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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jasonbostwick" data-source="post: 5151093" data-attributes="member: 34924">There are a few reasons that individually packaged minis aren't a good fit for Wizards.With individually packaged minis WotC can't leverage the retail market beyond very specialized game stores - I can't imagine Barnes and Noble (or even the comic book shop where I used to buy my minis cases) wanting to stock a rack of  dozens of seperate UPCs of minis. In the downtown area of my city, there are 4 hobby stores within walking distance of eachother that sell D&D books and D&D mini boosters, plus a chain bookstore that has a limited selection. Only one of these has the shelf space to stock larger lines of minis in the format Reaper uses.The PHB Heroes sets and the last three forays into visible minis (with a randomized element) were able to get into stores because each set was one UPC - the retailer ordered a case and got one booster of each visible mini. To get individually packaged minis into most stores would probably require the same process. Most retailers don't want to have to think about how many white dragon minis they should order and how many hobgoblin chiefs they should order. Unless the store owner is familiar with the game, they have no idea. Beyond the retailer, Wizard's can't operate under the model that Reaper uses because of the differences in economies of scale that plastic models use vs. metal models. The mold for a metal miniature is fairly cheap, and you can do a fairly limited run of figures to pay back the cost of the cast. The steel mold used for plastic miniatures is a significantly larger expense, so print runs need to be much higher, as I alluded to in my previous post. You can't make niche minis in plastic. The only way 'niche' minis got made in the randomized model was by subsidizing them with cheaper commons produced in bulk. The rarity model seems like it is a way to milk consumers into 'chasing' their most wanted figures, but it also reflects the differences in production cost per miniature. An orc grunt is one piece of plastic that has at max four steps of paint slapped on it. A Large Grey Dragon is four seperate pieces and a significantly more complex paint job.A good example of the difference in materials necessitating a change in business model is Privateer Press. The Hordes/Warmachine line is a traditional metal miniatures line, with minis being sold individually. For their monsterpocalypse line of prepainted plastics, they went with the randomized booster model just because of the financial realities of having plastic shipped over from China vs. casting pewter minis in their warehouse.</blockquote>

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