Official posts on DDM changes

[Zaruthustran]

Thanks, Merric. Good to see you posting about minis again.

My two cents: this is a good move. It's rarely a good idea to throw good money after bad. This focuses D&D's miniatures team on the core product (the D&D RPG) and answers many of the cries of DDM's detractors (those who wanted non-randomized minis and more minis for player characters). Bonus: those looking for a competitive 1:1 tournament tabletop game may move to Magic.

 

[Einan]

I see this move as great marketing for Warhammer.

I played the skirmish game a few times, enjoyed it, but I never collected D&D minis for it. However, it was an added value. And with the price rise and the semi-random packing (seriously? Why? Why not just eliminate the secondary market and sell these things piece by piece, WotC? Seems like a better move than semi-random. My dad used to tell me it's better to not do a thing than to do it half-arsed.) this just seems like more smoke from Wizards. Looks like it's back to Reaper for me.

 

[dm4hire]

Not that I disagree with the idea of using actual factions, but they already used actual factions in Chainmail, and I would suspect they dropped them for a reason. The big problem is that there are several different settings. If you only use one as you suggest, you shut off the potential for many minis from other setings (are there canonically warforged, shades, or goliaths on the world of Birthright?). If you use multiple settings, you have to weigh which settings should get how many factions, whether factions can cross over into different worlds, maybe even being setting neutral, which setting-neutral mini fits into which factions of whatever world, how every mini is affected if new settings are released, and so on.

But the thing is, WotC has already taken the approach that everything released can cross over so why would you need to address multiple worlds? Either everything goes into Birthright or you create a new world that lets everything exist with a story purpose.

 

[DM_Jeff]

nada

-DM Jeff

 

[Zil]

It is difficult to know what impact 4E had on the sales of miniatures. All the groups I am/was in stopped buying miniatures with the edition switch, as they are all staying with 3.5E (or going to Pathfinder) and felt no need to have 4E monster miniatures. On the other hand that is purely anecdotal evidence based on my own experience and I am sure that at least some of the new players that 4E was designed to attract have begun purchasing miniatures. Ultimately, we do know, however, that the sales figures are not high enough to sustain the line.

I suspect your experience isn't unique. Our gaming group used to be big Wizards miniatures purchasers. We have thousands of them! However, we've almost completely stopped buying Wizards minis since the switch to 4E. As with your experience our group rarely plays 4E (sticking with 3.5/Pathfinder), so there is not much interest in the 4E version of minis. We do still pick up the occasional pre-4E booster pack to round out a book order to qualify for free shipping, but never any post-4E minis.

Will the move to non-randomized minis get us buying again? Probably not for the monsters, but who knows, maybe we'll buy the occasional hero minis set if they appear to be of good quality and the set has interesting minis that are not too tightly wed to 4E concepts. We'd be especially interested if there were good female minis which we never seem to have enough options for people choosing a miniature for their female characters (there are more women than men in our game group these days).

 

[ki11erDM]

The sales of D&D minis have been going down since at least 2006.

The conclusion you should be jumping too is that by the end of 2006 most people playing D&D had bought all the miniatures they needed for their game tables. Any purchases after that were just for cosmetic purposes and the occasional skirmish player. It is the most logical and obvious reason for the decline.

 

[justanobody]

The conclusion you should be jumping too is that by the end of 2006 most people playing D&D had bought all the miniatures they needed for their game tables. Any purchases after that were just for cosmetic purposes and the occasional skirmish player. It is the most logical and obvious reason for the decline.

Good call, in addition to the tiles format being removed with War Drums that year that provided less offerings for RPG use when the printed maps became less useful for RPG purposes while the DDM tiles could be used as rooms and such in the RPG.

 

[tylerthehobo]

I for one welcome our new ant overlords

As a volunteer who runs games at shops, I've got to say that most folks showing up to play RPGs at shops are showing up to play RPGs. When I ran D&D Minis games, there was a disproportionate number of folks who showed up just to win free minis and kind of plowed through the games without having fun. The atmosphere of these minis games was very different from the Warhammer games in the same shop, where folks were showing up primarily to have a good time. (this is a sweeping overstatement, I realize)

It may just be my play style, but I found it much more rewarding to run games of the RPG where freebies from WotC were fewer and far between (primarily on annual game days), rather than the D&D Minis games where the in-store prizes for organized play become the focus, rather than the game itself. Essentially WotC was fueling an in-shop game, which was very good from a business perspective for many of the folks involved including the FLGS's, but it didn't have the legs of a game that folks would play outside the shops without the promise of prizes.

 

[Knight Otu]

But the thing is, WotC has already taken the approach that everything released can cross over so why would you need to address multiple worlds? Either everything goes into Birthright or you create a new world that lets everything exist with a story purpose.

Both of these options seem to run counter to your idea, though. Would a Clawfoot Rider go into the same faction as a Shire Pony Express? What about a Halfling Boomerang Master? Would an Aerenal Ancestor-Priest go into the same faction as an Eladrin Mage or a Myth Drannor Protector? Either there'll a be hodge-podge factions without much of a cohesive flavor, or so many uniquely flavorful factions that they might as well be from different worlds. There might be a good balance between the two extremes, but it would be hard to achieve. The crossover aspect can still come into play, with the actual skirmishes/battles.

 

[rgard]

Also the overhead to keep minis in stock is greater than CCGs. Not only shelf space, but cost and profit margins as well. CCGs make more profit due to mark-up than minis.

Most of what you state is true, but the profit margins are mostly the same. Retailers get the roughly the same reduction in price from the distributor per MtG box as they do a case of minis.

Some products will have a different % reduction. GW's LotR miniatures game has a smaller reduction in price to the game store. The explanation from GW is that they have to cover the royalty fees they pay Tolkien's estate.

The over all reduction in price is usually based on the total volume the store orders from the distributor.

Thanks,
Rich