Why the D&D Miniature Line Failed...

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Well, in fairness, the only reason so far given in the proposed situation of CMG players not forming the target demographic basically amounts to "We don't understand miniature wargames, but we do understand collectible games, so let's do that instead!" — which is a reason, yes, though an arguably bad one. I could be wrong, but I think that this is what Chris Pramas was getting at — that WotC chose to cater to CMG players, because they weren't sure how to market a minis game to wargamers or roleplayers.

No, you just didnt listen. Limited number of SKU's. Go into your local gaming store. Count the number of, say, Aberrations boosters around. Go count the number of dust covered reaper/rackham/whatever minis. Which takes up more space in a game store?

Blind packaging leading to more purchases to get chase rares - something which you could easily benefit from on the secondary market, picking up cheap commons/uncommons.

If people wanted to pay 3 bucks for a poorly painted orc mook, Reaper's line wouldnt have tanked, and WOTC's would have folded early instead of raking tons of sales.

There are plenty of reasons for the random model. You just dont like them because they arent "Here, buy whatever mini you want for a nickel."

 

[AllisterH]

Respectfully, I must say, those people have not thought it through. It would make it correspondingly more difficult to get one particular figure, but much simpler to avoid getting multiples. Farmer Brown would still be a cheap buy on Ebay. There are plenty of Uncommon DDM and SWM figures that sell for $2.50 or less.

The key point on whether something should be a Common is, "Would someone likely find something useful to do with this figure if they got one in every box for three or four boosters?" Farmer Brown fails on many levels. The only person would want such a thing is a GM who is planning a specific encounter with multiple opponents who look like Farmer Brown, who does not want the figures to look differently, who is dissatisfied with counters or flats for the purposes of the encounter, and who thinks its worthwhile to invest in plastic just to run that encounter. A niche market, I think.

Er, by your own words, Farmer Brown makes more sense as a Common since it IS more likely to have situations where the PCs interact with farmers/villagefolk than anything than even skeletons or orcs.

Players aren'r going to scoop up the common pieces since they want unique characters which would be the rare slot....

As an aside, what WAS the "reason given" for Reaper's failure with the nonrandomized pprepainted plastic line?

 

[SteveC]

For me personally, my decline in interest was attributable to three separate factors:

• Price.
• Utility.
• Quality.

So if you add this all together -- higher price, lower quality, less value -- it's no wonder the minis line ran out of steam. But for a while there, it was a fantastic resource for my games. For at least two good years I spent a lot more on DDM boosters than on WotC books.

Pretty much this. I am utterly mystified that the decline of the minis line is so hard to figure out: more expensive, less useful minis that were of lower quality over time will make for fewer sales. How is that hard to understand? Changing the line like the have is one way to inject new life into the product, but since things are getting even more expensive, the quality and utility issues really need to be addressed or the revival will be short lived.

--Steve

 

[Darkwolf71]

Er, by your own words, Farmer Brown makes more sense as a Common since it IS more likely to have situations where the PCs interact with farmers/villagefolk than anything than even skeletons or orcs.

Not really. While you may often have interections with Farmer Brown, how many of those interections really require physical representations of multiple Farmer Brown types be shown on the table?

In situations where you do for whatever reason, a scene at the inn or whatever, which is better, a dozen identical Farmer Browns or several not-being-used human/elf/dwarf minis that at least have the look of individuals?

A lone farmhouse out in the fields? Hey awesome, break out the Farmer Brown and Myrtle minis.

 

[tuxgeo]

An 'official' dungeons and dragons descent-style-and scale board game with tiles, little treasure chests, barrels, crates, LOTS of minis, trap cards, equipment cards, power cards, monster cards, etc... would be nice!
I was kinda thinking the same thing on the first page, but I called them 'playsets'. Of course, if they made a 'core board game' and the 'playsets' were 'expansions', that would be cool too.
Ideally, D&D would then be in toy stores, wal mart, target, kmart, etc... and offer the 'much bigger, more pieces, and FIDDLY BITS' mini game [in whatever form it took] as an intro to 4E AND a board game AND an alternative to a full blown tabletop rpg; this thing 'runs' dungeons and quests only. Give the kids [and grown ups like me] lots of fiddly bits for an outrageously low price [it's gotta be cheaper than descent, or it's got to have more stuff than descent], and i'll buy three of them.

If you want the intro-box-set and expansion set prices to be outrageously cheap, they could only include counters, at most, instead of painted miniatures.

Maybe WotC could come up with a newer style of counters: Painted images on flat plastic "cutout"-shaped figures that snap into flat plastic bases. That might be visually more appealing than the solid-color (White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green -- how M:tG!) 3-D miniatures that were included in the Parker Brothers "Fantasy Adventure Board Game" that was sold in the UK -- while simultaneously weighing less, due to being 2-D instead of 3-D. Also, plastic counters might be sturdier than paper counters.

I used to do something similar. Except I would print mine on paper and then laminate them, rather than stick them to foamboard. It worked well (and still does for some of the creatures I don't have the minis for) but counters don't have the "coolness" factor that the minis do.

I found my players react differently to the minis compared to the counters. For example, in my Shacked City game, I put the Beholder mini down on the table at one point and the reaction from my players was priceless. I don't think I would have gotten the same reaction if I put a Beholder counter on the table. It still would have been good, no doubt, but not as good as an actual mini. Sure, the minis cost more than the counters but for me it is worth the extra cost. YMMV.

Good point. IMHO, WotC should keep making actual minis, but not try to include actual minis in the kind of intro/expansion sets that jephlewis was talking about.
That way, the beginners could get their cheap starter packages; but after they had been playing with those for a while, they could graduate (or escalate) from those to the full D&D game with actual minis -- assuming they will eventually become interested in playing greater campaigns with more options.
[It would help if the intro/expansion counters were the same scale as the line of minis. (25mm? 28mm?)]

 

[BradfordFerguson]

One reason why the price went from $10 to $15 was that the price of oil went up at least 50% in that span. Plastic comes from oil, but now that oil is back down, I doubt they will cut prices.

 

[pawsplay]

Er, by your own words, Farmer Brown makes more sense as a Common since it IS more likely to have situations where the PCs interact with farmers/villagefolk than anything than even skeletons or orcs.

Those are definitely NOT my words.

 

[Glyfair]

Harbinger boosters were priced at $9.99 (according to a sticker on the bottom of one of the boxes) and came out in October 2003, while Demonweb boosters are $14.99. That works out to an increase of about 8.4% per year for the five-year run.

There are a couple of things to remember about the price jump:

1) Earlier this year we had a huge jump in the price of oil. Given the miniatures are shipped from China, and plastic is a petroleum product, that has several influences on the price of the miniatures. It was sort of a double whammy.

Yes, oil prices are down. However, that hasn't lead to lower prices anywhere except actual petroleum products. In fact, someof the transport companies tried to lock into prices before they went higher only to have the unexpected drop of prices, so they still have high transportation costs.

2) China has had record inflation recently. That also increases the cost of the miniatures. Wages had been increasing significantly.

Even the fact that a number of the factories that can do that sort of manufacturing may not help. Several have closed giving those still open more power when it does come to negotiating their fees.

 

[bielmic]

most forms of entertainment have a half-life, so to speak. they premiere, steadily gain popularity (hopefully) and then wane, to the point where they are eventually cancelled. you can sometimes prevent that last step by redesigning the entertainment.

i started buying DDM with the first set in order to get minis for the 3.5 campaign i was in. at $10 for 8 minis, they were a steal and i frequently called them the best deal in gaming! (the title later moved to dungeon tiles after DDM went to $15) the paint jobs were ok for the most part and my time had become more limited at the point when they had first premiered so it was right for me. i started playing the skirmish game in order to have something to do with the minis on weeks my rpg was cancelled. after buying first LOTS of boosters initially and then mostly cases for the first 7 sets, i got tired on the randomness. some minis were *must haves* for the rpg and others for the skirmish game and the two rarely coinicided. to get them all without the hassle of trading, i started buying complete sets for the next 4. after 11 sets and over 600 distinct miniatures (which i NEVER would have been able to paint in the same timeframe), i rarely needed any more for the RPG. when they announced the switch to DDM 2.0 and the retirment of 90%+ of my collection from skirmish play (a move they later retracted), i gave up on the skirmish game. they had just invalidated both my knowledge of the game (i.e. the rules) and the vast majority of my physical collection. i now had NO reason to continue either playing or collecting. what about the other people in both the rpg and skirmish groups i played with? most of the RPGers rarely played the skirmish game and pooped out after about a half dozen sets, only picked up scattered singles afterwards. about a third of the skirmish players moved on to dreamblade with their time and $ due to the prize support (these were the most competitive skirmish players in the group) and another 1/3 just got tired of the game after a few years and stopped playing.

the $15 price point would have been the maximum i would have paid for a pack. after i stopped collecting, i noticed on the previews a distinct DECREASE in the quality of the sculpts and paint jobs due to cost savings measures on the part of wotc (the transportation and material cost went up for them and the price stayed the same so they had to sacrifice quality to maintain an acceptable profit margin). the business model they had been using wasn't working anymore and they changed to survive. i applaud any attempt to maintain an introductory line of prepainted minis for the RPG. not everyone is lucky enough to have gotten in as early as me and completed their rpg collection!

p.s. the pig farmer was awesome! it was alot more realistic on the tabletop then the harbinger commoner armed with the +5 vorpal scythe!

 

[Herschel]

One reason why the price went from $10 to $15 was that the price of oil went up at least 50% in that span. Plastic comes from oil, but now that oil is back down, I doubt they will cut prices.

This statement is a bit misguided, but close to the truth. In manufacturing goods like miniatures/toys/etc., materials cost is nearly negligible. Shipping costs rise also due to oil prices. The value of the dollar is down. And WotC does want to maximize profits and many business models these days are based on the locust mentality for individual product lines: get as much as you can while you can and work your numbers. There's a large number of different product lines and you never know when a competing product will hit the market. Get the cash before it does. If your product is entrenched, you keep the market, if not, you made what you could before it blew up.