Why Miniatures are Randomized

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I have seen a couple of good ideas in this thread:
1) Sell and adventure with a pack of minis that represent the NPCs and villians in that module. This could help both markets. People looking for an adventure spend the extra $10.00 to get the minis with this adventure over other adventures. Granted the d20l prohibits 3rd party manufacturers from packaging the adeventure and the minis together. However, no one can tell you that you cannot release two related products. So sell the adventure with the d20 logo and the minis pack with your adventure's logo. Proxy association and still allows the items to sell individually.

Anytime you increase the price of a product, you limit the number of people buying it. When you combine 2 niche products (minis and pblished adventures), you have an even smaller target audience.

2) Why not save up, buy 200 random packs and open your own shop selling the contents individually? From some of the posts looks as if some people are already doing this. Heck if you're buying that many random packs you could probably contact WOTC directly and get them at a pretty deep discount allowing you to sell hordes of commons cheaper then people can even buy the random packs.

WOTC isnt interested in dealing with orders that small. People just dont seem to grasp that when they say things like "WOTC could sell warband packs online if stores wouldnt order". Chasing that extra thousand bucks or so inst in their best interest. WOTC doesnt care if something will make money, it has to make a LOT of money to justify the opportunity cost of resources that could be better allocated in different areas.

3) Something, I've been thinking of for a long time. While generally low quality and single color I can buy a pack or 100 plastic army men for a buck. Now these packs are randomized, i.e. the number of gunners is not garenteed. So if I'm setting up a battle scene I have to buy 10 packs, at the whopping investment of 10 bucks. So how about low quality, single color orcs, kobolds, goblinoids, skeletons, zombies, etc. sold the same way. How many people would pay for that, I know I would. Even if they are single color and all look the same how cool would it be to have the players leave the room for a minute and come back with the minis sitting at the edge of a cemetary containing 200 zombies and actually have the minis to represent them.

Again, why waste time and effor ton a product that wont guarantee more money for less effort? Say they go through the hoops to get them made (different colors = different plastic = more cost), packaged, distributed, etc. They might make marginally more money than they do now, but for a considerable amount more effort. Its just not worth their time. Another thing to consider is that little green army guys have a winder appeal than D&D figures, so benefit from more economy of scale in production. Also, I'm pretty sure that those guys now cost a lot more than a dollar for a hundred of them. A quick search resulted in this web site.
http://www.plastic-army-men.com
And it appears its about 12 dollars for a hundred, which matches what I recall last time I looked in that section for animals/bugs to use w D&D. Factor in the additional costs for WOTC, and I dont know if you'd be saving much more over buying them on the secondary market.

 

[mmadsen]

From where, I'd buy them in a hearbeat.

You can buy the Bag o' Zombies from RPG Shop for one.

 

[DonTadow]

Well, of course it's a marketing ploy to take people's money. Hence

No matter how much you may want something different, the economics of the game business simply won't allow another model to succeed at D&D's level. (And by "succeed," I don't just mean "make money for WotC." I also mean "get minis into the hands of gamers who want them.")​

The rest of the post, so far as I can tell, is an elaborate discussion of why another business model will make less money for WotC, and hence motivate WotC less to make non-randomized minis (thus not getting them "into the hands of gamers who want them").

Recognizing that something is driven by marketing is not, btw, the same as claiming that it is "evil".

Nor does this negate the general idea that the minis one finds undesireable are subsidizing the minis one does find desireable. If I buy a pack of 8 minis and get only three I can use in my game, the price of those three minis is actually higher than what it seems to be. Of course, I can trade them or sell them, hoping to recoup my loss. The point is that, in order to get those three minis, it is my loss, either because I had to buy the 8, or because I bought them through the secondary market (where someone else was trying to recoup their loss). In some cases, depending upon the minis I want and the market availability, I might actually get them for less than going rate.....which is why the secondary market is (or can be) such a good place to get goblins and orcs.

It is a fact that any good business model includes attempts to limit liability. You also want to maximize profit. If you can spend $20 to make either A or B, and A sells for $40 while B sells for $25, investing in A as far as the market will bear is a no-brainer, while B becomes (at best) a secondary concern.

But there's an entire system invented for you to recoup the money you loss. Just go to your local flgs or sell them online. Heck, at my local flgs I've seen people open the box and sell the minis the same day they by the box.

You seem to think that if Wotc adopts your idea, they'll keep things the same price. NOPE.

Just like with everything the cost gets passed to the consumer. Meaning that non-randomized minis are going to cost you more money anyway, and this time you don't get any chance of recouping a loss.

WOTC will always make their money, but this model at least gives us the chance of making some.

 

[rgard]

You quoted my entire post just to say that? From where, I'd buy them in a hearbeat.

Sure did. See mmadsen's link above.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

...

Randomized music selection at iTunes?

"Buy a booster of Mp3's, get new music experience!"

of course, any band that ever cracked the top 40 would be ultra-rare...

I think such a concept already exists in some form. Chart CDs that contain music from different bands. But most of these titles have cracked the top 40, so it's not the same.

Maybe it would be a good idea, anyway. Might give smaller bands a better chance, who knows.

 

[Agamon]

About the only time this hasn't worked has been an incredibly botched TIE Fighter I just got in a pack of Star Wars Starships. The "solar panels", which are supposed to be flat hexagonal panels, were bent like those cup-shaped Tostitos. It took several rounds of heating to get them anywhere close to flat, and I think it still looks bad.

I've had trouble with the Griffon Rider (cool looking, but what were they thinking?), though I've only tried to shape it once. I may have to keep it in the hot water longer next time.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Let me put this in gamer terms. . . .

Great analogy, mmasden. The impact of SKU proliferation is really hard to understand, and frankly somewhat counterintuitive. But it's the single biggest factor in the costs of a business centered on a huge range of low-priced items.

Here's another way of understanding the economics of the game retailing biz, and why easy SKU management is so important.

Imagine you run a game store, and a new game--we'll call it Ultragame!--is announced. It's clearly a solid product that you want to carry in your store.

Now, you get a typical discount from your distributor, let's say 40%.
And you have a typical overhead, say 25% of revenues.

So if Ultragame! retails for $20, you pay your distributor $12 for it. You keep $8, but $5 of that goes to paying the electric bill, rent, payroll, etc. Your profit (which, for an LGS, usually means "the money you personally get to pay your own rent") is $3.

You decide to order 5 copies of Ultragame! Four of them fly off the shelves. Great--you've just made $12. The fifth one, however, sits and gathers dust.

Guess what? That fifth game cost you $12 from your distributor. The fact that it didn't move means that your profit from the 4 copies you did sell was completely wiped out. All your time and effort netted you exactly $0, and you have nothing to show from Ultragame!--despite the fact that it sold reasonably well (4 copies!).

Managing your inventory with great precision is key to successful retailing (and successful distribution as well--even more so, as distributors work on much narrower margins (manufacturers usually have a bit more leeway, but it's a big factor for them too)). Maintaining that precision across a large range of SKUs is exceedingly difficult, especially when the popularity of any given SKU can vary widely and is hard to predict--which is exactly what happens with large miniature lines.

Randomized miniatures allow the distributors and retailers to satisfy a demand for a large range with a very small number of SKUs. The popularity of the SKUs is relatively easy to predict, and their volume is forgiving of mistakes. (A store owner can afford to be off by 5 or 10 boosters if he's selling 200--whereas he loses everything if he's off by 1 of something that sells 4 or 5.)

I hope that continues to clarify the hidden business life of minis!

 

[Raven Crowking]

You seem to think that if Wotc adopts your idea, they'll keep things the same price. NOPE.

I don't think you've been reading my posts on this subject.

Where, exactly, did you get that idea from?