I might be alone in this, but I'd rather pay $5 for 1 non-random pre-painted plastic mini that I know I want than $5 for 10 random pre-painted plastic minis for the chance to get what I want. If I don't get what I want it's just trash to me.
I know that this will work because it's how the unpainted metal mini market has worked for years.
I fail to understand why people insist that pre-painted plastic minis cannot sell in the same manner and at the same price point as unpainted metal minis.
Or is there always the assumption that plastic has to be cheap and low quality?
I remember someone here at Paizo discussing that it cost a lot more to get plastic made. So selling at the same rate (both price and quantity) as metal miniatures probably wouldn't be a good business move.
EDIT: Yeah, what he said.
If non-randomized sets contain minis I can use in many situations, I will purchase multiple boxes. Things like skeletons, orcs, kobolds, gnolls, human bandits, etc where I need many for various encounters and mass battles, spark my interest. The $35.00 price point mentioned above sounds fine to me as long as the minis have decent sculpts, paint jobs, and are to a consistent and proper scale.
The boxed set of beholder variants that WoTC put out recently was not very interesting. It had limited use for me and I passed on it. One beholder is enough. Would I ever use 4 in an encounter at once? *shudder* Do I need 4 paint variants? Not really.
80 skeletons, I would use. Again and again, both in RPG encounters and mass battles using various rule sets.
Something I've always wanted to see is a set of various familiars and animal companions. A set figures on unusual mounts would be good too. (Dwarf on a camel, kobold on a dinosaur, human on elephant, goblin on ostrich, hafling on dog, elf on a pterosaur, etc.) There are some weird mount models but not nearly enough IMO.
If you want orcs just buy Legendary Encounters. For $35 you can get 10 orcs easy. Skeletons or zombies? You can get 13 of them for $35. Kobolds? You can get 19 for $35. 7 Gnolls or humans.
Should Paizo with their WizKids partners go head to head with that?
For example, maybe something like:
Encounter At Goblin's Pass
GameMastery Encounter Set • $19.99
While traveling on the road, the adventurers stumbled across a goblin raiding party. Included in this set are: 8 Goblins, 1 Goblin Dog, 1 Goblin Sorcerer, 1 Elite Goblin and a GameMastery map tile unique to this set, as well as a brief encounter that could be used in any PFRPG Campaign.My guess is that a set like that would have a $29.99 price point or thereabouts. It is MUCH more costly to do nonrandomized sets like this, so the price would have to go up to match. Maybe even $34.99. Not sure how many people would buy a set like that at such a high price point, which is why you don't see these types of products being made.
-Lisa
I can understand why, Lisa ... it's just too bad that the price point couldn't stay lower. I find myself slowly moving towards Cardboard Heroes and pogs ...
snip
I'm aware of all the intricacies involved in Heroscape. I was trying to dumb it down.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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If we MUST go random, please please please don't go with "chaser" style distribution of the models. Either make it flat, or make things that are traditionally large group or that show up a lot in games more common than solo critters or that are specialty encounters.
It seems to me that in most collectible miniatures games, the rares generally have cooler sculpts and better paint jobs than the commons.
Who wants a super-awesome rare fire beetle when a common does the trick? Why not make the rare something awesome like a dragon or Karzoug or some Pathfinder-specific demon?
I guess what I'm trying to say is: Yeah.
I want to be clear with everyone that right now our agreement with Wiz Kids covers this single release to support the Beginner Box.
But we obviously think about things like this all the time. Every time you have spent five minutes thinking it would be cool for Paizo to have a pre-painted miniatures line, we have spent an hour thinking about the same thing. :)
If we MUST go random, please please please don't go with "chaser" style distribution of the models. Either make it flat, or make things that are traditionally large group or that show up a lot in games more common than solo critters or that are specialty encounters.It seems to me that in most collectible miniatures games, the rares generally have cooler sculpts and better paint jobs than the commons.
Who wants a super-awesome rare fire beetle when a common does the trick? Why not make the rare something awesome like a dragon or Karzoug or some Pathfinder-specific demon?
I guess what I'm trying to say is: Yeah.
I want to be clear with everyone that right now our agreement with Wiz Kids covers this single release to support the Beginner Box.
But we obviously think about things like this all the time. Every time you have spent five minutes thinking it would be cool for Paizo to have a pre-painted miniatures line, we have spent an hour thinking about the same thing. :)
The thing is, I'm 100% ok with the idea of chase rares. However I think they really should be cool unique stuff. Death knight? Dragon? Rune lord? Yes please. Random goblin fire starer rare? No. That was fine when ddm was for it's skirmish game, but when it changed just supporting the rpg they didn't switch it up.
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They want a huge gang of orcs, say a dozen of them, which is going to cost them $40+ from the Legendary Encounters list pricing. This is probably a shock when you consider that you were able to buy a dozen orcs from the DDM secondary market for $5 or $10 when they were plentiful.
I can buy a GW kit-box of plastic fantasy orcs for $29.99, with bits to make 10 plastic orcs. GW orcs are, for more, THE iconic orc, so there's that going for it, and GW's sprue method allows me to assemble any given box in an entirely different fashion than any OTHER given box. That's a pretty good deal for 30 bucks.
So, the economic question for me is whether I consider ten-ish bucks for paint on a sculpt I'm not thrilled with to be good value for the benefit of NOT having to expend the time and effort it takes to paint minis.
For me, yes, absolutely. I would murder any three people on this forum to get GW to sell pre-painted plastic minis, but since they don't Legendary Encounters is a good buy. But for a lot of folks? I dunno. There's crazies out there that LIKE painting miniatures, and that extra $10 bucks isn't a good deal for the time 'saved' by buying pre-paints.
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If we MUST go random, please please please don't go with "chaser" style distribution of the models. Either make it flat, or make things that are traditionally large group or that show up a lot in games more common than solo critters or that are specialty encounters.
Who wants a super-awesome rare fire beetle when a common does the trick? Why not make the rare something awesome like a dragon or Karzoug or some Pathfinder-specific demon?
Yes, absolutely. I have no problem with a chaser Karzoug (heck, make a couple of variant covers, all foil-embossed and #1, of him. It worked for the comic book industry for a while!) or Ultra-Rare Brine Dragon. It's when the bread-and-butter miniatures are inexplicably rare that I get annoyed. I shouldn't be paying 7 bucks for a Warhorse miniature, DDM-miniature line!
I'm excited by the Paizo/WizKids announcement and look forward to the miniatures set release.
It was likely guessed at a million times (and I didn't read the entire thread) but for my speculative mind I'd say we will get Ezren, Kyra, Seoni, and Valeros... and maybe a Medium black dragon (possibly Large... can't tell by the Beginner's Box artwork... not for sure anyway... and then maybe a couple additional minis... goblin on goblin dog, dog-slicer wielding goblin... I dunno).
I'd hope this does well, and that future sets are planned. Maybe to tie into upcoming APs, or Modules.
(Personally I'd love a set for "Crucible of Chaos" even though I've run that module so long ago now... but I would have truly enjoyed having a shoggoth, a derhii, and the trio of undead sorcerer princes). :)
Peace
~Dean
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and then maybe a couple additional minis... goblin on goblin dog, dog-slicer wielding goblin... I dunno).
I've got summon monster on the brain this week, but if they're going to have mounts on that list, they need to make minis of those mounts WITHOUT RIDERS. We need JUST Goblin Dogs, Horses, Ponies, Riding Dogs, *in addition* to those animals with riders.
I've got summon monster on the brain this week, but if they're going to have mounts on that list, they need to make minis of those mounts WITHOUT RIDERS. We need JUST Goblin Dogs, Horses, Ponies, Riding Dogs, *in addition* to those animals with riders.and then maybe a couple additional minis... goblin on goblin dog, dog-slicer wielding goblin... I dunno).
Or make a way to put the rider mini on the mount.
Slap these on a base and there you go.
horses
dogs
goblin dogs ~ zombie dogs
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Slap these on a base and there you go.
goblin dogs ~ zombie dogs
The Zombies! game is way off scale for Pathfinder, sadly.
Or make a way to put the rider mini on the mount.I've never seen this done in a way that didn't involve chopping up the mini, but if it were to occur in a prepainted mini line, I would weep salty tears of pure, unadulterated jubilation.
Mage Knight (Dark Rider set IIRC) had some that did that. They had a little stand they "sat" on when they weren't on the mount. Miniature had a little peg that fit into the stand or the mount.
The Zombies! game is way off scale for Pathfinder, sadly.
I don't think I would say "way off scale", they are a little smaller, but that is less of a problem than when miniatures are too big. They work great when you want large groups/mobs of faceless mooks.
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The Zombies! game is way off scale for Pathfinder, sadly.Slap these on a base and there you go.
goblin dogs ~ zombie dogs
There are some goblin dogs in this paper mini set, including a goblin commando mounted on one! :)
Link.
So, the economic question for me is whether I consider ten-ish bucks for paint on a sculpt I'm not thrilled with to be good value for the benefit of NOT having to expend the time and effort it takes to paint minis.
For me, yes, absolutely.
Sure - and I never said the Reaper LE was a bad deal - it's not. It's just that it's the deal you're going to get if you want visible non-random packs of minis.
This is the disconnect, it seems.
A lot of folks seem want the relative cheapness of DDM - $1.87/mini in a blind pack of 8, when 8-mini boosters were $14.99 over the majority of the life of the series - rather than nearly twice the cost of $3.66/mini in a non-random visible pack of 3 orcs.
They refuse to accept that blind-pack randoms are ALWAYS going to be cheaper than visible non-randoms.
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Mage Knight (Dark Rider set IIRC) had some that did that. They had a little stand they "sat" on when they weren't on the mount. Miniature had a little peg that fit into the stand or the mount.Or make a way to put the rider mini on the mount.I've never seen this done in a way that didn't involve chopping up the mini, but if it were to occur in a prepainted mini line, I would weep salty tears of pure, unadulterated jubilation.
Those were soooo cool. I bought a ton of the griffons, dragons and a few other mounts because they were cheap and the riders could be removed to have the next monster encounter prepared.
Heroscape sold non-random minis in huge quantities. The only thing that killed it was that WotC started making minis that didn't support what the core game emulated. Crimson Skies was also non-random and sold extremely well. But when you've released all the models for all the factions withing six months of the initial game, there's nothing left to buy. I have no idea what they were thinking there.
In the long run, randomised minis have never worked. Jordan Weismann acknowleged this when he left WizKids. Topps realised it too. So will NECA in time, because nothing has changed. The high-priced secondary market doesn't help a game at all because the only people buying there are those who are already buying the product to begin with. And none of that money goes to the original company. New gamers don't buy anything on the secondary market because they don't even know to look for it. And even if they did stumble across it they'd be immediately turned off by the absurd pricing and jacked-up shipping.
Pewter is vastly more expensive than plastic. However, the molds for pewter are vastly cheaper than the molds for plastic. So what companies do is jack up the price of the plastic minis to absurd levels so as to recoup the cost of the mold as quickly as possible. So now they don't have to sell nearly as many units to recover their costs and when they do they consider it a success; even though far fewer people are actually buying the product. So the industry standard isn't to get the product into as many hands as possible, it's to get it into a select few that will continue to to pump money into the product. While this generates revenue for the game it fails to generate interest. Which is why, in the long run, it has always failed.
None of this is opinion; it's history. The various people who started it all (like Jordan) have acknowledged it. The industry standard is being followed because no one is bothering to try and come up with something different, not because there aren't other options.
cappadocius: I heard a similar joke. A circuit designer goes to his boss and says that he has a great idea that will revolutionize the market. The boss says, "If it's such a great idea, why isn't everyone else doing it?"
justin: Has anyone ever found a way to make a mounted mini come off and not look bow-legged? The Samurai Wars line of minis included both the mounted and unmounted figures in the pack but they were seperate figs.
SJ
Stuff
I have never seen a mounted mini come off and look right, however that doesn't mean some one couldn't come up with a way to do it. Maybe do it so the top half of the mini can go on either a set of legs, or the mount.
I would argue that DDM was successful, however it didn't have a high enough profit margin, and in WotC's attempt to increase that margin they ended up killing the line. Killing off the skirmish game (well turning it over to the Guild, but making it not supported out of the box), the visible mini on a random pack (especially when the visible wasn't always the coolest mini), decreasing the number of minis per set and charging more money per box, lessened quality on the paint jobs, etc, all led to the end.
But we obviously think about things like this all the time. Every time you have spent five minutes thinking it would be cool for Paizo to have a pre-painted miniatures line, we have spent an hour thinking about the same thing. :)
You obviously underestimate the extent to which some people's obsessions with your company go ;-P
The thing is, I'm 100% ok with the idea of chase rares.
As long as ultra-rares stay out of the equation and the seeding is decent.
Back in the day when DDM wasn't complete crap, I could a couple of cases, which guaranteed me 8 of each common, 2-4 of each uncommon, and usually most of the rares.
Each case had 12 boosters, and the seeding was controlled for each case. Each case got exactly 4 of each common, one for half the uncommons and two for the other half, and 12 different rares (out of 24).
2 Cases got 24 rares, but there tended to be doubles between the cases. Still, with 2 cases, you'd only have to chase down a small number of the rares in the secondary market. With a bit of luck, you got all the desirable ones (maybe even in multiple numbers), as no rare was more rare than any other.
The thing is, I'm 100% ok with the idea of chase rares.As long as ultra-rares stay out of the equation and the seeding is decent.
Back in the day when DDM wasn't complete crap, I could a couple of cases, which guaranteed me 8 of each common, 2-4 of each uncommon, and usually most of the rares.
Each case had 12 boosters, and the seeding was controlled for each case. Each case got exactly 4 of each common, one for half the uncommons and two for the other half, and 12 different rares (out of 24).
2 Cases got 24 rares, but there tended to be doubles between the cases. Still, with 2 cases, you'd only have to chase down a small number of the rares in the secondary market. With a bit of luck, you got all the desirable ones (maybe even in multiple numbers), as no rare was more rare than any other.
This is what I meant. Chase rares are fine, I just hate how the ugly Tricerotps thing was a rare, and was in 1 of every 4 packages of the last set but the blue dragon was in like 1 of every 3 Cases. Ultra rares, and super rares, and all that is stupid and a kick to the crotch of the buyer. Also the fact that the rarity was so spread that in 4 cases you may not get a single copy of a rare or even some uncommons (in a 48 count set) was just mind blowing.
The high-priced secondary market doesn't help a game at all because the only people buying there are those who are already buying the product to begin with.
The secondary market is NOT "high-priced". Some items are, but most are not.
From a post just today, from someone actually in the minis industry:
My guess is CC has the same problem we face with our Legendary Encounters line. The secondary market for DDM has made consumers think that a mini should cost a dollar, and $4-5 each is "outrageous".
And none of that money goes to the original company. New gamers don't buy anything on the secondary market because they don't even know to look for it. And even if they did stumble across it they'd be immediately turned off by the absurd pricing and jacked-up shipping.
While that money may not DIRECTLY benefit the original company, it does INDIRECTLY benefit the original company, because that secondary market is a product of the primary market.
Further, some of that money DOES go to the original company. Auggie's, MiniatureMarket, and most/all of the others were buying case lots and opening them to sell singles on that "secondary" market. Heck, I think I even saw Lisa claim that Paizo had done that.
And again, I point out: Absurd pricing and jacked-up shipping is a false claim. MiniatureMarket, for example, provides free shipping on orders over $75. CoolStuffInc. does it on orders over $100. Plenty of other sellers did and do provide free shipping.
As far as pricing of minis, when new minis were available in high supply, the only "expensive" minis were the chase rares. Old, out of print sets got more expensive as more time passed since their release, but that's to be expected - when demand exceeds supply, you see that.
Finally, the people buying on the secondary market did NOT only consist of those buying on the primary market. Quite a few secondary market sellers were doing a fair amount of business by assembling "encounter packs" for those that didn't want to buy random packs.
Lots of FLGS' were selling singles and "encounter packs".
So what companies do is jack up the price of the plastic minis to absurd levels so as to recoup the cost of the mold as quickly as possible.
So average of $1.87/mini is an "absurd level"? DDM medium/large boosters were $14.99 for 8, and huge packs were $21.99, making the average price $2.74 (with a guaranteed huge in every pack!).
That's absurdly LOW priced - and that's on the primary market. Commons and uncommons sold for significantly less on the secondary market when their sets were in print.
Heck, even Reaper's Legendary Encounters aren't priced at an "absurd level" - they're $3-$4 per PLASTIC mini.
None of this is opinion; it's history.
It's completely inaccurate or purposely misrepresented history.
I dislike randoms. I'd pay $30-$35 for 11 fixed minis plus extras.
I find your comments silly Brian. It is obvious to anyone with half a brain, that secondary market sellers only purchase a few items. They then use their technology to clone those items and sell multitudes on the secondary market. The original company never sees a dime from those clones. How silly of you to assume they had to get their miniatures from the actual producer.
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How silly of you to assume they had to get their miniatures from the actual producer.
Joe Secondary-Market buys a case of the Lords of Madness D&D miniatures, wherein each and every miniature costs, roughly, $3.66. He then discovers that he's got an awesome Heroslayer Hydra - which he turns around and resells for $40.00. That's $36.00 profit - none of which Hasbro sees on its earnings sheet. Joe Secondary-Market can then sell at least ten of those commons he got for less than $3.66 and still break even - when you factor in all the other minis he can sell for more than $3.66 he's doing all right for himself while undercutting the original manufacturer.
But if Hasbro were to sell that Heroslayer Hydra outright for $40.00, the nerdrage community would explode
How silly of you to assume they had to get their miniatures from the actual producer.Joe Secondary-Market buys a case of the Lords of Madness D&D miniatures, wherein each and every miniature costs, roughly, $3.66. He then discovers that he's got an awesome Heroslayer Hydra - which he turns around and resells for $40.00. That's $36.00 profit - none of which Hasbro sees on its earnings sheet. Joe Secondary-Market can then sell at least ten of those commons he got for less than $3.66 and still break even - when you factor in all the other minis he can sell for more than $3.66 he's doing all right for himself while undercutting the original manufacturer.
But if Hasbro were to sell that Heroslayer Hydra outright for $40.00, the nerdrage community would explode
Then Joe purchases another case from the manufacturer. The manufacturer makes another big sale, makes profit from the sale and continues to make business. Yeah, Joe is making good money of it, so what? That is called mark up.
EDIT: Are you suggesting that the manufacturer is selling the product at a lost in some assumption that the sellers are going to give them a share of their profits?
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This is what I meant. Chase rares are fine, I just hate how the ugly Tricerotps thing was a rare, and was in 1 of every 4 packages of the last set but the blue dragon was in like 1 of every 3 Cases. Ultra rares, and super rares, and all that is stupid and a kick to the crotch of the buyer. Also the fact that the rarity was so spread that in 4 cases you may not get a single copy of a rare or even some uncommons (in a 48 count set) was just mind blowing.
That's not true, the elder blue just weighed more than any of the other huges. Enough so that if you weighed them by hand you could tell it from the other huges. I was tasked to get an elder blue for each person in my group, and it took me 12 stores, but buying 9 packs I got 8 Elder Blue dragons (for those that care, the 9th was an iron golem). I'm sure I'm not the only one, and I'm sure a good number of those went right to Ebay
Then Joe purchases another case from the manufacturer. The manufacturer makes another big sale, makes profit from the sale and continues to make business. Yeah, Joe is making good money of it, so what? That is called mark up.
EDIT: Are you suggesting that the manufacturer is selling the product at a lost in some assumption that the sellers are going to give them a share of their profits?
And another case. And another, and another, and another.
I have to ask, what's the difference between Joe Secondary-Market buying a case and reselling singles and Bob Primary-Market buying a case and selling boosters?
First hypothetical scenario: Joe and Bob aren't two seperate people. JoeBob is the primary AND secondary market seller. Paizo has done this - I just went and looked at store blog posts where they discussed opening up lots of booster packs to restock singles.
Second hypothetical scenario: Joe is buying FROM Bob, so that everyone is profiting - WotC from their sale to Bob, and Bob from his sale to Joe.
In the first scenario, less people are profiting. This is better somehow than more people profiting? Seems to me that the more people to profit, the more incentive there is to buy more product, produce more product, sell more product.
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EDIT: Are you suggesting that the manufacturer is selling the product at a lost in some assumption that the sellers are going to give them a share of their profits?
God no. The manufacturer would have to be an idiot to sell their miniatures at a loss. That $3.66 price point is, I have no doubt, carefully calculated to make an acceptable ROI. But I bet everyone at Hasbro from the North Korean slaves painting the miniatures to the CEO would love to sell the Heroslayer Hydra for the 40 bucks it pulls on the secondary market rather than the $3.66, and I'm just wondering vaguely why it's a nerd-crime for the game company to sell its product for X, but nobody bats an eye when random idiot Joe Secondary-Market sells for that much.
I AM outright stating that the Secondary Market is reselling those 99 cent Giant Frogs at a loss because of the insane profits they're making on 40 dollar succubi and 17 dollar erinyes.
God no. The manufacturer would have to be an idiot to sell their miniatures at a loss. That $3.66 price point is, I have no doubt, carefully calculated to make an acceptable ROI. But I bet everyone at Hasbro from the North Korean slaves painting the miniatures to the CEO would love to sell the Heroslayer Hydra for the 40 bucks it pulls on the secondary market rather than the $3.66, and I'm just wondering vaguely why it's a nerd-crime for the game company to sell its product for X, but nobody bats an eye when random idiot Joe Secondary-Market sells for that much.
Because the secondary market for those hyper-expensive hyper-rares is far less than the secondary market for the more reasonably-priced minis.
I doubt very much that the primary market could have sold that hyper-expensive hyper-rare in any quantity to justify production.
I AM outright stating that the Secondary Market is reselling those 99 cent Giant Frogs at a loss because of the insane profits they're making on 40 dollar succubi and 17 dollar erinyes.
I'm going to have to disagree. I think that the secondary market was buying those Giant Frogs for a dime and reselling for 99 cents.
A quick look at MiniatureMarket's buy list (and I'm using them as they have buy-pricing quickly available - Paizo's buy list doesn't show buy-prices) shows that DDM seems to be at a premium right now, with the cheapest buy price at $0.15 (only one of those), and far more from $0.25 to $0.75.
There's a TON of HeroClix, and quite a few SWM selling for $0.20 and under (and quite a few selling for $0.10 and under).
Point being, at $1/common? There's profit being made. I don't believe for a second that the secondary market is selling ANYTHING at a loss, when it comes to singles.
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I doubt very much that the primary market could have sold that hyper-expensive hyper-rare in any quantity to justify production.
I dunno. 40 bucks pays for a lot of slave painters and cheap plastic. :)
I AM outright stating that the Secondary Market is reselling those 99 cent Giant Frogs at a loss because of the insane profits they're making on 40 dollar succubi and 17 dollar erinyes.
I'm going to have to disagree. I think that the secondary market was buying those Giant Frogs for a dime and reselling for 99 cents.
Well, the implied assumption in Pres Man's argument was Joe Secondary-Market is only buying new cases direct from manufacturer, and not buying cheap from other dopes. If dude's buying Giant Frogs from OTHER consumers, then heck yes, he's making a profit on every damned thing.
I doubt very much that the primary market could have sold that hyper-expensive hyper-rare in any quantity to justify production.I dunno. 40 bucks pays for a lot of slave painters and cheap plastic. :)
I AM outright stating that the Secondary Market is reselling those 99 cent Giant Frogs at a loss because of the insane profits they're making on 40 dollar succubi and 17 dollar erinyes.I'm going to have to disagree. I think that the secondary market was buying those Giant Frogs for a dime and reselling for 99 cents.Well, the implied assumption in Pres Man's argument was Joe Secondary-Market is only buying new cases direct from manufacturer, and not buying cheap from other dopes. If dude's buying Giant Frogs from OTHER consumers, then heck yes, he's making a profit on every damned thing.
If those big sales cover all of his expenses then he is probably making more money on those frogs than if he had to purchase them from someone else.
Every time you have spent five minutes thinking it would be cool for Paizo to have a pre-painted miniatures line, we have spent an hour thinking about the same thing. :)
No wonder you guys never sleep.
No wonder you guys never sleep.Every time you have spent five minutes thinking it would be cool for Paizo to have a pre-painted miniatures line, we have spent an hour thinking about the same thing. :)
5 minutes of us not sleeping translates to an hour of them not sleeping.
Well, the implied assumption in Pres Man's argument was Joe Secondary-Market is only buying new cases direct from manufacturer, and not buying cheap from other dopes. If dude's buying Giant Frogs from OTHER consumers, then heck yes, he's making a profit on every damned thing.
Let's examine that (with DDM as an example).
Retail on a case of $14.99 boosters is $179.88 (12 boosters per case).
I don't recall what Alliance was selling cases for to the end market, but I'd assume it's probably around the standard 50% discount.
I can tell you that Internet-based discounters were dropping these things for $99.99 - $119.99 per case during the "up" market, so I don't think that it's unreasonable to assume an $80.00/case cost from the distributor to the primary market seller, but for the sake of math, I'll say $90.00/case.
A case of 12 8-piece boosters gives us 96 minis. At a buck a mini, that's $6 profit.
We know that a number of minis sell for well over this, allowing the extreme commons to be sold for under $1/each if desired.
A single $30.00 ultra or most-desirable rare and 11 not-as-desirable $5.00 rares gives us $85.
84 commons and uncommons averaging $1/mini gives us another $84, for a grand total of $169 return on $90 investment.
I'm seriously lowballing the singles pricing from that case, and I know that I made more than the retail price of a case lot by selling the unwanted portion of minis I got out of a case. Not always, but not infrequently.
The secondary market did a great job funding my purchases from the primary market.
If you wanted to make an argument about how the secondary market wasn't helping or even possibly hurting the primary market it would be to suggest that some people that would have purchased entire boosters avoided it by purchasing singles on the secondary market. That is the total number of boosters sold was lowered due to being able to purchase singles on the secondary market.
Personally, I think all that needs to be done is to redefine rarity. "Common" would include anything that there would be a lot of in a game; animals, orcs, goblins, undead, etc. The set would have less "common" sculpts but you got more of the "common" figures in the package. I think one of the problems with DDM was that they had to come up with 40+ "common" figures when they could have just made like 15 and just increased the amount you would get in a box. "Uncommon" would be things like PC minis or monsters that you are likely to only see one or two of in an encounter. "Rares" would be those things you only see one of, i.e. the BBEG of an AP, Dragons, CR 15+ Monsters, Prestige Class PCs, etc.
I think this would solve two problems, it would keep the minis random which would allow for more product to be sold, and it would satisfy all of those people who would want to have multiple copies of the same figure for encounters. I'm sure someone will find a hole in this logic, but I think it makes sense.
If you wanted to make an argument about how the secondary market wasn't helping or even possibly hurting the primary market it would be to suggest that some people that would have purchased entire boosters avoided it by purchasing singles on the secondary market. That is the total number of boosters sold was lowered due to being able to purchase singles on the secondary market.
Yes but here your forgetting that when WotC first brought out the idea, they did so with intention that there would be a secondary market and people would trade to get what they wanted. They know that magic players do it and they would be fools to think ddm players didnt. I remember they even had articles about trading and the like, so obviously they accounted for this model in their business plan, because thats what drives them. I see that the hydra I want is 40$, immidiately I think for 40$ I can get x packs (2 or 3 based on where I find them) and get somewhere around 18+ minis including 2 or so rares one of which might be the hydra I wanted. If not I can take the two rares I got and maybe trade for one from joe down the street or that one kid who comes into the flgs during saturdays for the local pick up games... This sounds like a good deal to me since I can get my hydra and maybe even a handful of neat minis for the same price...
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Retail on a case of $14.99 boosters is $179.88 (12 boosters per case).I don't recall what Alliance was selling cases for to the end market, but I'd assume it's probably around the standard 50% discount.
I can tell you that Internet-based discounters were dropping these things for $99.99 - $119.99 per case during the "up" market, so I don't think that it's unreasonable to assume an $80.00/case cost from the distributor to the primary market seller, but for the sake of math, I'll say $90.00/case.
The last 4 sets, Ebay sellers were selling cases buy it now for $5.50 over what alliance was selling single cases to stores. examples I saw were stores pay 115, ebay was 121, store pays 95 and ebay price was 99. This was true until the death of DDM was announced, at which point alliance had a huge sale buy 1 case get 2 cases free, and ebay sellers kept the same prices.
Also, if you counted full retail price for many of the later sets vs their secondary market price, Ebay was cheaper than the packs they came in (the average rare was selling for $4 or less, average uncommon was $0.75 to $2 and average common was 25-50 cents if you waited 3 months after release. It was only the chase figures that were making the secondary market any cash. Then Ebay put a $1 minimum on ebay store prices, and you saw commons all jump to at least $1 and uncommon to $2.50-$3, which actually helped the secondary seller make money, and drove more people to buy packs, as it was no longer cheaper to bu singles.
Yes but here your forgetting that when WotC first brought out the idea, they did so with intention that there would be a secondary market and people would trade to get what they wanted. They know that magic players do it and they would be fools to think ddm players didnt. I remember they even had articles about trading and the like, so obviously they accounted for this model in their business plan, because thats what drives them. I see that the hydra I want is 40$, immidiately I think for 40$ I can get x packs (2 or 3 based on where I find them) and get somewhere around 18+ minis including 2 or so rares one of which might be the hydra I wanted. If not I can take the two rares I got and maybe trade for one from joe down the street or that one kid who comes into the flgs during saturdays for the local pick up games... This sounds like a good deal to me since I can get my hydra and maybe even a handful of neat minis for the same price...
I think part of the problem was the whole CCG business model. It works for CCGs because the cost to produce the product is fairly inexpensive and the design of the packaging (i.e. the card) never changes. On the other hand the miniatures had to have a design sculpt for every individual figure. Again, having over half of your set as being common and having to develop models for all of those makes it difficult in the long run.
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Why is a non-randomized set more expensive to produce? Again, I am not one who has an issue of randomized packs, so I am not asking this because I have a problem with this, I am just curious why it would cost more.
I had assumed prepainted plastic minis are more expensive now in general, but I did not know set of predetermined minis would be more costly to produce.
At any given time there's a core market of minis collectors interested in a given line. For the moment, let's assume that for a successful line, that audience represents a large enough portion of the total number of purchasers that we don't really need to consider the non-core buyers for that line—that any sales to non-core buyers are just gravy.
Now let's go back a couple of years to Wizards' D&D Minis line—specifically, the time that they were releasing fixed "Hero's Handbook" mini sets alongside randomized "Monster Manual" boosters.
Members of that core audience would buy *cases* of each MM booster for each HH set they purchased. Depending on the customer, we're talking a multiple in the *dozens*—and the more dedicated the customer, the bigger the multiple.
Sure, the costs of sculpts and molds for the MM set would be about ten times larger than the cost of the HH set (because we're talking 40 sculpts vs. 4 sculpts), but the manufacturing costs (plastic, painting, etc.) for each individual mini would be very similar, so the total cost of goods for a single HH box would be, in my estimate, somewhat less than ten times the cost of goods for an MM box *if they were produced in the same volume*.
But, as I've pointed out, they wouldn't be produced in the same volume—the MM boxes could be produced in much higher volume, so the per-unit costs would be lower, and those sculpting costs get to be spread out over a much larger number of units, so it wouldn't surprise me if the actual cost to bring a single MM box to market were only slightly higher than the cost of bringing a single HH box to market.
So, if we're talking maybe a single-digit multiplier on costs, and a multiplier on units sold perhaps in the low double-digits, you can see that the MM minis line should be bringing in a *lot* more revenue than the HH line.
And then there's the fact that having 40 minis under the same SKU is far more manageable on the sales and distribution end than getting out the same number of minis by doing a bunch of different 4-figure boxes. It's far easier to get retailers to commit to restocking a line that requires fewer SKUs and can be merchandised in less space.
Finally, the HH line suffers from another issue that the MM line doesn't. Some of those HH boxes were less popular than others, but they were produced in similar amounts (I could be wrong, but I think they were always in evenly packed cases). That means that a retailer would have too many of one set, and not enough of another, so he couldn't reorder the ones that were moving without getting more of the slow sellers. This wasn't a problem for blind-boxed MM sets. (Once they put windows in the boxes so you could see the Huge figure in the otherwise random set, they actually *did* introduce this problem into the MM line.)
I removed a post. Please do not use "rape" that way.
By rape I can only guess you're talking about my chosen profession: marketing.