Klaus
First Post
Every week I pass by a rock-n-roll store who sells, among other things, statuettes. Among them is a pirated Colossal Red Dragon made of resin. Someone got a hold of the CRD and made a mold out of it, fire and all.
WotC changes how D&D mini's are going to be sold.
El Mahdi
Muad'Dib of the Anauroch
I've spent considerable time overseas in numerous countries, and I can honestly say there is nothing that can't be, and probably hasn't been, pirated (not saying this is only limited to countries other than America). Just walk through a market in South Korea or Turkey and it will be right there, staring you in the face.
Boy George LPs and Levi's pants right?
I got a flashback of OotS earlier thinking about the minis when I read the "final" announcement.
Those lizardmen and everyone else might have had better luck with the new packaging. At least they would have known which booster packs to buy with the new ones.
CharlesRyan
Adventurer
This is absolutely untrue. Production cost may be fixed (or close to it), but there is an awful lot more that goes into the cost of a mini than production. In fact, production cost is probably well under half the overall cost; that's true for most consumer goods.
In the random-vs.-nonrandom scenario, the single biggest cost variable is the cost of unsold product. The cost of every unsold unit of product is a direct tax on the profitability of the item. In a randomization scheme, you only have to roll the dice on production numbers a few times a year. In this new scheme, WotC has to get the numbers right for each individual SKU--and it's more complicated, because the consumer response to each SKU might be different.
To account for this, WotC's product P&L must include a cost for unsold product, and that means their costs go up.
[To further complicate things, it's not only WotC that has to deal with this. The distributors and retailers also face an increased inventory risk and an associated cost. So at the end of the chain, the price you pay reflects this increased inventory risk three times over! Merric's law rears its ugly head!]
Fifth Element
Legend
This is precisely my point, expressed differently.
Cadfael_Corwith
Explorer
Walmart continues to sell Heroscape, but has changed just what they will actually put on the shelves (Master set & small expansions are in, large expansions are out). FLGS are carrying HS now and the ones I've visited have been happy with the sales.
Target & TRU have dropped Heroscape altogether.
From what the HS community heard, wave 8 sold better than expected. I wonder what it means that DDM is ceasing as a stand-alone game to HS? Could it be that HS is now the preferred miniatures game at WotC?
From what I've heard of the suggested distribution scheme, it's really, really problematic: not only will there be cases of the random boosters (so, one of each of the fixed figures), but the individual boosters will have their own SKU #s: One for the trolls, one for the ogres, etc. You can buy a case of Troll boosters (each has a troll + four randoms).
Working out the numbers of the eight or nine SKUs this creates? Total and absolute nightmare for Wizards, distributors and retailers. This could go badly wrong.
As a consumer, I like the idea, but I'm not the one left holding ten cases of Dire Flumphs that someone thought was a good idea at the time...
Cheers!
According to responses from the former lead for HS in WotC, Target and TRUs tried to hold them (my words here) over a barrel to keep carrying heroscape, so WotC pulled it from those stores.
WalMart carries some HS still, but isn't as nimble as a LGS. WotC believes only the LGS will really be able to get you the HS product you want, when you want it.
However, as Charles reminds us, this comes with unsold product risk. I don't know about you, but every time I walk into an LGS I see thousands of dollars of illiquid assets on the shelves. I have no idea how these small business owners can afford to have walls of dusty minis, old books, and old games and still maintain reasonable cash flow.
Hate it or not, random minis relieved a great deal of this pressure. This new line opens up the presssure.
That said, there are a lot more players than DMs. Perhaps packaging items aimed at this larger audience will save the line.
WalMart carries some HS still, but isn't as nimble as a LGS. WotC believes only the LGS will really be able to get you the HS product you want, when you want it.
However, as Charles reminds us, this comes with unsold product risk. I don't know about you, but every time I walk into an LGS I see thousands of dollars of illiquid assets on the shelves. I have no idea how these small business owners can afford to have walls of dusty minis, old books, and old games and still maintain reasonable cash flow.
Hate it or not, random minis relieved a great deal of this pressure. This new line opens up the presssure.
That said, there are a lot more players than DMs. Perhaps packaging items aimed at this larger audience will save the line.
Cadfael_Corwith
Explorer
Heroscape has suffered from this exact problem. Wave 5 had the Nakitas which sold like crud. Because these products didn't sell, big box stores wouldn't reorder more product. The glut is only now clearing out and it's been 18 months since their introduction. In the meantime, Target and TRU dropped heroscape
Another issue that hit HS was the unique vs. common in packaging. As the story goes, someone decided to ship two unique sets for every one common set. Again, this caused massive overstock problems with the retailers. It seems to have been fixed, but it took 3 years to fix it.
CharlesRyan
Adventurer
Of course, the D&D RPG line manages to be viable with 25-30 RPG SKUs per year, and it's hardly unique in the game business. A DDM plan that generates a lot of SKUs (within reason) may still be plenty viable. It's just that the more the SKU count rises, the greater the cost of inventory risk. And the higher the price tag on those minis.
And, as an ancillary concern, the greater the risk that retailers won't stock the full line (or won't stock it in depth), making it hard to find the minis you want.
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