Dear Hasbro: about those minis

[kenobi65]

You'll see this kind of issue with pretty much any business model, not just minis, and not just gaming.

There are always going to be consumers who aren't happy with how the seller has chosen to do business. They complain, they boggle at how stupid the seller must be, to be leaving their money on the table (and, surely, if I want to do business differently, then there must be a lot of people like me out there!)

Even when the seller says, "look, we understand what you're saying, but we've run the numbers, and it doesn't make economic sense for us to do it your way", they don't want to believe them, or assume they're lying or lazy.

Welcome to capitalism.

 

[kenobi65]

Paizo was doing some of this for a time, though I'm not sure if they still are.

They still are, though they don't have a large number of such theme sets:
http://paizo.com/store/games/miniatures/tradableMiniaturesGames/dnd/critterPacks

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Merric's Law of Miniatures: Non-Random Packaging, Cheap Prices, and a Large Range of Figures: Choose two.

What Heroscape lacks is a large range of figures.

In 2005, they produced 55 figures, compared to 180 D&D Mini figures.
In 2006, they produced 88 figures, compared to 182 D&D Mini figures.

I think the price is also more expensive per mini than DDM.

Cheers!

Funny how Ebay provides all three.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

It may be efficient for WotC and it may be efficient for retailers, but it's not efficient for a lot of gamers. Let's say I pick up Dungeon magazine, the official source for D&D adventures, and I choose an adventure to run and I want to use miniatures with it. Unless I have been obsessively collecting full sets of D&D minis as they've been released, odds are I will not have the minis on hand to run this adventure. Nor will I easily be able to get them. Chances are some of what I need are in older sets that are OOP. That means I have to go hunting on Ebay trying to track down exactly the mins I might need, which may or may not be available and whose prices may or may not be affordable. That is not efficient.

True. But you don't need exact minis to have a thrilling game session.

 

[kenobi65]

Funny how Ebay provides all three.

eBay, and eBay sellers, don't make the figures. I think Merric's Law only applies to the manufacturer of the product.

(Incidentally, there's a very similar law to Merric's in the market research industry. You can have your data (a) fast, (b) cheap, or (c) accurate -- pick two out of the three.)

 

[kenobi65]

True. But you don't need exact minis to have a thrilling game session.

Some folks do. Some folks really want the minis to exactly represent the PCs or NPCs involved. Some folks are less concerned about that (and so, "This orc is actually a tiefling").

 

[BryonD]

True. But you don't need exact minis to have a thrilling game session.

I most ABSOLUTELY agree with this.

I love minis, but I'll still use pennies from time to time when that simpel solution is best. So any time I've got something that is "good enough" it is all gravy. And with the great variety of stuff I've aquired in recents years (DDM + Counter Collections) on top of a fairly decent traditional mini collection, close enough works out most of the time.

 

[BryonD]

eBay, and eBay sellers, don't make the figures. I think Merric's Law only applies to the manufacturer of the product.

Very true.

But even beyond that, it is pretty hard to match the per-unit items cost of WotC retail on E-Bay.
Yeah, you can get cheap commons, but that isn't a straight comparison.

 

[CaptainChaos]

It doesn't need to be efficient for "a lot of gamers". It needs to be efficient for the marketplace. Clearly, it is. Whatever "a lot" is, the group of gamers that like the current system is even more.

According to who, your crystal ball? Look, I'll freely admit that the current model seems to be doing OK for Wizards, but you have no way of knowing whether WotC could be even more successful with a different business model. WotC embraced the collectible mentality for minis because the company was built on collectibility.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I most ABSOLUTELY agree with this.

I love minis, but I'll still use pennies from time to time when that simpel solution is best. So any time I've got something that is "good enough" it is all gravy. And with the great variety of stuff I've aquired in recents years (DDM + Counter Collections) on top of a fairly decent traditional mini collection, close enough works out most of the time.

I never let lack of a mini get in the way of using a cool monster.