Official posts on DDM changes

[Kwalish Kid]

What's the status of SW minis?

 

[Knight Otu]

I was discussing this on my local gaming group's mailing list, venting about the power cards, but an interesting observation occured to me while doing it. I think the biggest downfall to DDM was the focus of the game. If you look at other miniature games on the market their biggest success is the lure of the factions and the story behind them that lends to spun off RPG material. I'm namely referring to Warhammer products and others along that line. Historical games have their own market from that stand point so tend to be exempt from a fantasy related miniature game.

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.

They are their own worse competitor in the market with Magic vs DDM for the reasons listed above.

Almost said here that the two games aren't really in competition, but then realized you were talking about something else - they are in competition for shelf space, table space, and overall company resources.

Or hopefully some other company might jump on it under the GSL.

It's rather unlikely that the GSL will lose the anti-mini clause.

 

[Zulithe]

I'm also curious about SW Minis and how it will continue.

I'm pretty excited about the new change. I understand some are very passionate about the skirmish game, but me and my friends never played it. We used the prepainted minis exclusively for our RPG games.

The previews of the the upcoming minis, with better sculpts and paint, look really good! Provided I can get these packs at a fair price on amazon, I suspect you've kept yourself a customer.

From a business perspective, I'm also curious how this will translate to sales. My current plan, based on the news items in this post, is to pick up 1 of each of the packs. That way, I know for a FACT I get all of the 'visible' minis. This already puts you a long way into collecting the entire set once you factor in your random minis, if we consider that the sets are said to be smaller.

So I can see how this may be a calculated business move to sell more minis, as well as please us players by giving us a little more choice in which ones we purchase.

All I can say is, I've always been in favor of quality over quantity (within reason!!), this announcement looks within my personal boundaries, but again, we'll see...

Thanks WoTC for being so forthcoming with information so soon. I hope we'll hear more about what you plan on doing with your Star Wars line.

 

[mhensley]

hmmm... interesting stuff

The sales of D&D minis have been going down since at least 2006. Still they went ahead with developing a new edition of DDM. They must have banked on 4e boosting sales of DDM again. This did not happen.

Conventional wisdom around here has been that mini sales have been as strong if not stronger than the sales of the rpg books. If this is true, it doesn't bode well for D&D as a whole.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

Conventional wisdom around here has been that mini sales have been as strong if not stronger than the sales of the rpg books. If this is true, it doesn't bode well for D&D as a whole.

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Roman]

Interesting news - thanks for posting this.

They jacked up prices of miniatures in 2006, which just happened to coincide with the start of a slide in sales. The two could be interconnected. I am not saying they could keep the prices the same and make a profit, as production costs do change, but it could have been responsible for the drop in sales.

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.

 

[Nebulous]

What's the status of SW minis?

My opinion is that the quality of the sets have been rapidly diminishing. There is hardly any difference between a common, uncommon and rare...they all look sort of bad (a generalization but it works for me). I don't think that line is going to survive much longer. And the 3rd party cost of the Very Rare minis is so astronomical you wouldn't believe it. Boba Fett's from practically any set easily sell over $30 apiece, often more.

 

[Roman]

Conventional wisdom around here has been that mini sales have been as strong if not stronger than the sales of the rpg books. If this is true, it doesn't bode well for D&D as a whole.

It is more likely that conventional wisdom was simply wrong. I am not a fan of 4E and did not convert, but commercially speaking, it is surely very successful. Weren't there indications from WotC that 4E sales were brisk?

 

[Cadfan]

Reaper doesn't need a license. They already publish knockoffs.

I love me some Reaper minis, but come on. Lets not pretend that it was a coincidence that they recently released a Tiefling Wizard with optional wand, staff, or orb.

 

[Aristotle]

I gotta say: I like what I'm hearing. I wish the pricing was a little cheaper, but a little less randomization and the promise of better quality figures = good news for those of us who have mostly collected for role playing use anyway.