shadow said:
Well, for me part of the fun is painting miniatures. I can't imagine a company charging 24.99 for a single figure, even if they are painted. Most good Reaper minis are only about $3 (although unpainted).
The biggest beef for me is the random packaging. Some people like the idea of random packaging since it allows a greater variety of miniatures. I like the idea of knowing what I'm going to get. I like to buy specific miniatures, not having to buy a lot of booster packs to get the one mini I'm looking for. If I want an illithid miniature, I'll buy an illithid miniature, not get another Tordek the Dwarf miniature in a random expansion pack.
The priming and painting would likely push that cost up way high. Think of it from an entreprenuer point of view - how much time does it take to do a really good quality paint job on a high-quality, detailed metal mini? Then add on the costs of packaging, marketing, shipping, etc. Think about how much a skilled artist would cost per hour and how many of them you'd have to hire. Then figure out how much you'd have to charge to make a profit. A good figure should take at least an hour of labor - there are many coats, lots of details, tracing, working on the base, etc. And that hour of labor would be cost on top of all the other costs associated with making minis. Since there is skill involved, at a minimum, we're talking paying $10/hour - perhaps more. And an employer pays probably an additional $5/hour in other associated costs - so already the cost of the mini has gone up $15. Then fitting that back into the supply chain adds probably some more costs before packaging and shipping it out. So now that $3 mini has gone up to at least $20. And add on top of that the fact that the people who would be very particular about the paint job in the first place would probably prefer an unpainted mini anyway - and the person who is NOT particular about it would be much more likely to just spend $6.95 and get eight minis, or spend that $20 and get 24 minis for the price of your one good one, which sits on the shelf, unbought either by you (because you want to paint it yourself) or by the person looking to get a lot of decent, painted minis, on the cheap.
I don't like the random, either, but then I figure if there REALLY is a special, specific monster I want, I can always just buy a metal mini and paint it myself. The main use I intend to get out of the plastic ones is a generic pool of monster minis I can use for ALL of my D&D games, now and forever. Since I have NO IDEA what creatures I'll end up needing at any particular time, it might as well be random. So long as the ratios of commons end up being creatures you'd probably want a lot of anyway, it works out.
I see these as a cheap, easy way to get a whole lot of different, basic minis for use in my game.
And hey, if the fun for you is in painting it yourself, then what does the randomness or quality or anything else matter if they are pre-painted? If you enjoy painting, then obviously a pre-painted mini isn't for you, and fortunately Wizards didn't outlaw the metal, non-painted minis.
(Addressed to the thread in general
I can understand why this isn't a product that some people would be interested in. What I don't understand is why one would then give this a 'thumbs down' if it is something that, even if done well, one still wouldn't be interested in. I mean, I would never vote on the relative quality of ceramic cookware - because I don't use it, have no use for it, and therefore really can't judge it - I could just give it all a thumbs down, but that doesn't really give any useful information to someone who IS someone who is interested in such cookware and wants an informed and interested opinion.
