Randomized Mini's or Not?

[Umbran]

It really depends upon what you think the minis are for in the first place.

If they are for a miniatures wargame, then the randomized minis make sense, and the collectible aspect is good for that game.

If they are for D&D, the randomization makes little sense.

 

[Glyfair]

If they are for D&D, the randomization makes little sense.

I think that if that was true, then RPG players would be buying the metal individual miniatures from other companies, and leave the DDM line to the game players.

In my area the DDM game never took off. However, DDM miniatures sell very well (very, very well). I've heard of lot of places where this holds true as well. Someone besides the miniatures game players are buying them, and buying a lot of them.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First, it costs money to store product that doesn't move immediately. The more variations you have, the more things that are sitting in warehouses waiting for someone to move.

Ah- you mean retailer overhead! I thought you were talking about manufacturer overhead.

Still, I'd be willing to bet that randomized boxes would not sell significantly better than non-randomized boxes with a Grenadier-style distribution system.

In other words, all blister packs are commons, midsized boxes have commons and a few that are only available in the midsize or large boxes (uncommons), and large boxes would contain commons, uncommons and rares. The distribution of types would be similar to CMGs, but people could buy what they wanted.

Less desirable boxes probably would sit on the shelves, but I see the same thing happen with whole sets of CMGs.

I think that if that was true, then RPG players would be buying the metal individual miniatures from other companies, and leave the DDM line to the game players.

I buy minis for my RPGs based on whether I like them or not, so I wind up buying both metal and CMG minis. Besides, some RPGs simply don't have minis lines attached to them, so you have to make do with what you can find.

 

[jodyjohnson]

Ultimately it comes down to who is going to bear the risk on a product (who eats unsold inventory or has to repay production start-up costs).

For books it's WotC, the distributors, and the retailer. WotC manages risk by the print run, distributors by initial order size, and retailers by limiting stock. No risk by the customer (at least not the same risk). And we like it that way.

If WotC misses the mark on the print run they print more (for underprinting) or eat the inventory (overprinting). Since the book market has years of data they probably come pretty close to the mark.

For miniatures there is less data for production numbers (internally). They could have gone safe and produced the exact same miniatures every mini company has been doing for the last 30 years (orcs, goblins, giants, dragons, elves, dwarves, humans, spiders, etc.) but frankly there's a good number of mini lovers that already have enough of these (which shows up every time a Starter set comes out). They had little idea how saturated/unsaturated this market was.

However with the newer limited production collectible games they found that unless they grossly overproduced (see Mageknight, Mechwarrior) the risk would be entirely borne by the customer and, more importantly, by the secondary market. Less risk for WotC, the distributors, and the retailers since they sell out. The risk for the customer is obvious (figs they may not have wanted, but could in theory still use) and the secondary market manages the risk for those those that don't want random choice.


The righteous indignation that WotC would shift the risk to the customer instead of bearing it themselves (and with them the distributors and retailers) is understandable. Refusal to patronize the secondary market who is an accomplice in this travesty might even be noble.


Maybe someday they'll know enough about the market to minimize the risk and do non-random minis at the volume needed for prepainted plastic but personally I want the minis today, random or not.

 

[Glyfair]

Ah- you mean retailer overhead! I thought you were talking about manufacturer overhead.

Do you think the manufacturer doesn't have storage and management issues? Unless they only print what is ordered they have to store the balance between what has been ordered and what has been produced.

Some companies can get around micromanaging the inventory by selling them in lots (you have to buy the miniatures by the case which has two of each figure). However, that ticks off the distributors and retailers who sit on the unpopular products.

It doesn't matter where the overhead is. The customer pays for the additional costs through the line.

Jody has it pretty well in its a matter of where the risk is. If the customers didn't feel the risk was worth the benefits, the randomization wouldn't be successful. Everyone would buy from Reaper, etc. and D&D miniatures wouldn't sell. The benefits (cheap miniatures, niche sculpts) are general considered to outweigh the negatives given that the sets have sold out consistantly.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

DDM minis sell at least in part because (like all other minis games) there is a game that is directly connected to its minis sales- you can't play DDM without DDMs (not entirely true- I did some Confrontation conversions, but...) AND its directly connected to the biggest RPG in the history of the hobby. It has 2 groups of hobbyists who would want the minis.

Chainmail, DDM's immediate predecessor, suffered somewhat from the fact that it had many minis that were not (at the time) connected to D&D. I know players who bought lots of Drow, Humans, Orcs, etc., but wouldn't touch a Pulverizer, Equiceph, or Abyssal Maw. Release some of those today and they'd sell just fine.

Other minis games that have a mixed bag of units unique to their game and those that crossover into other games probably also see similar differences in sales- those that crossover probably have sales disproportionate to their actual use in playing the minis game.

Do you think the manufacturer doesn't have storage and management issues? Unless they only print what is ordered they have to store the balance between what has been ordered and what has been produced.

Sure they do, but there are numerous ways a manufacturer can control their inventories that don't work as well for retailers.

For instance, if Reaper used JIT (just in time) manufacture processes, they'd do just fine. They have the minis molds, so it could work for them. They send out an initial shipment of minis A-D, only manufacturing enough for that initial shipment (possibly a little extra), but keeping the raw materials on hand for manufacturing more (or not, if they use JIT materials ordering as well). If minis A, B, and D sell, but C doesn't, they simply don't manufacture C anymore. The material that would have been used to manufacture C can be shifted to manufacture A, B, or D, or even for the initial run of E-H (or if using JIT, it simply doesn't get ordered).

The material- the metals used to make the minis- don't care what mini they get used in. The main waste for the manufacturer are in the expenses that went into making the unsuccessful mold- but if that still makes breakeven, they're still OK.

 

[diaglo]

i HATE random minis.

but in truth i don't think it will stop people from buying them


diaglo "there is a P.T.Barnum quote for this -- in bed" Ooi

 

[delericho]

I quite like many of the consequences of randomisation (like, they can afford to produce minis of unusual creatures, that wouldn't sell sufficiently as singles), but am philosophically opposed to randomisation itself. (I like being able to get exactly what I need, and if I need 2 beholders for an adventure, I'm stuck.)

I don't think it hurts WotC in the least to randomise the minis. In fact, I expect the opposite is true.

(One other thing - I really hate that minis go out of print so quickly. In some cases this is okay, because they replace one orc mini with another one. But it becomes impossible to find replacements for the more obscure minis that have gone OOP, which could create problems. What if I discover I need a beholder mini a year down the line?)

 

[Shade]

Dislike them collectable = probably helps WotC.

joe b.

Ditto. I don't buy them, but I might if they weren't random. But I can definitely see how the collectible nature boosts profit.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

To paraphrase another poster:

I absolutely loathe the collectible nature of D&D minis. But I don't think that it hurts WotC one bit. As a non-collecting gamer who just wants some decent, specific minis to use in my rpg games, they are no good for me. So yeah, WotC are losing my dollar here, but that is insignificant compared to the masses of dollars they are getting from those who do buy them en masse collectors.

Exactly.

It really depends upon what you think the minis are for in the first place.

If they are for a miniatures wargame, then the randomized minis make sense, and the collectible aspect is good for that game.

If they are for D&D, the randomization makes little sense.

Umbran hit the nail on the head for me.
D+D is not about randomness (Barring the occasional random encounters, of course!!)
It's about crafting a story, and that story typically requires set pieces, and usually very specific ones. (IE: If you're running a first-level party, you need Orcs, Kobolds, etc.: thefore that Behir I just pulled out of a pack isn't that useful to me. BUT, an "Orc Forces" boxed set would be.)
So, even though I'm not scratching WotC's profits in the least, I'm voting with my dollars to NOT buy DDM.