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Message: <blockquote data-quote="3catcircus" data-source="post: 3368102" data-attributes="member: 16077">The point was that the labor costs about 0.2 cents to paint each mini.The injection molding estimator (first link) allows you to estimate US costs to make injection molded plastic parts.  I'm making the following assumptions:1.  They minis are made of cheap plastic.2.  They are using a large production run (500,000 pieces), with each mold holding 32 cavities (pieces).3.  The parts are highly complex.5.  The dimensions are roughly 1 inch x 1 inch x 28 mm high.6.  They are made in China.The results estimate that the costs are as follows:Process: 1 centMaterials:  1 centTooling: 0TOTAL COST: 2 cents per piece.The second link gives an estimate for injection molding in the US vs. China, and whether it is just making the pieces, or doing other operations (cleaning, painting, etc.)For a run of minis in the US or China, the cost is "x" which in this case is 2 cents per piece. For the run with second ops in the US the cost is 1.3x.  For a run of minis in China with second ops (which is what these minis are, since they are painted), the cost is 1.1x per piece.  That is 1.1 multiplied by 2 cents which is 2.2 cents per piece.  The painting costs 0.2 cents per piece.I don't know what the packaging costs, import duties and freight costs are, but it basically costs WotC less than a quarter for 8 minis.Even under a worst-case condition (low run, high quality plastic), the total costs are only 55 cents per piece (50 cents for the mini, a nickel for the painting).I simply can't believe that the mini's cost more to produce than it costs to pay someone to come up with the stats and then print stat cards.  My guess is that the costs are probably about even.  Eliminate the stat cards and you eliminate costs.  Eliminate costs and you can afford to sell non-random packs of minis.Other ways to save even more - packaging costs - get rid of the plastic packages each mini comes in (and I hate having to pop each package open anyway) and just package them in the cardboard boxes directly.</blockquote>

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