Price increase on GW Products (coming 7th March)

[EccentricCircle]

People are generally willing to try new things, but getting people to invest in a game, that's hard.

1) Time. We all have a limited amount of free time, and want to use it for different things. One opponent of mine got keen on competitive play, and now wants to spend all their time practicing or going to tourneys for their chosen game. They just don't play the same range they used to.

2) Money: We can only invest in so many systems, and a lot of people for better or worse, do feel compelled to get the official minis if they are going to play a game and do everything "properly" there is tons I could write on that, but I'll save it for a longer post!).

I really like fantasy and would love to play more big fantasy campaigns, but most of my gaming group have 40K armies, and are more into Sci Fi stuff, so guess what gets played. (I love SciFi in general but 40K isn't my favourite expression of it) Now, no one who wants to play AoS with me actually needs to spend a penny on anything, because I have multiple fully assembled armies and are more than happy to lend them to my opponents. But people like their own things, and like to use their own guys. They'd rather play with the toys they have than play with my toys, and that's fair enough.

 

[Durgin]

2 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

It depends on the goals. Do you want to be another "GW"? Then, sure, the combination of rules/models/lore is a killer.

But if anything, the experience with GW has taught us that (big surprise) excessively dominant companies entrench and this results in lower value for the consumer (higher prices, stiffled innovation).

I'd prefer to have more companies focused on making models, now that production technologies are becoming more widely available. Some of the sculpts in Etsy's are stunning and can perfectly well sub in for many "units" across systems. While I love some of the "lore", I believe in using "assets" from a variety of games to personalize my armies. Finally, I do not believe that GW has great rules and I do think that they suffer from being excessively tied to models. Some of the work out there is pretty innovative, I don't see why we couldn't learn from it and use it in our games.

Well, it's not wanting to have "another GW", but more "why GW is allowed to keep a certain politics concerning its products?" and the answer, in my opinion, is "they are allowed to do almost everything they want in the market because there is not a real competitor that can take away from GW an important % of customers".

GW politics on prices won't change a single £, even if people started to buy more and more from 3rd parties small companies because, at the end, you are buying them to play GW games so as soon as you keep orbiting around GW products, they are in a solid position.

On the other hand, a true competitor able to "steal" a real slice of customers from GW, would change many things, I don't know if prices, but I'm sure that GW would have to polish better their products to persuade people to keep buying them at their prices, if customers have a real alternative to GW.

It's a thin but crucial difference.

Edited February 23, 2022 by Durgin

[The Red King]

52 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

I think stifling innovation is a bit of a subjective topic.  Although GW has some very strong IP constraints, there are a huge number of authors, sculptors and painters who have interacted with GW's IP in some form, adding new layers and facets to it.

I'd also say that I think society has changed a huge amount over the past 20 years and generations are generally less innovative than they used to be because they've grown up not needing to innovate (if I want a background to photograph miniatures, I just need to look on Google Images - years ago I would have used a spray can and a piece of cardboard).  There is still innovation possible, but you actually want to have to do this rather than it being the defacto option.

I'd say they grew up not being ALLOWED to innovate. Innovation requires trial and by extension error. Few people can afford error with the rising cost of living and stagnant wages, and the people who HAVE money (companies) don't invest in innovation. Look at the way Hollywood churns out remakes and creatively anemic films that follow prescribed patterns, and why? Because it sells and that's all that matters. I don't fault companies for attempting to make a profit, it's their purpose, but I don't excuse them for their methods either. 

 

It veers off into anti/pro capitalist political discussion if I go any further on that train of thought but I personally blame the people with the power (money) before I blame the individuals (generation) who USUALLY have only as much artistic freedom as is profitable for the people above them.

[CommissarRotke]

5 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I'd say they grew up not being ALLOWED to innovate. Innovation requires trial and by extension error. Few people can afford error with the rising cost of living and stagnant wages, and the people who HAVE money (companies) don't invest in innovation. Look at the way Hollywood churns out remakes and creatively anemic films that follow prescribed patterns, and why? Because it sells and that's all that matters. I don't fault companies for attempting to make a profit, it's their purpose, but I don't excuse them for their methods either. 

 

It veers off into anti/pro capitalist political discussion if I go any further on that train of thought but I personally blame the people with the power (money) before I blame the individuals (generation) who USUALLY have only as much artistic freedom as is profitable for the people above them.

Yeah I was going to say, especially as a (younger) adult, I often simply do not have the energy to be creative or innovative because of how much I have to work and how much more time it is to keep up with "life maintenance."

I was extremely creative and innovative as a kid/teenager. I lost that somewhere along the path to adulthood and I've no idea how to get it back 🙃

Edited February 23, 2022 by CommissarRotke
spelling

[CommissarRotke]

Addressing the other side of this topic: it's interesting that a company needs ALL four pillars to even compete near GW. We've got Marvel, ASOIAF, and Star Wars tabletop games that were established lore which finally got turned into minis. I'm not 100% on ASOIAF but I have heard Marvel and Star Wars do pretty solid for themselves. 

[yukishiro1]

Legion is a better game than AOS in terms of design (though it still has its flaws, mainly with activation spam being rewarded so much). And the minis have gotten a lot better from the 1st generation to what you see now. But they're still not really on a GW level, nor are they that much cheaper on a per-model basis for normal units - though armies cost significantly less since they're smaller, and heroes are much more reasonably priced. You pay ~$20 for a hero that can be between 100ish to 200ish points in an 800 point army standard, which is much cheaper than GW even without adjusting for the point scale difference. 

[RuneBrush]

17 hours ago, The Red King said:

I'd say they grew up not being ALLOWED to innovate. Innovation requires trial and by extension error. Few people can afford error with the rising cost of living and stagnant wages, and the people who HAVE money (companies) don't invest in innovation. Look at the way Hollywood churns out remakes and creatively anemic films that follow prescribed patterns, and why? Because it sells and that's all that matters. I don't fault companies for attempting to make a profit, it's their purpose, but I don't excuse them for their methods either. 

It veers off into anti/pro capitalist political discussion if I go any further on that train of thought but I personally blame the people with the power (money) before I blame the individuals (generation) who USUALLY have only as much artistic freedom as is profitable for the people above them.

Very conscious that we're deviating from the original topic on this, but I do think it's a good conversation to have 😉  From your comments, you're looking at innovation as a commercial entity whereas I'm looking at it from a hobbyists perspective.  If I wish to innovate I can do what my teenage self did and sit down with a pad of paper and a pencil.  I can create a custom battleplan, a warscroll or even a brand new set of rules using miniatures I have in my collection.  I can break every laid out concept that GW has ever written - Khorne could become a farmer, Sigmar could go on a wild rampage and kill everything in Azyr etc.  If I wrote a scenario of some kind I could play it with friends and iterate it to improve it.  The only thing it has to cost me is time, there's no financial impact because I'm not a business, nor am I undertaking this as a commercial venture to make money.

I grew up in the 80's where largely life could be pretty dull unless you made your own entertainment - there were 4 TV channels in the UK and that was it.  In contrast we now have so much entertainment on hand that the need to innovate and be creative no longer exists as it did - things like computer games provide the dopamine hit you'd get from creating something.  There is also a lot more demands on our time at all hours of the day - life is basically more complicated.

So where am I going with this?  Yes, innovation in business is reducing.  The money involved in new innovative ideas is so large now that companies don't want to risk it not working.  Within the hobby innovation is also reducing because we have less time and inclination to innovate and the current generation aren't encouraged/forced to innovate or create in the way previous generations were.

[Jenisandrul]

Hello my first post on the forum and I find the discussion about creativity/innovation interesting. I just wonder what people generally mean when they refer to creativity or innovation as they very subjective terms.

I’ve been involved in the hobby for several decades and In terms of model design, rules and game design I’ve seen plenty of innovation and creativity from various companies or startups.

I often wonder whether people confuse the meaning of creativity and innovation and only apply them in a positive way to those things they like or agree with. For example I cannot stand modern art, Picasso etc but i don’t question whether its creative or innovative it just not to my taste.

Finally regarding GW price rises I don’t like the rises but I don’t think its unexpected or unusual, the  production and design of models, books, staff pay all costs money and ultimately they’re a business and I don’t think any other companies in the field are any different, some may produce cheaper models (often quality is lower) or provide free rules which is great, but rarely out of generosity, its to draw people in their game system and invest in models or other products related to it. Ultimately it a hobby and no one forces us to invest in any specific system or products.

 

[zilberfrid]

16 minutes ago, Jenisandrul said:

Hello my first post on the forum and I find the discussion about creativity/innovation interesting. I just wonder what people generally mean when they refer to creativity or innovation as they very subjective terms.

I’ve been involved in the hobby for several decades and In terms of model design, rules and game design I’ve seen plenty of innovation and creativity from various companies or startups.

I often wonder whether people confuse the meaning of creativity and innovation and only apply them in a positive way to those things they like or agree with. For example I cannot stand modern art, Picasso etc but i don’t question whether its creative or innovative it just not to my taste.

Finally regarding GW price rises I don’t like the rises but I don’t think its unexpected or unusual, the  production and design of models, books, staff pay all costs money and ultimately they’re a business and I don’t think any other companies in the field are any different, some may produce cheaper models (often quality is lower) or provide free rules which is great, but rarely out of generosity, its to draw people in their game system and invest in models or other products related to it. Ultimately it a hobby and no one forces us to invest in any specific system or products.

It is different for other companies.

Companies like Osprey have managed to make cheaper and more robust rulebooks for years and I haven't heard about a price increase on their end, and designers like Northstar, Wargames Atlantic and Warlord make stuff that surpasses GW's current old collection (Imperial Guard, Freeguild, Dark Elves, etc) for half the price per model and also haven't announced price increases.

Even if they did, these price increases would not be on top of yearly price increases.

[Jenisandrul]

To be fair I wasn’t considering model ranges that are decades old, perhaps I should have. But even then no one forces us to buy them and its not like GW and other companies haven’t released new ranges or factions over the years, maybe not in factions some people want (All hail Settra!!) unfortunately no company can cater for the tastes of every potential customer.

In terms of whether a specific range of models is better than another ones this is again quite subjective, I don’t personally like the fantasy or Sci-fi ranges produced by the Northstar, Wargames Atlantic and Warlord, so while they may be cheaper I wouldn’t buy them, converseIy if I think a GW model is too expensive I won’t buy it, Gargant for example great model but way too expensive. 

As for Osprey I’ve never played their rule sets, so can’t compare them to AOS or 40k, however I can well believe they are better, I find there are rules and interactions in AOS and 40k that are terrible/annoying etc, but that was true for Hordes and Warmachine too, as well other rule sets I’ve tried. For me the game is more about hanging out with friends and having a laugh, which I accept is not the case for everyone.

I was an Old World devotee and it took me several years to even start buying or playing AOS such was my anger at the killing of the old world, but I think it did free GW to massively improve the quality and creativity of their more recent model designs, whether you like the designs or not is subjective and doesn’t necessarily justify the prices. 

[The Red King]

3 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Very conscious that we're deviating from the original topic on this, but I do think it's a good conversation to have 😉  From your comments, you're looking at innovation as a commercial entity whereas I'm looking at it from a hobbyists perspective.  If I wish to innovate I can do what my teenage self did and sit down with a pad of paper and a pencil.  I can create a custom battleplan, a warscroll or even a brand new set of rules using miniatures I have in my collection.  I can break every laid out concept that GW has ever written - Khorne could become a farmer, Sigmar could go on a wild rampage and kill everything in Azyr etc.  If I wrote a scenario of some kind I could play it with friends and iterate it to improve it.  The only thing it has to cost me is time, there's no financial impact because I'm not a business, nor am I undertaking this as a commercial venture to make money.

I grew up in the 80's where largely life could be pretty dull unless you made your own entertainment - there were 4 TV channels in the UK and that was it.  In contrast we now have so much entertainment on hand that the need to innovate and be creative no longer exists as it did - things like computer games provide the dopamine hit you'd get from creating something.  There is also a lot more demands on our time at all hours of the day - life is basically more complicated.

So where am I going with this?  Yes, innovation in business is reducing.  The money involved in new innovative ideas is so large now that companies don't want to risk it not working.  Within the hobby innovation is also reducing because we have less time and inclination to innovate and the current generation aren't encouraged/forced to innovate or create in the way previous generations were.

I think blame was perhaps too laden a word but I just meant ultimately that I feel the "need" for creativity is less a factor than the "availability of means".

 

I agree that scarcity is the mother of innovation, but people still write books even though they can find almost every story ever written. We as a species would be innovative even if there was zero need but not if there was zero means to do so.

[pnkdth]

On 2/24/2022 at 10:57 AM, RuneBrush said:

So where am I going with this?  Yes, innovation in business is reducing.  The money involved in new innovative ideas is so large now that companies don't want to risk it not working.  Within the hobby innovation is also reducing because we have less time and inclination to innovate and the current generation aren't encouraged/forced to innovate or create in the way previous generations were.

We're already seeing an MVP for how the industry might look with OnePageRules. In other words, game systems as a service. The people running that game sits on valuable insights most do not, those in the industry viewing it as a fan project or something temporary are making a big mistake.

The miniature industry will change fundamentally once 3D printing reaches public availability and accessibility. I'm not just talking everyone has a printer at home but also production companies selling it as a service. When this happens mass producing sprues is going to be a waste of time and money unless GW figure out a way to create top of the like flexible kits at a competitive price. On the Gartner Hype Cycle I think we're fast approaching the second stage of mainstream adoption/application (or 'slope of enlightenment'). Once the need for contacts/networks in logistics and transportation ceases to be a key success factor GW is going to lose a lot of their power. If I do not need a physical book and can print out my minis nearby why would I overpay for a mass-produced miniature?

If you look outside of GW games there's lots of different ways to play miniature games and I would completely disagree with anyone who says there's no new ideas and innovation going on here. GW have stagnated out convenience and have in some ways copied other games, e.g. Kill Team seem to draw heavy inspiration from Infinity.

In other words, new gamers are going view the hobby from a very different perspective since, 1) they're not carrying our baggage of nostalgia and 'sunk cost' piles, 2) tech like 3D printing won't be the next cool thing for them but something that's always been there, 3) digital services will be REALLY good at supplying us with games (rules, lore, etc) and other game related content (I'm thinking some like Steam but for miniature gaming). This all sounds like an amazing bustling ecosystem but like every other digital transformation we're still going to see certain actors take the lead and become the clear winners.

From my perspective I'm really curious to see what happens next. I do not think GW will go belly up though since they can pivot in a lot different directions. Another option for GW is acquiring new and exciting game studious like how many other industry giants do to maintain relevance when faced with possible disruption.

From a player perspective, I've chosen to diversify the games I play. Effectively voting with my wallet and my time since it isn't just about money, it is also about when I play I'm no longer advertising GW games. It has also been really good in terms of enriching my hobbying experience as a whole. I hecking love Malifaux and Infinity, for example. Somehow both are able to survive with 100% free rules while providing solid updates and high quality minis. It is thanks to my wandering to other systems which makes me question a lot of the "truths" which people use to defend or excuse GW's actions.

As a side note, the thought of a properly realised VR version of TTS would be pretty awesome. Imagine a virtual event where you walk around and mingle with other players. While not a substitute for the real thing, it is definitely something I'd be up for.

Bit of a wall of text so thanks for reading if you got all the way through!

TL;DR: We've barely begun to explore the many new and exciting ways to engage in this hobby. With or without GW doesn't matter.

[Warboss Gorbolg]

Interesting take. A lot of what you say makes sense but I think the fact that miniature war gaming is a very small community gives GW extra leverage and longevity.

Anecdotal experience is anecdotal, but what has kept me and many others I’ve talked to locally, playing GW games vice even relatively popular alternatives (privateer press, battle tech, etc.) is that I can find other players of GW games much easier than the alternatives that I might be interested in. Reaching a critical mass of players is a huge deal if you don’t have a bunch of friends in the hobby as well. GW brings that to the table whereas other games generally don’t. 
 

Therefore people like me only continue to invest in GW games.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Warboss Gorbolg
Final thought

[Clan's Cynic]

18 hours ago, pnkdth said:

We're already seeing an MVP for how the industry might look with OnePageRules. In other words, game systems as a service. The people running that game sits on valuable insights most do not, those in the industry viewing it as a fan project or something temporary are making a big mistake.

The miniature industry will change fundamentally once 3D printing reaches public availability and accessibility. I'm not just talking everyone has a printer at home but also production companies selling it as a service. When this happens mass producing sprues is going to be a waste of time and money unless GW figure out a way to create top of the like flexible kits at a competitive price. On the Gartner Hype Cycle I think we're fast approaching the second stage of mainstream adoption/application (or 'slope of enlightenment'). Once the need for contacts/networks in logistics and transportation ceases to be a key success factor GW is going to lose a lot of their power. If I do not need a physical book and can print out my minis nearby why would I overpay for a mass-produced miniature?

3D printing won't hurt GW. If anything it's far more likely to hurt their competition because people delving into non-GW games are already bucking the trend of stepping outside the GW ecosphere.

Airbrushes are cheaper and more effective tools than forking out for rattle cans, but the vast majority of people still won't invest in an airbrush whether that's for the upfront cost (around £100), because they lack the space, or more likely just don't want to learn something new when they're happy walking into a shop and buying a box off the shelf - even if 3D printing would've gotten them six units for the price of that one official model.

Hell, most people won't even use non-Citadel paints.

[pnkdth]

15 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

3D printing won't hurt GW. If anything it's far more likely to hurt their competition because people delving into non-GW games are already bucking the trend of stepping outside the GW ecosphere.

Airbrushes are cheaper and more effective tools than forking out for rattle cans, but the vast majority of people still won't invest in an airbrush whether that's for the upfront cost (around £100), because they lack the space, or more likely just don't want to learn something new when they're happy walking into a shop and buying a box off the shelf - even if 3D printing would've gotten them six units for the price of that one official model.

Hell, most people won't even use non-Citadel paints.

What we're seeing now is just the start. People looking elsewhere is not due to 3D printing but because GW's business decisions and, in other cases, pretty atrocious rule blunders. The more people going outside GW the more visibility those games have and they challenge the truth that GW is the only option worth investing in. If a guy like me who's got 20+ years in the hobby can swayed to look elsewhere, anyone can. There will still be people who will stick with GW no matter what but that demographic will inevitably shrink as it is replaced by new players who does not share our investment and brand loyalty (well, in my case that loyalty is gone).

3D printing, once he gets over the hump, is just going to speed up the proverbial snowball. Once the old guard is replaced with new blood who's known no other world than where 3D printing is like anything else, things will change the industry as a whole. I do not see how wide-spread awareness and competence in using 3D printers won't hurt GW. Unfortunately, as you point out smaller studios is going to feel that sting too. That is why I brought up OPR (OnePageRules) since I think the disruption the hobby will face isn't simply tied to 3D printing. 3D printing will facilitate games like OPR and games with similar business models.

Speaking of paints, just recently several big time content creators reviewed a direct competitor to GW and their contrast paints. Point is, no one is immune to change and GW is losing its hold on both tabletops and online. To @Warboss Gorbolg 's point, I don't see GW's games up and disappear, they are just going to have a share the tabletop with other games.

Closest analogy is WoW. Still a huge game, still got fans, but it is not the only option out there. I think that is my key point, personalised options. From skirmish to war gaming, there's going to be a game for anyone and many of those games are likely to be model agnostic.

[novakai]

3D printing is touchy subject, there a lot more potential problems and regulations that can happen. Ranging from environmental hazards, to just solid waste. It not really talk about because it still aniche

it get a whole lot complex when DIY weapon manufacturing becomes a thing when 3D printing parts

[PlasticCraic]

On 2/24/2022 at 2:39 AM, CommissarRotke said:

Addressing the other side of this topic: it's interesting that a company needs ALL four pillars to even compete near GW. We've got Marvel, ASOIAF, and Star Wars tabletop games that were established lore which finally got turned into minis. I'm not 100% on ASOIAF but I have heard Marvel and Star Wars do pretty solid for themselves. 

Can I ask what you see as being the four pillars?

@EccentricCircle mentioned "rules, models, lore, etc" earlier in the discussion - are you adding @Overread's comment about distribution to those three?

If so I totally agree - distribution and logistics is a major strength of GW as a business.  I also play MCP (my main game currently) and to a lesser extent Legion, and I can tell you that product availability has had a massive negative impact on their growth even pre-Covid (Legion in particular - MCP was pretty much born into Covid so it's hard to say, but they've certainly had substantially less product availability than GW right through these challenging times).

Having great control over their supply chain, including manufacturing in-house, is a real asset to GW.  To those I'd probably add a fifth pillar of Install Base, because as has been said time and again, it's just so much easier to plug into a community for GW games, and once you do, your mates keep you there.  Being market leader is self-perpetuating in a relatively small community like ours.  

I guess the first three influence what you want to play, and the latter two influence what you can play.  In my own case, with the weighting across rules, models and lore, I find that Marvel comes out on top.  But most of my mates play AOS, so I'm still playing that as well 🤷‍♂️

Edited February 27, 2022 by PlasticCraic

[EccentricCircle]

1 hour ago, PlasticCraic said:

Can I ask what you see as being the four pillars?

@EccentricCircle mentioned "rules, models, lore, etc" earlier in the discussion - are you adding @Overread's comment about distribution to those three?

If so I totally agree - distribution and logistics is a major strength of GW as a business.  I also play MCP (my main game currently) and to a lesser extent Legion, and I can tell you that product availability has had a massive negative impact on their growth even pre-Covid (Legion in particular - MCP was pretty much born into Covid so it's hard to say, but they've certainly had substantially less product availability than GW right through these challenging times).

Having great control over their supply chain, including manufacturing in-house, is a real asset to GW.  To those I'd probably add a fifth pillar of Install Base, because as has been said time and again, it's just so much easier to plug into a community for GW games, and once you do, your mates keep you there.  Being market leader is self-perpetuating in a relatively small community like ours.  

I guess the first three influence what you want to play, and the latter two influence what you can play.  In my own case, with the weighting across rules, models and lore, I find that Marvel comes out on top.  But most of my mates play AOS, so I'm still playing that as well 🤷‍♂️

I'd agree with this model for sure. The technical term for your fifth pillar in the industry is actually "network externalities" which is a measure of connectivity and how easily consumers can engage with the product due to community factors. Definitely worth reading up on if you are interested in how it all works and why GW have such a clear lead!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect

[zilberfrid]

On 2/26/2022 at 7:56 PM, novakai said:

3D printing is touchy subject, there a lot more potential problems and regulations that can happen. Ranging from environmental hazards, to just solid waste. It not really talk about because it still aniche

it get a whole lot complex when DIY weapon manufacturing becomes a thing when 3D printing parts

3d printing cuts down on a lot of waste.

It does away with a large part of logistics, obviating shrinkwrap, cardboard, paper and tons of fuel. My pile of digital shame easily fits on one 2*10*10 cm external drive as well, and warehousing professionally is similarely easier.

One liter of resin is about 5% of the volume of boxes it replaces, if those are dense boxes, and strut mass is less than sprue mass.

Weapon printing won't be resin, because you can print a lot sturdier in pla than resin.

Edited February 28, 2022 by zilberfrid

[Greybeard86]

Domestic 3d printing is still very inefficient from an industrial perspective compared to mass produced plastic, afaik. An important component of why it is even a thing is because mass plastic is sold at way above cost. This means that every person printing home (as opposed to buying mass produced) is effectively a waste. 

Shops with pro-grade printers are probably a bit better (don’t know the tech well), but still likely producing at fair greater costs than GW. The printing revolution might evolve to more efficient processes, but this is unlikely to happen with domestic printers. There is a reason why we moved from home economies to market economies and it very much applies to miniatures too. 

All that to say that from an economist’s perspective this is a crazy thing. The equivalent of people knitting their own sweaters (taking far longer than needed) because Zara dominates the market and sets crazy prices. We live in crazy land and GW’s marketing machinery is so powerful than most don’t even notice it.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Greybeard86

[Overread]

3D printing is interesting but its still got a LONG way to go

 

Right now domestic, home, production is super niche and is a hobby in itself. The process is still a long way from "plug and play" levels of readiness and some elements, such as the high toxicity of the resin, might be unavoidable (the golden goose in 3D printing right now is finding an ecologically and human safe printing resin). That in effect locks it out of the child to young teenage market unless their parents are already geeks and into the hobby themselves. 
Then you add on that you've got to monitor temperature, humidity (which isn't yet well understood how it affects printers and resin); exposure settings; deal with failing supports; deal with supports that are too light or too thick; failures and more. Heck even if you get it plug and play the clean-up can be worse than a regular cast resin, metal or plastic model. The sculptors also need a huge amount of maturity because so many come from video and art backgrounds and are totally oblivious to the mechanics of a model at a practical level. There's a lot of super thick capes that need not be and super thin swords that will print but are so fragile that even with a tough resin they will snap with regular play. 

 

At the commercial level its broadly broken into two groups as I see it. One group charge way under the market value for models, but they are small time producers and mostly hobby level traders. Chances are if they earn they earn little more than enough to pay for a few hobby purchases and some might well be actually losing money. They won't see it because the money comes in in just enough of a block that they feel like they are earning; but in actuality they are likely spending way more man hours or spending out more than they have coming in. 

Next level up you've got those runing a business, but the prices are honestly not that far off regular models. See the thing is 3D printing has labour elements to it and the actual process is very slow. The only way you can speed up right now is by buying more printers and that means more labour and maintenance and upkeep on those machines (screens give out, feps need replacing etc....). Meanwhile regular casting methods are faster and honestly more reliable (excepting finecast). Plastic injection moulding is even faster and things like the plastic injection silicon mould machines getting onto the market are far more efficient for production at a larger scale. 

[EccentricCircle]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

Domestic 3d printing is still very inefficient from an industrial perspective compared to mass produced plastic, afaik. An important component of why it is even a thing is because mass plastic is sold at way above cost. This means that every person printing home (as opposed to buying mass produced) is effectively a waste. 

Shops with pro-grade printers are probably a bit better (don’t know the tech well), but still likely producing at fair greater costs than GW. The printing revolution might evolve to more efficient processes, but this is unlikely to happen with domestic printers. There is a reason why we moved from home economies to market economies and it very much applies to miniatures too. 

All that to say that from an economist’s perspective this is a crazy thing. The equivalent of people knitting their own sweaters (taking far longer than needed) because Zara dominates the market and sets crazy prices. We live in crazy land and GW’s marketing machinery is so powerful than most don’t even notice it.

I don't disagree, per se. However, its worth noting that quite a lot of people do in fact knit their own clothing for fun and customisability, even if it would perhaps be cheaper to just buy one (and they do that most of the time). 3D printing fits that same niche.

[Overread]

3 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

I don't disagree, per se. However, its worth noting that quite a lot of people do in fact knit their own clothing for fun and customisability, even if it would perhaps be cheaper to just buy one (and they do that most of the time). 3D printing fits that same niche.

Exactly. As I see it right now 3D printing won't replace GW or PP or any of the main production methods en-mass. What it does do is provide an outlet for alternative models and products. Heck already its done a huge amount in making large scale and bust models far more accessible than they've ever been in the past. Which purely feeds the artistic not the gamer model market and drives interest in it way up above what it was before. 

 

[pnkdth]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

All that to say that from an economist’s perspective this is a crazy thing. The equivalent of people knitting their own sweaters (taking far longer than needed) because Zara dominates the market and sets crazy prices. We live in crazy land and GW’s marketing machinery is so powerful than most don’t even notice it.

If the knitting process was automated and I could just input my design I'd be all over that. Sounds awesome.

All that the 3D printing industry needs to do is work on accessibility and I'm not talking "a 3D printer in every home" since that is just one way to use a 3D printer. The big shift, I imagine, is when 3D printing is like commissioning any kind of art or like we used to develop film into photos, 3D printing as a service, STLs as a service, etc. I am sure there tons of creative people out there who could make a good living off that and figure out smarter ways than me.

One thing that's for sure and that 3D printers will continue to become more efficient and easier to use by each iteration. I would also say it isn't as far off as some seem to believe. The newer printers are much easier to use and once the perception around printing changes there will be a cascading effect. I still think GW will be around because GW will be like WoW, the market for it won't disappear. GW is likely to keep going strong, just not as dominant as they are today but still the dominant force.

Edited February 28, 2022 by pnkdth

[AaronWilson]

I'm very lucky I have all I need for all my armies, bar new releases but yeah the new price increases makes the barrier to entry crazy high.