Death of D&D Miniatures

[Mirtek]

Note that the miniatures were doing very well for quite some time. WotC' employees referred to them selling like "chocolate coated diamonds sprinkled with crack".

However all good things must come to an end and the miniature line, after several very successful sets, entered it's phase of decline long before DDM 2.0 and the decision to cancel the skirmish game. In fact both decision were being made in an attempt to stop the decline.

Sadly none worked and now the line is at the end. Doesn't mean that it wasn't a successful business model for some time.

 

[keterys]

I know several people who stopped buying them for no other reason than they already owned a metric ton of them.

 

[jodyjohnson]

At 8.99 they were cheap, then they went up to 9.99 ok, then up and up, then fewer and fewer minis, just looked at where they ended up 21.99 for 6 minis in the huge pack, more then 3 dollars a mini. And the non huge were not much better, 14.99 for just 5 minis, wow, that's just bad. Oh and 9.99 for the heroes set and those were pretty poor quality paint jobs.

When were they $8.99 a booster? Harbinger started at $9.95 or $9.99. They were always much cheaper on the web at near 65% of MSRP.

They started at roughly $1.25 per fig for Harbinger and the last non-huge set was $3.00 per fig at cover price ($2.00 off the web). The last set was $3.67 a fig but had a huge.

Now check where unpainted metal prices have gone over the last 8 years. A cheap Reaper low-metal human is $4.00 or a 25% discount on the web for $3.00 -- unpainted. 2 Firebeetles is $8 and the latest owlbear is almost $20. Mega-minis is best at $1.50 per fig directly from the manufacturer.
A high end sculpter like Darksword Miniatures is $8 and up for humans.

And shipping metal can be pricey.

Paints are $2-4 per bottle. If you want to paint it's a $50 investment just for basic colors.

 

[jodyjohnson]

There were a number of ways to buy DDM.

1. Small number of packs per week at retail. For me this would be like buying lottery tickets - which people do. What you know you are getting is 1 rare, x uncommons, and y commons from a 40/60 piece set. Essentially random. Best if you like all the figures and decreases in value as you buy more (repeats).

2. Buy by the case at retail or web. You know you are getting 8 different rares out of the rare pool per case, at least one of each uncommon, and 3-4 of each common. Or similar depending on set composition. Much less random than some folks assume.

3. Buy massive amounts of cases and sell off the extra locally or online. Running it as a business or investment.

4. Singles online or at the game store. You get exactly what you want. Best if you also bought a case or two and need fill or only like some of the figures per set.

5. Don't buy out of protest, lack of finances, or lack of need/interest.

I understand all 5 ways but did 2 & 4.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I would really rather see a retool of the market strategy here, instead of just making some special kits. I think the random distribution is the biggest problem, as the secondary market shows. They should make limited edition box sets of different general minis, so players can buy what they like (in general) and get good value for their money. Boxes of monsters types, boxes of PC types, etc.

I think the problem was that the secondary market sabotaged mini strategies for the near future.

I believe WotC underestimated how low of a margin online retailers would be willing to operate at. Between selling cases and boosters at 67% of msrp and pricing single miniatures at an average of MSRP per figure online sellers lowered the value expectation for miniatures below what they should be valued at to make WYSIWYG sets viable.

You ask for a 20 figure Goblin set or orc set but the price you'd want to pay is $1 per figure or less.

But look at the market MSRP:
Legendary Encounters: $2+ per figure. Most between $3.5 and $5.
Legend of Drizzt: $50 for 3 figures. 1 is a dragon, but the previous dragon was $40. So add $10 for 2 figures and a map.
D&D character packs: $11 for 3 figures.
Heroscape packs: $13 for 3 large or 6 medium.
Fantasy Flight Games Arkham Horror and City of Thieves prepaints: $3 each in a set, $4 each as individuals.

So our hypothetical 10 figure orc set is pushing $20 to $30. But the market valuation from the DDM/Mageknight secondary is $10 or less.

Until the secondary clears out of low priced minis and there is a buildup of demand I don't see common-grade prepaint sets as viable.

Dragons, beholders, giants and other high priced figures might work but not the common fodder.

 

[malraux]

The reason WotC can make cheap minis with the board games is because they can reuse the molds from their DDM line.

I dunno if I buy the idea that the initial cost (ie, sculpting, mold making, etc) is the reason the board game minis are affordable. I suspect its about the fact that the minis are unpainted first and foremost. That removes much of the human work costs.

 

[thewok]

I dunno if I buy the idea that the initial cost (ie, sculpting, mold making, etc) is the reason the board game minis are affordable. I suspect its about the fact that the minis are unpainted first and foremost. That removes much of the human work costs.

This is my thought as well. Whether handpainted or not, just the painting process adds a layer of cost that I find unnecessary. I think the board game-style minis would work well as a baseline product, with painted minis sold in collector sets, like the Beholder set or the Legend of Drizzt set.

Keep in mind, I'm just talking about monsters here. I was actually fine with the Heroes packages, though I wanted some more generic figures. I think the decision to sell them by power source was not the best idea, though. I would rather have seen them sold by race, with a variety of armor/weapon/combat styles. I don't need to have a specific Barbarian or Avenger or greatsword Fighter. I just need a human with a two-handed weapon.

 

[Dedekind]

I think the reason for ending DDM was the market saturation. If you bought every set, you would have at least a thousand unique miniatures and people just didn't need as many. On top of that, almost all the common and uncommon monsters have already been done. IMO, at this point, there just aren't enough people who need minis to make it worthwhile.

 

[Mapache]

I dunno if I buy the idea that the initial cost (ie, sculpting, mold making, etc) is the reason the board game minis are affordable. I suspect its about the fact that the minis are unpainted first and foremost. That removes much of the human work costs.

Yeah. FFG ships a ton of plastic minis in their games that they had to sculpt and cast specifically for those games. Heck, I actually bought Descent mostly because I figured even if I didn't like the game, it was a good price for a generic assortment of minis and dungeon tiles.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I always thought there were several reasons that the DDM figures had various issues.

1. Inconsitancy. This came in many forms. It came in the size and types of the minis. Look at the dwarves. Some are right up there with GW's little 'block' style figures. Others look like short humans. Look at the paint jobs. Even in the same sets some of the paint jobs were much better than others of the same figure.

2. Inability to Keep in Lock Step with the RPG. this takes many forms. The first I'd say is the adventures. If your miniature department doesn't know what adventurers are coming out or what monsters will be in it or can't do it... whatever. Lamesauce. Next, if you're going to do a new edition of the game and introduce a race like the dragonborn to it, make sure to have a wide vareity of figures right off the bat that will meet some of that market demand. Don't expect to go with a visible prepacked deal with repainted figures at high cost of minis few people want because they can get the originls cheaper on the secondary market and then cry foul and cancel the line.

3. Discontinued/Abuse of the Minis Game. I only played a handful of games of the actual mini game. Whoever thought that making the game around alignments instead of say, cool monsters, was kidding themselves. Whoever thought that the DDM fans would coninute after official support stopped and after WoTC spit in their face with Dreamblade and offering x10 awards and monetary values for playing that game, was not paying attention. It'd be like coming out with a new card game and making the awards x10 higher than what you can get in Magic and wondering what happend to Magic.

I believe that there were other issues involved but those to me, speak the highest volumes. Inconsistancy, inability to keep lock step with the RPG, and well, treating the actual game the minis are used for like crap, put these things down into the ground.

Besides, you won't need any minis when you're using VTT!