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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pbartender" data-source="post: 3367112" data-attributes="member: 7533">Here's something insteresting to note...In the mid 1990's, with the re-release of the Star Wars original trilogy, Galoob began producing a line of Star Wars Micro Machine toys.  These included an "Action Fleet" line of <a href="http://www.m2museum.com/StarWars/StarWarsOriginal.htm" target="_blank">plastic starship models</a>, and a "figure collection" of <a href="http://www.m2museum.com/StarWars/StarWarsFigures.htm" target="_blank">non-posable painted plastic figures</a> much like the current DDM figures, but using a much smaller scale.<a href="http://cargobay.starwars.com/webapps/cargobay/browse/763/20-10" target="_blank">These figures were sold by Galoob from as early as the summer of 1994, until at least 1999, if not later, with the release of Episode I and its related toys.</a>The character packs typically included nine painted plastic miniatures in four different poses, and sold for about $10 a pack.On top of this, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galoob" target="_blank">Galoob was bought out by Hasbro in 1998</a>. Which means at least a part of these figures were built and distibuted under Hasbro's watch.Now, granted, these minis appealled to the entire Star Wars fandom, but at the same time required the extra licencing fees from Lucas.  But...  from 1991 until 1999 there was also a <a href="http://www.m2museum.com/People/PeopleMilitary.htm" target="_blank">Military line</a> of Micro Machines with similarly sized and painted soldier figurines.  Those figures were far more generic than the Star Wars figures, and had a much longer run.In other words...Inexpensive, non-random, pre-painted plastic miniatures not only can be done profitably, but have been done profitably...  And they were done profitably by a company that Habsro bought out (just before cancelling both of those lines, mind you).I think that it's not so much that it can't be done profitably, rather than that the current random minis business strategy is simply that much more profitable that they don't want to do it anymore.I understand that...  but that doesn't mean I have to like it.</blockquote>

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