How To Resurrect D&D Miniatures

[shadzar]

The tendancy of fans to describe companies as "ignorant" just because they're not supplying what they want is almost universal, and is a very dangerous line of thought IMO.

Ignorance: to ignore, a lack of knowledge

Coca-Cola's ignorance of a vocal minority caused later problems with their New Coke product. (So some would lead you to believe is the ONLY reason for it, but that is done with, jsut the best example I could come up with right now.)

Market forces. Demand goes up, supply goes down, price goes up. Since WotC no longer makes the minis, supply is now finite and can only go down. Demand can fluctuate, depending on whims of consumers. The only hand WotC has in the current price of these minis is the fact that they no longer produce them.

The hand that is responsible for the price increase is an invisible one.

Well WotC hand a finger in their and poked the ball to start it rolling. And the fact that WotC no longer makes them places their hand firmly on the current price as anyone with any business sense knows that a decreased supply with an increased demand, especially on collectible items, makes the price go up.

WotC CAN lower the prices, by releasing those items again.

Doesn't mean they set the current price, but they can and do still affect it by NOT currently offering the product.

 

[Lordhawkins9]

Orcus is listed at $75 USD on Wizard's website.

McFarlane dragons are about the same size and I buy them for $15-$20.

THAT is the problem.

Figure out how McFarlane does it and follow suite. I would GUESS that has to do with a broader market...so market differently.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I think it is simply easier, safer, less costly for WotC to just cease production for an indefinite period and then they can sit on thier hands just waiting to see which way the wind blows. They don't HAVE to expend any real effort at that, just every year or so there's a meeting where somebody presents a report with a casual look at the feasibility of picking up where they left off or possibly trying something a little different. The molds just sit in a warehouse somewhere. They can spin it up again anytime, anywhere that production, space, and shipping would be cheapest.

My own thinking would be to try a web-commissioned model. People submit orders for individual minis online with some minis perhaps sold only as part of a larger package, or perhaps even available only with purchases exceeding a certain level. You only need to produce what's been ordered, possibly keeping a minimal stock of slow sellers. You realize that, say, a unicorn is not going to be a hot seller so you stamp out 50-100, toss 'em in a bin, and then deplete that over the course of a year, whereas various orcs you can produce continually in a given volume and sell by the dozen.

I dunno. MAYBE that could work. Maybe it wouldn't. Maby the margins on that wouldn't be enough to make it worth their effort. I'm not going to debate details that nobody HERE has even a fraction of the data needed to state whether x will work or y won't work. I guess I AM just saying that it seems pretty obtuse to suggest that the ONE model that WotC was using is the ONLY possible model under which it will work.

WotC first set it up that way because they knew it would work for much the same reasons that it worked with Magic and Pokemon, it's just that plastic production and distribution is a HELL of a lot steeper than little squares of art on cardboard. They shut it all down rather than rearrange it because faced with losses in profit it was the cheaper move in the short term and carried no risk or effort. I believe there ARE alternate means to continue to sell those minis at a profit. It just is likely to mean big alterations to how they are produced and distributed. That is a change which in itself would cost a lot of money, would take a good while to analyze how it would be best/most desirable to do, and even then would likely be a risk.

 

[Oryan77]

The thing is the non-painted non-random plastics would sell. The pre-painted MUST be random to sell the crap minis that nobody wanted as filler.

That's not true at all. "Crap minis" is subjective to the person buying the minis. One man's crap mini is another mans treasure. You honestly think there wouldn't be crap minis in non-painted non-random minis?

You constantly seem to be thinking about this whole ordeal from your own personal tastes and preferences. There are a lot more people collecting minis than you, all with their own likes and dislikes. You seem to think you know how to please them all and that it's simply just a matter of releasing non-painted non-random minis. I'm not so sure WotC is being the ignorant one here. I mean no offense, I'm just trying to think of this whole minis fiasco logically and with common sense. I don't think WotC problem is as simple as you try to make it out to be.

 

[shadzar]

If they used the same molds, then yes.

I never said which minis were crap, but at least 25% of the minis in each set was probably something most wouldn't use. Those exact minis differe from person to person. That is the filler that needs to be sold to cover the cost of the larger figures to make things even out for WotC. Usually smaller minis or lower attention sculpts, or lesser directed paint jobs.

What I know is that for over 30 years HASBRO has been selling unpainted plastic toy figures to the masses, and they have gobbled them up enough that they were ABLE to buy WotC.

I also know WotC is charging in part for the name as the McFarlane prices above prove in comparing the dragons.

I also know that WotC had problems selling the minis, or the line wouldn't have ended.

I also know that Warhammer was the leading competitor for D&D for several decades, and it onlt sold non-painted non-random miniatures.

There was a reason that plastic miniatures for board games never came painted before, because it cost too much. WotC just failed to acknowledge that and got burned in the long run. Now we see board game form WotC with unpainted miniatures, and colored plastics. Seems to make people happy, and not just the D&D RPG players, nor just the D&D miniature game players.

So obviously people do like or are happy with non-random non-painted miniatures.

The more potential custoemrs you can interest, the beter your product will be. Broader audiences sell more stuff.

DDM had 2 major audiences, skirmish and RPG players. Plastic toys figures have kids everywhere that will want them, board games use them, RPG players can use them, and guess what the Ravenloft minis seem to work just fine for the skirmish game too.

Logic and common sense should help you udnerstand it jsut as I do. They offer a product to a small audience and market, and didn't sell much of it. Opening that market up to a bigger audience with a little alretation that will lower cost, has the chance to make more money.

The less accessible and visible your product is, the less people there will be to buy it.

The more accessible and visible your product is, the more people there will be to buy it.

Have a lemonade stand on one street corner, you will get less customers than having one on each of 5 street corners.

 

[smetzger]

I think sales dropped for a combination of reasons...
1) economy
2) saturation
3) Cancelation/changing of DDM
4) 4e (split the D&D community, so all those funky 4e monsters they made were not desirable to those that stuck with 3.5e)

I am not sure how they can be successful with re-introducing minis.
But here is what they will need to do to get my business...
1) Decent sculpts
2) Pre-painted
3) Reasonable Prices
4) Sculpts that I do not yet have for the version of D&D that I play

 

[JustKim]

That's not true at all. "Crap minis" is subjective to the person buying the minis. One man's crap mini is another mans treasure. You honestly think there wouldn't be crap minis in non-painted non-random minis?

As someone who paints miniatures I've often felt that companies with wargames unload "crap minis" by making them appealing in terms of points or even critical to an army.

Take the feralgeist from Hordes for instance. It's $10 for an unattractive sliver of metal, a crude abstraction of a ghost. It's not a good sculpt, it's less metal than miniatures that go for $5, even professionally painted it doesn't look good, but it's a 1 point unit that can possess fallen enemy units of 9 points or more, and any faction can use it. It seems to sell very well.

Of course there are countless people who buy and paint factions I would never even consider. Clearly it is just subjective. But I found the contention that this situation doesn't exist outside of random packs funny.

 

[Oryan77]

The less accessible and visible your product is, the less people there will be to buy it.

The more accessible and visible your product is, the more people there will be to buy it.

Have a lemonade stand on one street corner, you will get less customers than having one on each of 5 street corners.

Dude, seriously, you have got to be the smartest person in the world. I agree with everything you are saying. Dangit, if WotC just simply listened to your logic, this thread wouldn't even exist right now.

Personally, I'm beginning to think I should blame you for the downfall of DDM. If you knew of the decline in sales, why on earth didn't you tell WotC what you just told us here? Obviously they didn't think about that or DDM wouldn't have tanked. If someone, anyone, would have just told them this info, GAHHH!

 

[Beginning of the End]

I never once said "blame", but they had a hand in it. Otherwise why isnt the price of both dragons the same right now?

Because the Colossal Red is larger than the Gargantuan Black?

Oi. It's a waste of time trying to talk to you.

 

[Tamlyn]

As has been mentioned before, the market is pretty saturated. So without resuscitating demand somehow (ie renwed support for the skirmish game) I'm not convinced that a tweaked business model will create enough additional sales for WOTC to consider it worthwhile. And by tweaked business model I mean prepainted vs nonpainted or random vs nonrandom.

I think that by releasing a few, select minis like they're currently planning isn't that bad of an idea. The demand will be high due to the scarcity of the product. Look at the examples of Orcus and the two dragons above. The price is higher than a MacFarlane's dragon because they are iconic. They're not just any dragons, they are official Dungeons & Dragons Red Dragon/Black Dragon/Orcus/Whatever. And no, we can't ask WOTC to produce more because the prices are high on the secondary market. They were limited in production when they first came out and we all knew it.

The only tweak I would like to see in their current plan would be to follow the example set by Threadless. I would love to see them propose possible sculpts and have their rabid fanbase vote on the ones that would be released. Sure, there'd be a lot of dragons, demons, beholders and probably iconics like Drizzt, Elminster, Meepo(?), Strahd, Grazzt, etc. They would of necessity be limited editions. Produce them for a while then move on to other votes. Granted, I know nothing about producing pre-painted plastic minis. I'm not sure the differences in producing PPM's versus screen printed T-shirts could make this feasible.

And the DM in me would love to see perpetually available orc, kobold, zombie, skele, goblin army packs available.