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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jodyjohnson" data-source="post: 2910026" data-attributes="member: 5590">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.</blockquote>

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