Future of D&D Miniatures

[Sammael]

*sigh*

I know I'm not going to get it, but I can still express my desires, no?

 

[pawsplay]

I know I'm not going to get it, but I can still express my desires, no?

To dreeeeeam the imposssible dreeeeeam....

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

I got the Gargantuan Blue just a month or so ago, and like it a lot.

Got my Gargantuan Blue this weekend and I love it, especially the menacing pose (though the ear flaps are really odd). I'll probably pass on the White one though (unless I get it just to have it).

 

[kaomera]

What kind of gargantuan or Colossal creatures would everyone like to see?

Owlbears!

 

[smetzger]

1) I think DDM really went downhill with the 2.0 rules and the 4e monsters. It alienated two groups of people the DDM players and the people who have stuck with 3.5.

2) The PH minis failed because there were very few race/armor/weapon combos that were new. Most had been done before. There was only 1 new combo that I didn't have.

This is what I would like to see...
1) New race/armor/weapon combos. Go through the races and weapons. I want each race with each weapon with both armor + shield, armor only, and cloak only, in both male and female forms. I don't need another human sword and board, elf with a bow, or dwarf with an axe.

2) Monsters from 3.5 that have not been done. Sorry I really don't care for any 4e specific monsters unless they are very good stand ins for 3.5 monsters.

I have bought very few of the most recent sets because they didn't have anything new that I could use.

 

[Jhaelen]

1) I think DDM really went downhill with the 2.0 rules and the 4e monsters. It alienated two groups of people the DDM players and the people who have stuck with 3.5.

Both of these may have been factors. Another (imho more important) factor was the decline in quality in addition to increasing prices.

2) The PH minis failed because there were very few race/armor/weapon combos that were new. Most had been done before. There was only 1 new combo that I didn't have.

Not really. Imho, the real problem is that you get three minis at once. I don't know any player interested in getting anything but a single mini for her current pc. That's it. And the line was meant to be for players. I, as the DM bought some of them, but there weren't many which included at least two minis I was interested in.

I want each race with each weapon with both armor + shield, armor only, and cloak only, in both male and female forms. I don't need another human sword and board, elf with a bow, or dwarf with an axe.

While I agree about the overabundance of generic dwarves, humans, and (dark) elves, you'd need billions of minis for every combination which simply isn't feasible. A producer simply has to concentrate on the most common tropes.

 

[Mark]

1) I think DDM really went downhill with the 2.0 rules and the 4e monsters. It alienated two groups of people the DDM players and the people who have stuck with 3.5.

I wonder how much sales have dropped off on miniatures and if current D&D players are buying as many as D&D players of past years (setting aside sales to DDM players or lack thereof since dropping that game). It would seem that the most recent rules engender use of minis at least as much as past games.

 

[Herschel]

Ah heck.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I wonder how much sales have dropped off on miniatures and if current D&D players are buying as many as D&D players of past years (setting aside sales to DDM players or lack thereof since dropping that game). It would seem that the most recent rules engender use of minis at least as much as past games.

Well - we do know that there was a general reduction in miniature buying regardless of rules versions for pre-painted minis.

We know this because there was a significant reduction in Star Wars miniatures sales that lead to a scaling back of the SW minis lines to 40 minis per set. That happened despite the fact that the Rules stayed the same in SW Minis and were not changed with the release of SW: Saga Edition. This also happened even though the Star Wars miniatures game was always more popular (as a game) than DDMs (as a game) was.

Please appreciate that I am not saying that SW Minis were a more popular product in terms of overall sales over DDM. They may have been - they may not have been. I really have no hard data on that at all - but retail pricing in my city suggests that there remains a large inventory of SW minis available for sale in both the primary and secondary markets.

I do know that every game store owner I ever spoke with believes that a much larger percentage of purchasers of SW minis were buying them to play the SW minis game (or simply to collect them) in contrast to DDMs, which were always primarily purchased by people to play D&D with - not to play D&D minis with.

So despite that fact that:

• the minis game for Star Wars was far better supported, with boxed started sets and hard cardboard maps;
• the SW minis game had vastly more maps and even had independent scenario books; and
• the SW minis, overall, had a higher quality to the models and especially the paint jobs because of Lucas Licensing acting as a Quality Control referee under the license,

the Star Wars minis still proved to not be profitable enough so that the lines were scaled back and ultimately, did not make enough money in order to encourage WotC to renew the Star Wars license, which expires 10 days from now, in fact.

I can also report that when it comes to availability of supposed "out of print" miniatures, boosters going back all the way to Rebel Storm are still available for sale in my city for about $10 CDN. DDM boosters are also available, but the product availability of primary boosters only goes back to about War of the Dragon Queen.

So what can we guess from all of this? I infer that there was a general reduction in demand across both lines of WotC pre painted miniatures that was attributable to a few factors:

1 - Consumer Fatigue: You can only sell people random stuff in boxes by the case for so long. At a certain point, the value in use of an additional pre-painted minis declines in proportion to the number of existing pre-painted minis in a consumer's individual collection. This was not restricted to DDM or SW minis, either. We saw the same with MageKnight, Clix and with WoW miniatures too. People can get fatigued with the whole product concept.

2 - Economic Downturn: I expect that this had some effect on demand, though it is easy to overstate this. The economic downturn had no effect at all on M:TG - indeed, their sales were up about 70% last year. For the most part, a bad economy hurts people who lose their jobs. It doesn’t tend to hurt the people who don't lose their jobs (though many incomes can still decrease even among the employed, especially those whose jobs are commission based)

It undoubtedly had some effect - but not as big as many might prefer to believe.

3- Random Minis as an Inferior Good: The sale of vast numbers of minis over 20+ sets for DDM and 16 sets for SW Minis created ... a lot of miniatures. Like the lead minis put out by Ral Partha, RAFM and Grenadier in the Golden age of AD&D - those minis never really vanished. As a hard good, they endured as an "installed base" in the marketplace.

Indeed, there were millions of pre-painted minis created and dumped into the market in about a 6 year period. Some were thrown out and put in boxes and forgotten - but the large majority were used while others were re-sold.

While the eBay market was (and remains) expensive in terms of transaction costs +shipping, there are a large number of eStores that are far more economical to purchase from.

So we've seen vast numbers of commons and uncommons on sale for pretty cheap prices. Indeed, when it comes to Star Wars minis, where the value-in-use for RPG purposes was always a far significantly lower percentage of the aftermarket demand than demand for use as part of the SW minis game, we've seen this effect clearly. Star Wars minis, at least for common and uncommon minis were (and are) DIRT CHEAP. Like 10 cents to 50 cents a piece cheap, and available in large numbers.

Why are they so cheap? Because supply is high and demand is low. The market has became over-saturated.

4- Oversaturation: In short, at a tipping point, the mftr begins to compete against its own previously sold products, no longer randomly packaged, and which in many cases are sold for less (sometimes MUCH less) per mini than WotC's new random minis are sold for. When that economics starts to kick in, inventories rise of random boosters and soon enough - it's game over.

That's what I really think has happened in the case of both SW minis and DDM. The market became saturated to where WotC was competing against its own previously released products.

5 - The Edition Effect: With DDM, there was also an "edition effect", where in addition to changing the rules for the underlying minis game, the source artwork was changed between 3E and 4E, splitting the market somewhat and further hurting sales. I think when it came to DDM, the ref art issue was far more important thant the change in the rules of the DDM game.

My guess is that a significant number of 3E players did not look to buy the new 4E ref art inspired minis lines, rather, if they were spending money on minis, they purchased minis in boosters from the 16 or so 3E sets either in the primary market or in the secondary market. I think this was an important issue, as the hardcore 3E players tend to skew older. I don't know what your experience has been, but in terms of miniatures buying, the people I saw who were buying DDMs by the case were not teenagers and college kids, there were hardcore gamers - men in their late 20s, 30s and 40s with jobs. The very demographic most likely to stick with 3E.

In any case, we know that the demand for DDMs was reduced to the point where the lines were essentially discontinued. We also know that the Star Wars line has had its final release this past week as well.

Result: The days of plastic crack are over. Exactly what went wrong and how to get it right "next time" are unclear. But I wouldn't rule out a new line of collectible DDMs with the Fifth edition of D&D at some vague and uncertain date in the future.

Assuming of course, that the digital equivalent of such miniatures do not replace physical minis by that time - as that remains a distinct possibility.







​

 

[MerricB]

3- Random Minis as an Inferior Good: The sale of vast numbers of minis over 20+ sets for DDM and 16 sets for SW Minis created ... a lot of miniatures. Like the lead minis put out by Ral Partha, RAFM and Grenadier in the Golden age of AD&D - those minis never really vanished. As a hard good, they endured as an "installed base" in the marketplace.

Err - this is all about Oversaturation. You don't seem to have a point 3.