molonel said:
I don't know if you're capable of grasping this oh-so-subtle point, but I'll try.
I don't know if I'm doing this right, but I thought I tried it once, just to see:
*PLONK*
No, doesn't do it for me.
I don't like watching eBay auctions.
Then don't. Go for "buy-it-now". You see the price, you click on the button, it's yours. No sniping, no bidding, nothing. Just buy the thing.
Wait, it's a bit more complicated: You sometimes have to state how many you'd like. And you have to confirm the purchase.
But I think most people will manage.
I want a bucketful of orcs. I want a bucketful of elves. I want a bucketful of dwarves.
We don't have to repeat all those addresses and links, do we?
And then I'd like to get some out-there minis for a cheap price.
And I'd like to have my very characters made into minis. Won't happen, either.
As some people have explained above:
For those figures to be profitable, you have to do large numbers of them. Out-there minis probably won't sell in large numbers.
And I refuse to believe that simply packaging "A bucketful of random orcs" is going to send Hasbro spinning into financial ruin, or hurt randomized mini sales.
Won't make it any more wrong or right, though
The situation as it stands sucks. It doesn't suck quite as hard as back in the day when you're only option was to use Pente pieces, or M&Ms, or little six-siders. But it could still be a lot better than it is.
It could, but that stupid reality gets in the way.
3d6 said:
That is pretty prohibitive, and I expect most games use those monsters.
I'd be not so sure. Beholders are huge wildcards: If you know you're going to fact them, they're a joke for their CR. If they get the jump on you, chances are great that someone will die. If they weren't so frail, they would make great CoC critters.
Raven Crowking said:
There was a minis business long before WotC existed, and they were sold by the figure type or boxes of specific types. I very much doubt that the market would implode simply because WotC did the same.
Are you referring to pre-painted plastic minis? If so, could you point me to an online shop that sells them.
What happens right now, though, is that Gamer X needs 4 particular minis, for which he buys 2-3 packages of random minis to get, so that the perceived need of the consumer generates more revenue for WotC than $1/mini. In effect, if you must buy 20 minis you don't particularly need in order to gain the 4 they want.
(or you go to the secondary market)
That's good for business as long as the market will accept it, and you can do things like design a requirement for minis into your combat system to help keep that acceptance level up.
If you refer to skirmish stats, I already said that those are pretty much the minority. The number of minis that are desired because their stats are good are nearly non-existant. The minis whose stats suck big time but are quite in demand because of how they look is quite high, though.
And again, the market will have to accept it, because, as a lot of people, including many who are supposed to know what they're talking about (and I don't mean myself, I mean people like, let's pick a name out at random, Charles Ryan), are quite convinced that it can't be changed.
RFisher said:
It doesn't fix the fact that many people are uncomfortable with the secondary market.
So everyone has to pay twice what they're paying now because some people are scared of eBay?
I'm not buying that. Go get councelling or something. Just actually look at the thing.
What's so scary about that? Go to eBay, look for the minis you want (search only for buy-it-now auctions), or, better yet, get a list of reputable eBay sellers (Auggie's, Hubb's, others) and look there. Have bought lots of minis that way and never been ripped off. In fact, I think those guys are terrified of negative feedback, and if you pay via credit card (which is possible even via PayPal), you could retract the payment if there was any trouble.
Auggie's, for example, has one negative feedback this month (and 3883 positive ones), and that apparently was some idiot who got the wrong button (it still says "Once again, another great transaction. A+")
I'm sure someone could manage to explain the economics of this (why the secondary market can sell them individually but Hasbro can't) to me. I'm sure the marketers have plenty of data to support their choice.
I guess it's because Wizards still makes and sells those figures bulk. Because they're made in bulk, they can sell them for the usual price, and they still can "distribute the weight" (make more elaborate minis by making others simple).
The seller gets the figures by the case, sells the rares, making some profit with that (many will sell for more than the booster cost) And then they can practically give away the commons and uncommons and still get some money out of it.
I have to think that a company with the resources that Hasbro has could figure out how to make it work if they really wanted to.
Well, Bayer (the guys who make the original Aspirin) probably swim in money, too, and sell tons of perscription drugs and medicine, but still they can't market the immortality serum for an affordable price. Some things just don't work.
