personal thoughts. However, if profits and sales were great why would they mess with it as is? If things were still selling they would just increase the cost and keep rolling before they tried anything else.

Just my 2 cents I am sure someone with a lot more time and desire will find quotes to disprove me, but hey just my personal opinion