I mean, how can you not make a profit selling mini's made of plastic for a 800% mark-up? And, I may be dating myself, but how were companies making a profit on them fifteen years ago - and they were made of pewter! (Or, even before then, led.) I just don't underdstand.
I don't collect them, but they are great to use for the game. And I can't figure out why Hasbero, a toy company with contacts all over China's plastic companies, can't pump these things out. Perhaps there's something I'm missing. Somebody, please enlighten me.
You can go on any site: trollandtoad, ebay, Amazon, miniaturemarket, etc and they are still these things at an exobanent rate. One Archfiends booster pack (12) minis sells for $35; Dragoneye is $38. And the buyer doesn't even know what the hell they're getting!
I can't possibly believe the production costs are greater than the sales cost. And it seems to me they are constantly selling out of these things. It just seems to me like something else is at work here.
Wizards made the mistake of changing the game (Miniatures, not D&D) with a second edition that broke up and changed the armies that was already built and had a resemblance to the yet unreleased 4th edition. This was made worse because of the delay of getting the past figures updated to the new rules, and the new price points for the figures (Less figures in box for the same price). When the sales lagged, the game was canceled. My thought is that the updating of the past figures was taking to much time and resources and 4th edition ended up differently than what was envisioned when the new rules had been made, making for inconsistencies between the mini game and the role playing game.
The Heroes line was made, and flopped. (10 bucks for three figures) They made a try, eventually, to the random packs, though with five figures instead of what came before. That is the latest try, and though I think they sold a fair amount, the lack of a mini game means the sales are solely for game players and collectors. I believe that it would never go up to the sales that the Minis game had before.
This is coupled with the cancellation of the Heroscape game, which could have been an alternate to the regular minis, the end of the minis line is a set back.
The future of minis isn't quite done, though, just in transition. I think the advent of unpainted figures is coming, like those in the Ravonloft game, grouped into bundles for monsters and races. This would bring down the cost and make for a reason to get the figures other than collecting or hoping for the right figures among the randoms.
I still fail to see how a going rate of 4500 US dollars for a completed collection (bad paint job or not) of minis is not profitable. Plastic is still cheap, despite the oil that's in them. The molds aren't that expensive. Have you seen how many plastic toys are out there?
You can go on any site: trollandtoad, ebay, Amazon, miniaturemarket, etc and they are still these things at an exobanent rate. One Archfiends booster pack (12) minis sells for $35; Dragoneye is $38. And the buyer doesn't even know what the hell they're getting!
I can't possibly believe the production costs are greater than the sales cost. And it seems to me they are constantly selling out of these things. It just seems to me like something else is at work here.
Its simple economics. If it costs $10,000 for the creation of the mold, overhead, and other costs, they have to sell 222 sets at 45 dollars to break even...
If the product cost of a single set is $20, then it must sell at $45 in order to make a profit worth producing. They like profit margins of 200% or higher...
I still fail to see how a going rate of 4500 US dollars for a completed collection (bad paint job or not) of minis is not profitable. Plastic is still cheap, despite the oil that's in them. The molds aren't that expensive. Have you seen how many plastic toys are out there?
You can go on any site: trollandtoad, ebay, Amazon, miniaturemarket, etc and they are still these things at an exobanent rate. One Archfiends booster pack (12) minis sells for $35; Dragoneye is $38. And the buyer doesn't even know what the hell they're getting!
I can't possibly believe the production costs are greater than the sales cost. And it seems to me they are constantly selling out of these things. It just seems to me like something else is at work here.
Its simple economics. If it costs $10,000 for the creation of the mold, overhead, and other costs, they have to sell 222 sets at 45 dollars to break even...
If the product cost of a single set is $20, then it must sell at $45 in order to make a profit worth producing. They like profit margins of 200% or higher...
Are you saying they aren't selling 222 sets? or 444? I believe you are gravely mistaken. A mold is a mold, and once it's made, it's made forever. Packagin is probably a greater cost than shipping, since they are so light. Space, always a factor will cost them.
I guess I'm just dead wrong about the quantity of sales. Thanks for everyone clearing it up. Also, Thax, thank you for shedding light on its past and how it effects the present and future. I was not aware of the game's past.
That being said, WOTC could probably still make a miniatures like work if they tried to cut costs in other areas...
1. Switch to an online only marketplace, to cut out the middlemen and reduce the need for any sort of flashy packaging.
2. Sell all miniatures as singles, with a selection of say 30 different miniatures available at start.
3. No miniatures would be produced in advance however. All orders would only be pre-orders, and at the end of a set period, say 1 month, only miniatures that had received enough orders to justify a production run would be produced and shipped.
4. After the 1 month order period, any miniature that got close to the sales threshold but didn't quite make it would be held over for the next month. The others would be dropped and replaced by a new selection of miniatures, and the whole process would start over.
5. For boss type miniatures which might not generate enough sales, WOTC could use marketing gimmicks to offset costs, i.e., buy five Orc Soldiers and get an Orc Commander free.
6. Since the miniatures for sale would be changing each month, WOTC would be able to coordinate the selection of miniatures for sale to match the monsters being highlighted in the current books and online articles.
7. New sculpts would only have to be added every once and a while. WOTC could draw from their extensive back catalog of miniatures, especially in the beginning. (All they'd have to do is go look at some of the singles reseller sites to get an idea of which miniatures from the older sets are still commanding top dollar.)
8. The number of paint steps for each miniatures would be reduced to an adequate minimum, and there would be no more commons, uncommons, rares, etc. Price would be determined solely on miniature size, i.e., all medium and smaller miniatures would cost $0.99, larges would cost $2.99, and huges would cost $4.99.
9. The buyer would pay shipping and handling with a discount for larger orders.
I think such a scenario could work. I don't think WOTC would ever try it, though. It just doesn't fit the corporate think of either them or Hasbro. And I think their management clearly has some deficiencies when it comes to understanding online markets.
Its not the mold or plastic that's expensive. Its the painting. Look how many unpainted miniatures they can put into the new board games. And even when they do repaints, like in the hero packs, where new mold designs aren't needed, the price still is set very high. Its because all of the painting has to be done by hand. Its labor intensive and the costs add up quick. And before the factory can even turn out one piece, all of the painters have to be trained on the paint steps for that set.
That being said, WOTC could probably still make a miniatures like work if they tried to cut costs in other areas...
1. Switch to an online only marketplace, to cut out the middlemen and reduce the need for any sort of flashy packaging.
2. Sell all miniatures as singles, with a selection of say 30 different miniatures available at start.
3. No miniatures would be produced in advance however. All orders would only be pre-orders, and at the end of a set period, say 1 month, only miniatures that had received enough orders to justify a production run would be produced and shipped.
4. After the 1 month order period, any miniature that got close to the sales threshold but didn't quite make it would be held over for the next month. The others would be dropped and replaced by a new selection of miniatures, and the whole process would start over.
5. For boss type miniatures which might not generate enough sales, WOTC could use marketing gimmicks to offset costs, i.e., buy five Orc Soldiers and get an Orc Commander free.
6. Since the miniatures for sale would be changing each month, WOTC would be able to coordinate the selection of miniatures for sale to match the monsters being highlighted in the current books and online articles.
7. New sculpts would only have to be added every once and a while. WOTC could draw from their extensive back catalog of miniatures, especially in the beginning. (All they'd have to do is go look at some of the singles reseller sites to get an idea of which miniatures from the older sets are still commanding top dollar.)
8. The number of paint steps for each miniatures would be reduced to an adequate minimum, and there would be no more commons, uncommons, rares, etc. Price would be determined solely on miniature size, i.e., all medium and smaller miniatures would cost $0.99, larges would cost $2.99, and huges would cost $4.99.
9. The buyer would pay shipping and handling with a discount for larger orders.
I think such a scenario could work. I don't think WOTC would ever try it, though. It just doesn't fit the corporate think of either them or Hasbro. And I think their management clearly has some deficiencies when it comes to understanding online markets.
Your idea has some merit especially if they were a company the were strictly dealing in selling miniatures. However, there seems to be too much micro-managment involved with your business model, especially for a company like Hasbro.
Anyhow, Hasbro could release one D&D miniature set a year if they wanted to and still make a profit.
I posted this in another thread, it is appropriate for this one.
Wizards made the mistake of changing the game (Miniatures, not D&D) with a second edition that broke up and changed the armies that was already built and had a resemblance to the yet unreleased 4th edition. This was made worse because of the delay of getting the past figures updated to the new rules, and the new price points for the figures (Less figures in box for the same price). When the sales lagged, the game was canceled. My thought is that the updating of the past figures was taking to much time and resources and 4th edition ended up differently than what was envisioned when the new rules had been made, making for inconsistencies between the mini game and the role playing game.
The Heroes line was made, and flopped. (10 bucks for three figures) They made a try, eventually, to the random packs, though with five figures instead of what came before. That is the latest try, and though I think they sold a fair amount, the lack of a mini game means the sales are solely for game players and collectors. I believe that it would never go up to the sales that the Minis game had before.
This is coupled with the cancellation of the Heroscape game, which could have been an alternate to the regular minis, the end of the minis line is a set back.
The future of minis isn't quite done, though, just in transition. I think the advent of unpainted figures is coming, like those in the Ravonloft game, grouped into bundles for monsters and races. This would bring down the cost and make for a reason to get the figures other than collecting or hoping for the right figures among the randoms.
The death of Heroscape was a huge deal to me. I felt that the game should have had a lot more life in it.
Also, I feel that with the proper marketing and forethought Heroscape could have conceivably been the savior of the D&D Miniatures line.
Of course, the entire matter was handled poorly. They didn't communicate with fans about what was going on AT ALL, and they continued their trend of poorly repainting molds we've all been sick of for 5 years. Then, of course, they pulled the rug out and cancelled the whole game. On the plus side, at least they didn't create artificial shortages of vaunted miniatures like they did with the skirmish line.
Welcome to the current wotc business model, where they come up with a decent idea, but only half support it. Then they don't give it any marketing aside from a single caption on their cluttered website, and don't communicate with (or respect) their fans. Then, when the line is (shockingly) not an instant megasuccess, instead of trying to develop it, a hasbro corporate d-bag who's never gamed in his life decides to pull the plug.
(Note: I'm bitter. I liked heroscape)
The Heroes line was made, and flopped. (10 bucks for three figures)
And the sales price per figure was $3.50 each, but the chinese cost of manufacturing was in the pennies. How this cannot be profitable is beyond me. I'm sure they sold a shedload more than Reaper sells of its metal minis, yet because WotC kept pushing that "collectible" angle, it was difficult for DMs to find the minis they might need because they were made 3 years ago and all existing boxes have been bought up by Troll & Toad (etc) to be sold for $3-$30 PER MINI. ridiculous, especially in this crappy economy.
With all respect to Bill S., he seemed to not "get it" when I approached him with my ideas for making sets of minis based around encounters which would be a help for DM's. They could still market "rare" figures if they want to make them collector's items, but let's face it: Wizards would rather sell you 6 pieces of cardboard for $10 (like the new tile sets) than sell minis. Prediction for 2011? WotC will continue to sell collectible cards for D&D, turning the game more and more into a stepchild of Magic. What a friggin disaster. I _don't_ play Magic because I want a story that continues, made up by me and my friends.
It was just so convenient as a player, collector, and DM to buy prepainted minis. Let's hope someone else picks up the slack.
My weekly D&D group has recently started using RPTools for our sessions, since I moved 300+ miles from them and our old DM moved 1500 miles away. We now don't need any minis or cards or books, and enjoy playing 4th edition without any jacking around from WotC. The only outstanding issue is our reliance on the Character Builder, which is a whole different disaster in the making.
The Heroes line was made, and flopped. (10 bucks for three figures)
And the sales price per figure was $3.50 each, but the chinese cost of manufacturing was in the pennies. How this cannot be profitable is beyond me.
The reason it wasn't profittable was that the chinese cost of manufacturing was a lot more than just pennies. The upfront costs of producing pre-painted miniatures is high. And its not like WOTC's prices were that outrageous. You can get a Lords of Madness booster online for around $13. (Cheaper if you buy a whole case.) That would give you five miniatures, one of which would be huge. Compare that to Reaper's Legendary Encounters pre-painted plastic miniatures line. Pick out one large sized miniature, such as the red dragon or the minotaur, add in one of the three-packs, such as the skeletons or goblins, and then add in one of the singles, such as the werewolf or vampire, and you're looking at somewhere between $15-$19 for five miniatures. If WOTC tried to do fully non-random encounter packs, especially if they were designed for in-store retail, the price for five or six miniatures would probably end up having to be between $20-$25. Considering the current level of sales that D&D is generating, I just don't see there being a market to support miniatures at that price point. And after the poor performance of the Heros sets and the visible sets, WOTC is probably a little gun-shy to try it.
That being said, WOTC did do a poor job of selecting which miniatures to use in the Heros sets and the visible sets. In the Heros sets, for example, they chose a decent number of older miniatures and rereleased them as repaints. Unfortunately they selected to use older uncommons for the repaints, even though the original uncommon of those minis can still be found on reseller sites for extremely low prices. If WOTC was going to put out repaints, they should have used it as an opportunity to rerelease some of the older rares that still fetch $20 each in the singles market. I think that would have helped their sales a lot. And as for the visible sets they did, the selection of which miniatures would be the visible one was poor. For example, how many DMs needed a unicorn? The gold dragon from the same set would have made a much better choice for the visible mini.
The Heroes line was made, and flopped. (10 bucks for three figures)
That being said, WOTC did do a poor job of selecting which miniatures to use in the Heros sets and the visible sets. In the Heros sets, for example, they chose a decent number of older miniatures and rereleased them as repaints. Unfortunately they selected to use older uncommons for the repaints, even though the original uncommon of those minis can still be found on reseller sites for extremely low prices. If WOTC was going to put out repaints, they should have used it as an opportunity to rerelease some of the older rares that still fetch $20 each in the singles market. I think that would have helped their sales a lot. And as for the visible sets they did, the selection of which miniatures would be the visible one was poor. For example, how many DMs needed a unicorn? The gold dragon from the same set would have made a much better choice for the visible mini.
Pretty much. A better selection might have earned them some money. They also picked ugly colors and cheap looking paints for their repaints (the quality was below the skirmish line). They actually did do a decent job at mini selection for some of heroscape. But, again, ill-publicized and I think we were burned out on repaints by then. Plus they never made super-awesome iconics like beholders and illithids (at least I don't think they made illithids) that would be guaranteed to sell.
Switch to an online only marketplace, to cut out the middlemen and reduce the need for any sort of flashy packaging.
2. Sell all miniatures as singles, with a selection of say 30 different miniatures available at start.
3. No miniatures would be produced in advance however. All orders would only be pre-orders, and at the end of a set period, say 1 month, only miniatures that had received enough orders to justify a production run would be produced and shipped
That's revolutionary. And kind of ingenious - using the web to sell what you already know people want, directly selling to millions and cutting out the middle-men (hobby shops) who have supported WotC for decades. That's why I think it will never happen: it makes too much sense, and risks snubbing their existing distribution model. D&D isn't Monopoly and doesn't easily fit into the Walmart catalog. Without a local gaming store to act as a hub for people to learn the game and acquire products, D&D would have an even more difficult time selling to new players, which apparently they need to keep finding since the churn rate on (p-oed) existing players is so high.
I still find it hard to believe that a mold costs $10k. is that the molds for all 30-60 minis in the collection?
As a man who needs to work for a living, I have no time to paint every mini that hits the table.
As a consumer I need minis to be cheap, I don't mind Orcs Bugbears and Gnolls being the same, But a Gnoll is not a dragon.
And as a player I want some awesome minis, a bit higher quality that I use every week.
My solution...
Sell minis in encounter packs. At the end of each article in the MM is a suggested encounter, pick a monster type and build an encounter around it (we can mod the lvl so don't get to hung up on details)
Stick with the same cheap, quick manufacturing. The poor paint jobs don't matter if I can afford the minis for an undead army marching on Lockhaven!
For my character as a player, and my players minis in the other game, even for big villains, use the same minis you've been painting, also release unpainted!
Thats right, you don't have to pick on or the other, you can do both. Do them both at the same cost. The cost you need to recover you costs plus whatever funds you need to go forward, my guess is 17-22 (17US, 22CND eh) If people want time in their life, painted, if they want high quality unpainted, you make the money you need, and more so if the unpainted take off. And I can get the minis I need not the ones I don't...
And as a side note, I will never buy a pack of token sheets... ever... they suck and I can make them at home.
even if the mini is unpainted, it helps the players to understand / recognize what they're fighting. but the painted minis are worth $$$ more than the unpainted ones, even at a higher cost, because it helps to jog our imagination.
WotC artwork tends to be over-the-top, and there's only so much detail you can put into a 1" flat coin. but a 3 dimensional mini works better because i mix the old metal ones with the new plastic ones, and now there's enough for armies of orcs and gnolls and yes, even dragons.
As for the minis paint jobs and detail, I don't, nor do my players, have a problem with it. We happen to like them. And we're from the Ral Partha era of figures.
Those of you saying sell them as encounters, I believe that has been mentioned several times. With some even suggesting to sell them based on the module. Buy H1, get ALL the maps and figures for $100-150. I know quite a few who would do it.
Add paintjobs on top and that is why they are so expensive.
Metal minis are dirt-cheap to produce. They can be produced in very small print runs and that is why you see hobbyists set up a blog and sell 20 figures they designed.
Unpainted sets of D&D minis would do very well. I love how they are putting them in the boardgames and I hope they make many more D&D Adventure boardgames like Ravenloft/Ashardalon.
I think there is a line where the imagination and representation blurs with plastic painted minis. Sure, having enough of the perfect minis for the encoutner you came up without ever considering what minis would be needed is awesome. But is that the average mini user's experience? At some point the elven archers more skeletons or the skeletons are melee elves.
If I wanted to play with toys, I would play with toys. If I wanted to imagine my character fighting a monster the closer the representation got to what I am imagining the less vivid my imagination would be. Your imagination will always be better than the minis, but your imagination starts to get influenced by better representations.
I am not a plastic painted mini fan, especially as tied to specific D&DMini stat cards or D&D monster entries as they are. Seeing the board game minis, I could get behind that. Keep it ultra simple, as in less molds and just turn out bags of unpainted army men D&D minis. I realize it's not the same, but they cancelled the mini line they were doing so this is just an alternate suggestion. If your using the same handful of orcs to represent years and years of orc encounters, all richly described different encounters with memorable orc to PC roleplaying then why couldn't they just be dark blue army men orcs?
Plastic minis are really expensive to produce. They have to have huge print-runs (in the thousands).
Add paintjobs on top and that is why they are so expensive.
Metal minis are dirt-cheap to produce. They can be produced in very small print runs and that is why you see hobbyists set up a blog and sell 20 figures they designed.
Unpainted sets of D&D minis would do very well. I love how they are putting them in the boardgames and I hope they make many more D&D Adventure boardgames like Ravenloft/Ashardalon.
Why do plastic require a longer run? Are the molds more expensive to make?
Why do plastic require a longer run? Are the molds more expensive to make?
Exponentially more expensive, so much so that Reaper, which can turn out 10 pewter molds a month, has only been able to afford 12 or so PPM molds so far in their Legendary Encounters line. What's more, some minis are way too expensive for them to transfer into plastic, so a few of their metal minis will never see plastic form.
Halber
Thunder, this was actually a direct line in my next post, but since you built the natural segue, I thought I would just piggy back on yours.
Does anyone in here think mini prices will rise beyond? How about lower?
I think there will be a time perameter somehow involved, ie. they skyrocket for a year then fall dirt cheap or vice-versa.
I am very curious as to what you guys think.
i would like to have more minis available from WOtC, but i dont pay for something hoping i get what i want. i paid you, gimme what i wanted! the latest thing i got was a heroscape pack with a warforged knight, a female goliath warden (at least thats what it looked like to me) a red dragon and what i think is a monk, it was a REALLY cool set and i would like to see more of that in the future.
if i cant see what im buying im not buying it!
Prediction for 2011? WotC will continue to sell collectible cards for D&D, turning the game more and more into a stepchild of Magic. What a friggin disaster. I _don't_ play Magic because I want a story that continues, made up by me and my friends.
I expect boosters of tokens, ya know like that Pirates game? Cardboard cards with either 1 huge, 1 large with huge ring, or two large or multiple mediums/smalls, sold in packs of five cards.
I can totally see them do that.
hrmmm. Interesting, I would've thought it was the opposite. Really, that's too bad, as I lack the time, money, interest, and talent to paint my own. Plus the commons got so incredibly cheap on ebay...
Injection moulding machinery is big, heavy, and expensive. Whitemetal can be cast in rubber moulds. I'm not sure what else can be cast in rubber moulds. I suspect that some kinds of resin can be, and I'm not sure about vinyl...
or will prices drop because people stop playing?
I think that the number of people who want to play D&D will always be a finite amount, which goes up and down depending a bit on the fad aspect of D&D. For all its faults, my friends and I prefer 4th edition to other versions, and some nights we just roleplay and there's no combat, which can be quite rewarding.
but since i moved to another city, we're playing using skype and rptools, and I no longer need minis. should I sell my massive collection of 10,000 minis? or keep them and wait for them to appreciate? i sure as hell am not buying $30 rares. hmm, maybe i should sell my Orcus.
Encounter based miniature sets you say? Like, as in a hag, two ogres and 6 goblins? Or a warlord orc, two casters and 5 warriors? I have to say, that's a damn good idea.
yes, yes it is