Future of D&D Miniatures

[El Mahdi]

deleted

 

[JoeGKushner]

Hell, the inability of WoTC to roll out core races as part of their non-randomized hero line and rely on repaint jobs of miniatures no one wanted in the first place was the big signal that people weren't paying attention to what players wanted and just kept putting product out to have product out.

And Heroscape? Isn't that a dead board game? Wasn't there some shake up about Target and Toys R Us essentially busting on Hasbro for massive discounts and it wound up in hobby land game stores? Not that those are bad, but the sales volume ain't there. Doing a quick search on Heroscape on Target and Toys R Us and it's the big '0'.

 

[MortonStromgal]

And Heroscape? Isn't that a dead board game? Wasn't there some shake up about Target and Toys R Us essentially busting on Hasbro for massive discounts and it wound up in hobby land game stores? Not that those are bad, but the sales volume ain't there. Doing a quick search on Heroscape on Target and Toys R Us and it's the big '0'.

Yes and no, I don't have all the information but basically there were some profit margin problems with the line for both Target and Toys R Us and thus it was shuffled out from under Milton Bradly to WOTC.

 

[Stormonu]

Two, the game was very popular until WotC rolled out the new version, at which point many players -- even fairly hardcore players, like myself -- said, "No, thanks." That was actually the beginning of the end ... but the end isn't (quite) here yet.

Almost the same exact thing happened with Wizkids when they came out with mageknight 2.0 and made major changes to the mechwarrior line (with the Age of Destruction makeover). You would think WotC would have paid attention considering how well Wizkids is doing now (i.e., out of business).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

5E will be a LARP edition, and DDM will produce lifesize monster props made of cheese...

(*not speculation*)

And Wisconsin's unemployment rate will drop to zero after they make the Tarrasque.

 

[Dausuul]

And Wisconsin's unemployment rate will drop to zero after they make the Tarrasque.

Well, yeah. They'll make the Tarrasque, it will lay waste to Wisconsin, and the survivors will be too busy hiding to look for work, so they won't count toward the government unemployment metric...

...oh, did you mean they'd make a Tarrasque mini?

 

[MerricB]

Almost the same exact thing happened with Wizkids when they came out with mageknight 2.0 and made major changes to the mechwarrior line (with the Age of Destruction makeover). You would think WotC would have paid attention considering how well Wizkids is doing now (i.e., out of business).

To be fair, MageKnight had its share of problems before 2.0. It's a salutary lesson in how not to run a CMG. Yes, Balance is important... and if the Limited Edition figures you get for winning tournaments are better than the regular figures... well, then you get a vicious cycle.

The property that was much better handled was HeroClix, and that continues today with another company.

My own feeling is that D&D Miniatures Skirmish was in decline before DDM2. The game worked very well within a certain range of point values, but when smaller or bigger point-value figures needed to be made (due ot the correspondence with D&D 3E), then problems emerged. However. DDM2 didn't help.

However, any problems with the Skirmish side were - to my mind - a minor part of the problem with DDM; the Skirmish game was a nice addition to the minis, but the chief purpose was for the D&D RPG. So, when the D&D RPGers slowed down their purchases, the entire line suffered.

I know that towards the end of my major days of buying DDM, I was approaching saturation level, and I was getting very irritated at some of the rarity decisions that were being made; I was extremely annoyed when new (important) minis appeared in the huge packs at the uncommon levels. The cost get a "play set" was just too much. Then there were the problems with scale...

However, all of those problems were minor when compared to one big fact: the cost of DDM packs had gone up significantly. Harbinger was extremely reasonable; unsustainably so, I expect. However, it was what we judged new packs by.

Cheers!

 

[Sammael]

Harbinger was extremely reasonable; unsustainably so, I expect. However, it was what we judged new packs by.

16 minis for $20. Bliss.

 

[Stormonu]

However, any problems with the Skirmish side were - to my mind - a minor part of the problem with DDM; the Skirmish game was a nice addition to the minis, but the chief purpose was for the D&D RPG. So, when the D&D RPGers slowed down their purchases, the entire line suffered.

Odd, from my readings on the WotC site, I had the impression that the DDMers were the big consumers and the acquisition by roleplayers a much smaller chunk. In fact, this seemed to be borne out in my area in that the other DMs/players tended to refrain from using the minis due to rarity or quality of figures and would often use proxies or tokens instead of minis. DDMer's on the other hand, would preorder by the case and couldn't use proxies in their warbands. Our "F"LGS owner indicated the split at the store was about 80%/20% between DDMers/TRPG users, respectively.

 

[Fifth Element]

To be fair, MageKnight had its share of problems before 2.0.

...

My own feeling is that D&D Miniatures Skirmish was in decline before DDM2.

From a business perspective, a revamping to 2.0 is likely to be a response to a decline in the product line. If they're still selling great guns, then they won't mess with it. When it starts to slip, though, a common reaction is to start tweaking it, hoping to gives sales a boost.

So a decline and the revamping will occur around the same time, but don't mix up which is the cause and which is the effect.