D&d Minis Hurrayyy!

[MerricB]

"Some of us want good quality, D&D specific minis..."

Do you have a reason for assuming I don't in fact want what I say I want?

Mainly because you've hidden it well under non-issues.

Now that you've said that, does your opinion go any further? (Like, how could WotC do so and not make a loss?)

Cheers!

 

[joecole]

But everything WotC has ever said indicates that this is never going to happen. Why? because they can't make money at it.

Actually, for the record, that's not true. Chainmail was profitable and the designers working on it have stated that they were happy with the sales levels.

 

[2d6]

interesting topic!

As a 30 something gamer who nolonger has the eyes or dexterity to paint minitures (or the money), I'm looking forward to these. They may not be beautiful up close but if they look decent at 3-4 feet thats good enough for me. Keep in mind too, that distributing minis this way is an accessability issue to. People who are new to the hobby can quickly get into the minis aspect of the game without having to paint pewter minitures or spend a bunch of money.

Now if I were still big into painting minis, I can certainly understand mmu1's argument. Reaper does a good job, but lacks some specific figures. It would be nice to have minis that were represenitive of the books.

As to the random packs, I'm certain these peices will show up on ebay or frpgames.com or even here in the ENworld shop as individuals and will mostly likely be pretty cheap.

 

[Bran Blackbyrd]

Why you want to convince everyone else that they're NOT FOR EVERYONE ELSE betrays some ulterior motive. Or are you just looking for an argument?

Ahem. I was engaging in civil conversation. mmu1 may be going off on a bit of a tangent but raises an interesting question; Who are you trying to convince and of what are you trying to convince them?
Fair enough?
I felt that, between my previous posts, I had elaborated my points well enough. So I hadn't intended on posting to this thread again. Having replied to your query, this is again my intention. I'm not interested in an argument, I've already said all there is to be said. If you want to continue, that's your own business.

The D&D Miniature line is not going to kill off metal, high-quality miniatures. They will remain. There may be a few monster sculpts that only exist in the D&D line because of copyright, but for the most part, Reaper and other companies will continue to fulfill all your needs.

I was never under the impression that the D&D minis would kill off other miniature companies. The idea is laughable. Though it may or may not finally kill off WoTC's attempts at making minis. Thanks for the assurance though, and the bonus condescension.

Cheers!

Yeah...

 

[Olive]

Actually, for the record, that's not true. Chainmail was profitable and the designers working on it have stated that they were happy with the sales levels.

Profitable? I've never seen anything to suggest it was. I have seen Chris Pramas say that he was happy with the sales, and that he thought it did very well for a game of it's type. Sure, and he's almost certainly right. But it obviously wasn't good enough for WotC or Hasbro as they pulled it. Which is why Chris got laid off. Designers being happy isn't what decides these things.

 

[joecole]

Profitable? I've never seen anything to suggest it was. I have seen Chris Pramas say that he was happy with the sales, and that he thought it did very well for a game of it's type. Sure, and he's almost certainly right. But it obviously wasn't good enough for WotC or Hasbro as they pulled it. Which is why Chris got laid off. Designers being happy isn't what decides these things.

Please, if the designers said the sales were doing very well for a game of that type then it stands to reason it was making a profit. Hence, it was profitable. Obviously it wasn't profitable *enough* for WOTC, but that's not the same as Chainmail being a financial failure or metal minis being out of the picture "Because they can't make money at it."

I pointed this out because it shows that your assertion that the new D&D minis game is not a choice between two different approachs to mini games is not true. WOTC are clearly making a choice as to which market to target, even though both are (potentially) viable. That is of course their perogative, but your response to mmu1 regarding this point is not valid as it rests on a false premise.

(And to head off a misreading of the above, I'm not saying that it is wrong of WOTC to target a new market in search of a break away hit (which seems to be their business model). I am only saying that people like mmu1 are correct that, while they are a viable market, they are not being served by WOTC. Eh, what are you gonna do? [shrugs Homer-like])

 

[Olive]

Please, if the designers said the sales were doing very well for a game of that type then it stands to reason it was making a profit. Hence, it was profitable.

Please. Ever head of loss leading? compaines take a loss of products and services all the time for a variety of different reasons. PS2s, frex, cost more to make than they sell them at. The money's in the games. Chainmail could have easily been amking a loss and still selling better than the designers had hoped for it to sell in the first six months. These sort of things take a while to start up.

So try not to be so patroninsing. Please indeed.

and welcome to the boards.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

You weren't paying attention, were you? The question was, why do some people complain about this mini line, not whether they're a minority and should be ignored.

And if you think anyone who really likes to paint minis is going to buy this junk, please send me a baggie of whathever you're smoking... Hmm... $10 for a booster pack mystery crap, or $10 for three high-quality Reaper minis I can carefully select to make sure I'm getting my money's worth, because I don't have that much to spend? Decisions, decisions...

Smoke away then, buddy. I like to paint minis, and I'm also looking forward to these minis. I can spend 10 bucks on Reaper minis for my PC's, and then another 10 bucks on booster pack mystery crap for the monsters. Who knows, maybe simply having a booster-pack-mystery-crap monster will inspire me to use a monster in my campaign that I hadn't planned on using before, and never picked up from Reaper.

Edit: And I don't even think the minis look all that bad, really. I could certainly do a better job, but I don't always want to. And worst-case scenario, you could always use the factory paint job as your base coat and add your own shading and detailing. You'd still be getting a lot of minis for your dollar even if you wanted to strip and repaint them from scratch.

 

[joecole]

Please. Ever head of loss leading? compaines take a loss of products and services all the time for a variety of different reasons. PS2s, frex, cost more to make than they sell them at. The money's in the games. Chainmail could have easily been amking a loss and still selling better than the designers had hoped for it to sell in the first six months. These sort of things take a while to start up.

So try not to be so patroninsing. Please indeed.

and welcome to the boards.

That's entirely possible. Do you have any evidence that indicates that was the case? Do you have any evidence that miniature games profit structures are like console game systems? I'd be interested to see it, thanks.

Also note that if your scenario turns out to be true, it also has the potential to undermine your initial claim that Chainmail was not a viable product. If the cost structure of skirmish mini games is like the PS2 (though I'm not sure how that would be the case), then an initial loss would not necessarily indicate that the line was not viable. Rather, in line with your interpretation of Pramas's comments, it would simply mean the game was proceeding as planned (or ahead of schedule) towards a point where it would start to generate revenue.

 

[Olive]

That's entirely possible. Do you have any evidence that indicates that was the case? Do you have any evidence that miniature games profit structures are like console game systems? I'd be interested to see it, thanks.

No evidence what so ever, but it xpalins a few things. Anyway, i was merely using the PS2 example as an example of loss elading. There are other ways to do it such as merely lose money for a certain amount of time.

Just one more thing. I still, loss leaders or otherwise, think my point is corect. While metal mini buyers may be a viable market, WotC obviously don't see them as a market big enought to be worth their time and money and Chainmail is an example of that. If WotC DID think that metal minis were worth while, then why did they stop making them? I predict that WotC will pull out altogether rather than go back to metal mini making.