Why doesn't WizKids sell 3d print files?

[Reynard]

My guess: they don't want Etsy folks undercutting them.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm also not sure if it will end up like Napster and music files.

I'm sure, and it will...

 

[aramis erak]

Oof, yeah.

I'm probably late to the party, but I recently noticed there are Etsy sellers who are offering D&D ebooks . . . digital PDF files of Dragon, Dungeon, and other magazines. Etsy, apparently, is rife with piracy. I have no doubt that's true for 3D prints and STLs also.

D&D 4e was pirated the day before release... someone at the print house leaked the printers' master PDF. Complete with alignment marks and bleed area.

 

[MGibster]

So, what are your thoughts on why this is or isn't a viable business model for the future of minis with the cost of 3d printers being relatively low? Would you buy a 3d printer file for a large-scale model such as a tavern, gatehouse, castle, etc. for $10-$50?

I have a few thoughts here. The first is the WizKids line as a whole just isn't very good. They're cheap, yes, but the majority of their sculpts aren't all that good. As a company, they're not really held in high regards in terms of quality when it comes to available miniatures. That said, I do like some of their monster miniatures and have been quite happy to paint some of them over the years. This is a WizKids Bone Golem and it cost me less than $10. A good bargain in my estimation.

When it comes to 3D printing, I know the market is getting bigger and bigger, but I think it's still somewhat limited. 3D printing is a hobby in and of itself but that might change as those printers become easier and easier to use.

But it's also possible whatever license WizKids has with WotC doesn't include electronic files. That might be another reason

It would be neat if WotC and WizKids created a catalog of classic D&D miniatures you can purchase digitally for 3D printing . . . perhaps STL files for sculpts going back to the old-school days of the 70s and 80s.

Back in the day, those old school miniatures were produced by Ral Partha. I don't think TSR, and by extension WotC, ever owned those molds. You can still purchase some of those old school models from Iron Winds but they don't call them by their D&D names. The Umber Hulk is the Lumbering Hulk now. It's not 3D printing, but if there's an old model you want to get your hands on you might still find it with Iron Winds.

I'm sure the discussion is being had at the offices of WotC and WizKids, but the thing to keep in mind is that WizKids is in the business of producing physical models. The growing quality and availability of 3D printing is disruptive to this industry, and the existing players like WizKids, Games Workshop, and others are inevitably going to be behind the curve. Hopefully they won't be left in the dust.

I'm in agreement with you. I'm thinking of Blockbuster's refusal to consider streaming movies because it was so radically different from their business model. As 3D printing because more and more user friendly, they're going to be more disruptive to the miniatures market. Games Workshop should be very, very nervous.

 

[aramis erak]

I'm in agreement with you. I'm thinking of Blockbuster's refusal to consider streaming movies because it was so radically different from their business model. As 3D printing because more and more user friendly, they're going to be more disruptive to the miniatures market. Games Workshop should be very, very nervous.

The decreasing costs of 3d-scanners is going to make pirating minis that much easier. Current resin printers (as opposed to filament printers) are good enough to be, after paint, not readily ID'd as fakes.

 

[Clint_L]

Currently, 3d printed miniatures are still expensive to buy, and of generally lower quality than moulded ones. For those who are willing and able to invest in the capital, labour, and environmental costs (i.e. smell) printing for themselves, the prices in the long run are becoming increasingly enticing for a certain niche among miniatures collectors.

I have purchased a number of 3d printed miniatures and terrain, and while many are still substandard, the professionally done ones are getting pretty good, though are not cheap and tend to be a bit more fragile. I think we are still years away from them being a viable competitor to GW, though.

 

[EthanSental]

Ive purchased plenty of wizkids minis and just picked up 5 of their new frame works line to see how the quality compares. Never purchase any GW minis so if anyone has both, how do they compare?

 

[Staffan]

I've been looking into 3d printing, and as far as I can tell there are two main options (with plenty of variants in each category):

Filament printers use spools of plastic filament that gets melted in the print head and extruded first on a print bed and then on the previously extruded plastic. If you get a fine needle (0.2 mm) and get the right settings on your printer you can get reasonably good quality but will probably still have some layer lines, and printing things takes a while (hours). There are also issues with printing certain types of minis – you generally don't want things that poke out too much on the side, or with too much "overhang" (think flaring cloaks and such). On the plus side, the resulting print is fairly sturdy.

Resin printers use UV light to harden resin dissolved in a fluid. This is a fairly quick process, and it's done in far thinner layers than a filament printer can print. It's a fairly quick process, primarily because each layer gets printed all at once instead of having a needle extruding a "thread" of plastic. I think this also means that printing a lot of figures at the same time, or a single wide figure, doesn't really make the print take longer – print time is proportional to height, not total mass. But resin has its flaws as well. The biggest one is that the chemicals are nasty. You need to wear gloves to deal with them, and you need to wash and cure the minis once they are printed (with the washing usually done with IPA, though I'm told they have water-washable resin now). You also can't just pour the leftover stuff down the drain – you need to store it in a tank or something and take it somewhere where they can handle it. And you need to make sure that the room where you do the stuff is well ventilated, because the fumes can eff you up. In addition, the minis themselves are usually pretty fragile.

 

[Clint_L]

Relevant article came out today:

Warhammer maker Games Workshop plans fourth UK factory as sales boom

Company thrives as Amazon develops TV series and it gains licensing income from video games

www.theguardian.com

 

[Clint_L]

Ive purchased plenty of wizkids minis and just picked up 5 of their new frame works line to see how the quality compares. Never purchase any GW minis so if anyone has both, how do they compare?

I think Frameworks miniatures are overpriced. They are basically priced to be competitive with GW's more elite miniatures, but GW only gets away with their prices because they basically control their entire ecosystem, and charge less for entry level miniatures so that they can get you hooked and then charge a ton for the elite miniatures that you need to be competitive at their regular in-house games. I spent many years in the GW trenches, and I love their games, but I don't love their pricing.

Frameworks, on the other hand are priced like GW miniatures, but Wizkids doesn't control the RPG tabletop the way GW controls theirs. And, weirdly, Frameworks miniatures are competing against Wizkids own Nolzur's line at a much higher price point for basically the same model. I don't get it. I also don't think Wizkids does regular-sized, humanoid miniatures very well at all, but similar to MGibster, I like a lot of their larger monsters.

In terms of quality, Frameworks uses a similar HIP (high impact plastic) to GW. The detail is good, and approaches GW quality. I've found that the join lines on Frameworks miniatures are often badly placed, so that the models need considerable clean-up and can be a challenge to assemble in order to minimize flaws. They just don't have the expertise in designing sprue-based miniatures that GW has. So, overall, I think Frameworks monster miniatures look pretty good, but are inferior quality when compared to GW miniatures, and significantly overpriced. I would give them a C+, where I would give Dungeons and Lasers sprue-based miniatures a B, and GW an A.