Getting a full set is unreasonable

[Treebore]

Yayy Reaper!!!!

Yes, yaaayyy!! I will be buying these.

I learned with CCG's random "collectible" selling is just another way to get more profit by selling more units. Units that wouldn't sell if they weren't randomized collectibles.

So Reaper won't have inflated sales numbers like WOTC does, but at least I'll have the miniatures I want, at a price and effort I'll know ahead of time to "have them all".

 

[Treebore]

They haven't explained, but there are several obvious factors that have been building for a while. China's economy has been building, and they have even been taking steps to slow down inflation so it doesn't go out of control. Costs are increasing in the spot where the production takes place at a fast pace, that means prices will increase.

Also oil prices are a factor since that affects the material costs and the transportation costs.

Their market research showed that people would pay this higher price and that going to 24 random rares would also increase the volume of sales.

Recent sales volumes shows that they were right.

 

[Twowolves]

Just a note to say that Wizkids started guaranteeing a full set of minis within a factory sealed case. They listened to their customers, and changed their randomization accordingly, and that was a couple of years ago.

Oh, and the latest set of DDM and SW minis look horrid! Some of the monsters are ok, but the paint jobs, color and detail on the humanoids looks.... well really BAD. I heard they changed the plastic they use, but they must have done something else different as well, because the paint jobs are just icky.

 

[Glyfair]

Their market research showed that people would pay this higher price and that going to 24 random rares would also increase the volume of sales.

Recent sales volumes shows that they were right.

Where did they say this?

I'm sure before they raised prices they did the research to see if it would work (compared to reducing figures in a booster, for example). That doesn't mean they did the research just to see how high they could increase prices.

I know of at least one game company who found they had to raise the prices of their miniatures. They struggled with the best way to do so in a way that wouldn't cause these sort of rumors.

 

[Treebore]

Where did they say this?

I'm sure before they raised prices they did the research to see if it would work (compared to reducing figures in a booster, for example). That doesn't mean they did the research just to see how high they could increase prices.

I know of at least one game company who found they had to raise the prices of their miniatures. They struggled with the best way to do so in a way that wouldn't cause these sort of rumors.

Buy shares in Hasbro and get the stock holders report. Plus Hasbro is doing targeted marketing analysis all the time. Always. Its scary how accurate those things can be.

 

[Glyfair]

Buy shares in Hasbro and get the stock holders report.

Really? Interesting. All the reports I've heard said that they don't mention D&D in the stock holders report. Interesting that D&D is finally showing up on Hasbro's radar.

Given that the first real appearance of D&D was about miniatures, I guess it's obvious what's growing the brand.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Why is it that criticism of business practices, one may not like, is always met with this answer? So you should just take whatever anyone gives you and not have a right to voice dissatisfaction as a consumer? The problem with this reasoning is, until Reaper and Rackham make there's available, thiis is a market where there isn't a viable alternative.

No viable alternative?

1. Buying metal/plastic minis and painting them. This worked just fine for me until Wizards brought out their plastic minis (and I didn't start buying them until Angelfire/underdark since I didn't like the early sculpts and paint jobs. Six years in the 3e era and a good ten years before that seems plenty viable to me.

2. Buying metal or plastic minis and using them unpainted. It's not visually as appealing but it works just fine. I've seen lots of people do this at conventions, etc. I never liked it much but it works.

3. Counters. Fiery Dragon's creature counters and other cardstock counters are perfectly sufficient for the needs of D&D players. If I hadn't had a large minis collection from the 1e and 2e days, I probably would have gone that route.

4. Nonrepresentational counters. One of the people I play with regularly uses little plastic monkeys and ducks like you would put on the end of a pencil. If no-one gives him a representational mini to use, he's the monkey with a fez. If we don't pull out minis for the bad guys, they're ducks or monkeys. Pennies, glass beads (like you get at a craft store), dimes, and nickles work just fine as long as you have sufficient differentiation to be able to tell the orc warriors from their cheif and from the shaman. Games Workshop's large monster bases are quite good stand-ins for large monsters and cut out 3x3 or 4x4 bits of paper work for huge and gargantuan monsters.

There are plenty of options to maintain the tactical detail of map based D&D combat without using WotC's pre-painted minis. For my part, though, I like the minis.

 

[Particle_Man]

You still bought a mini though.

Well you can always use extra dice, beads, pennies, nickels, tiddlywinks, etc., as "poor man's miniatures". Heaven knows I have done that.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Really? Interesting. All the reports I've heard said that they don't mention D&D in the stock holders report. Interesting that D&D is finally showing up on Hasbro's radar.

Given that the first real appearance of D&D was about miniatures, I guess it's obvious what's growing the brand.

To my knowledge, they still have not made the shareholders report.

SW minis and DDM minis continue to lead the market in collectible mins according to the distributors who monitors comic book shop sales. Nothing more specific than that reported outside of the company that I am aware of.

I don't know that the move to 24 rares necessarily expanded sales. At the time, the increase in the popularity of the figs overall and quality of paint jobs increased too. So there are a number of factors there.

I do know from my own group's anecdotal experience that the presence of super rares and one less mini a box in the SW minis has stopped us from buying them completely. We abandoned the product line as being too expensive to collect. I think a more serious concern was that we were not using them in play as nobody was running the SW RPG or any other SF game.

Were that to change, we might be tempted to buy some more, but I don't think we would attempt to acquire a complete set in the way that the three of us buy DDMs now.

 

[Glyfair]

To my knowledge, they still have not made the shareholders report.

Apparently Treebore has it (or has seen it). What is the exact quote?