I noticed recently that to date there was only one 4e mini expansion announced  for 2010, which I found strange. Today, my retailer buddy informed me that even that single expansion was being cancelled (he orders directly from WoTC).

This means that, for the time being, new official minis will only be made available through D&D Heroscape.

This sounds like a really weird decision to make considering that 4e was obviously designed to make miniatures as attractive and essential as possible. It's almost as if Games Workshop decided to stop selling paint, glue and modelling tools.

I wonder if this just an experiment to stimulate cross-sales with Heroscape or if mini sales were underwhelming. One thing for sure, I'm really not impressed with Heroscape minis.

I wonder if Star Wars minis is going to continue.  I would imagine, as that would seem to be the reason for renewing the license.

Marion,

 There are always companies like REAPER and IRON WIND to get your minis from to use in your games.
 In the past year REAPER has started doing some pre-painted plastics (mostly adversaries and monmsters)

It could just be that the economy really sucks right now.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;354395Marion,

 There are always companies like REAPER and IRON WIND to get your minis from to use in your games.
 In the past year REAPER has started doing some pre-painted plastics (mostly adversaries and monmsters)

It could just be that the economy really sucks right now.


- Ed C.

I don't personally care about the minis. I like my roleplaying to be as minis-less as possible.

I am, however, interested in the business side of the hobby. And I find this development particularly interesting. It seemed that WoTC had finally settled on the perfect formula for selling minis to D&D fans and now this.

Is this just an attempt by Hasbro to leverage the D&D brand outside of roleplaying games? If the answer is yes and the experiment proves a success, this might mean bad news for D&D as a roleplaying game. My belief is that, to Hasbro, the D&D RPG is just a placeholder for the D&D brand until a way is found to successfully leverage the brand outside RPGs. Then it's sayonara roleplaying games!

This is an interesting business decision for WotC. I want to see how it develops.

Even AM must see how this is universally bad.

Quote from: MarionPoliquin;354396If the answer is yes and the experiment proves a success, this might mean bad news for D&D as a roleplaying game.

What are the particulars of that experiment?

Hasbro hasn't managed to leverage shit outside of the game itself, and isn't likely to find a way now.

Its business model relies on players buying miniatures, a la GW, paying for online subscriptions, and, as is becoming apparent, piling in for M:tG-style mass-gaming with the attendant reliance on official publications.

God knows how Hasbro is served by cancelling minis.  Perhaps a new manufacturer is being lined up.

Quote from: MarionPoliquin;354396If the answer is yes and the experiment proves a success, this might mean bad news for D&D as a roleplaying game.

What are the particulars of that experiment?

Hasbro hasn't managed to leverage shit outside of the game itself, and isn't likely to find a way now.

Its business model relies on players buying miniatures, a la GW, paying for online subscriptions, and, as is becoming apparent, piling in for M:tG-style mass-gaming with the attendant reliance on official publications.

God knows how Hasbro is served by cancelling minis.  Perhaps a new manufacturer is being lined up.

Quote from: Hairfoot;354402What are the particulars of that experiment?

QuoteIs this just an attempt by Hasbro to leverage the D&D brand outside of roleplaying games? If the answer is yes and the experiment proves a success,

I don't know any particulars about the actual strategy at play. I don't even know whether Hasbro is involved in the decision or not. As far as I know, the minis release may just have been delayed 'till later in the year. But the only release that was on the calendar so far for 2010 has been cancelled. The rest is just speculation. I do notice that that cancellation coincides with the release of D&D Heroscape.

Sorry, MP.  I wasn't going for your jugular.  I just found the premise a bit unrealistic.  Perhaps the thread will bear your conjecture out.

Quote from: Hairfoot;354409Sorry, MP.  I wasn't going for your jugular.  I just found the premise a bit unrealistic.  Perhaps the thread will bear your conjecture out.

To be frank, I don't expect any grand revelations.

I don't think my premise is that unrealistic. D&D is a valuable, recognizable brand. If I were a Hasbro marketerbot, the only problem I'd have with that brand, it's that it's attached to a product that seems to be making less and less money for the amount of work required with each new incarnation.

Quote from: MarionPoliquin;354410If I were a Hasbro marketerbot, the only problem I'd have with that brand, it's that it's attached to a product that seems to be making less and less money for the amount of work required with each new incarnation.

Agreed.  I think that one of their problems is that they refuse to admit and act upon the fact that D&D is a niche hobby.  They keep expecting some grand explosion of popularity like 1981-1982 or 2000-2001 - and are scrambling to react to the reality of this not happening.  No amount of trying to shoehorn the game into inappropriate venues is going to change this at all.

But, since the brand name is now owned by a megacorp, it's going to get the megacorp treatment, which is, at its core, a sad thing.

D&D is no longer a game, it's just a piece of IP ripe for strip-mining by a coterie of non-gamers who don't get it and won't ever get it.

Interior reshuffling? Prelude to outsourcing?

Interesting.

Veering a bit back to the topic, I find this move a bit disheartening.  D&D minis and Magic cards are the only things I've bought from WotC since 2007 (unless you count some Avalon Hill stuff, but I'm not sure who claims that imprint these days).  The minis are fairly cheap, system-neutral, and ready to use without the nightmare of having to invest hours of mind-numbing tedium.

But, hey, pre-painted plastics are cool, and other people have and will continue to make them.

Quote from: MarionPoliquin;354388I noticed recently that to date there was only one 4e mini expansion announced  for 2010, which I found strange. Today, my retailer buddy informed me that even that single expansion was being cancelled (he orders directly from WoTC).

(Preliminary Clarification: This is the set MP is talking about. It's the only monster mini series announced for 2010. WotC also announced a continuation of the PC ("Heroes") minis line, so I guess MP's retailer ignored those.)

I so hope this isn't true, though I'm with you on at least one thing: they sure haven't announced much regarding their minis to merit much hope for the continuation of the product line. Fact is, their recent miniature lines were sold in a hyperexpensive packaging to hide the fact that you're now paying the same amount of money for roughly half the minis (used to be 8-9 minis per box, now you get 5). There's plenty discussion around 2008-2009 from WotC officials just how unprofitable it has become for them to make these custom-tailored minis. It's not so much that they're selling poorly (they aren't, never mind the huge drop in production quality around late 2008), it's just that WotC would have to sell them even more expensively for the line to be sufficiently profitable from the Hasbro point of view.

I'd be very sad to see the product line be terminated, but they were on a downhill track the moment they cancelled their DDM game so shortly after 4E came out and so shortly after they had so splendidly redesigned it (into DDM 2.0); for no good reason, they cut their potential buyers down by a huge percentage (sc. kicked out all the DDM-only mini players). I hope I'm correct on the current cause of worry being the production cost, and that they won't cancel the Dungeon Tiles line along with the minis since production cost for the tiles never was an issue for WotC as far as I remember.

But mostly I just hope the OP is incorrect. On the whole, though, I'm a bit concerned for the entire 4E product line which the minis and tiles are a tie-in now, since there are two trends:

#1 the quality of 4E content is actually on the rise (compare the second instalment of the 3 Core books to the first one; the recent Power splat to the first one),
#2 the content in terms of flavour is getting more and more fringy (psionics, Dark Sun, Nature Spirits ...) and hence gets harder and harder to sell.

So no matter how much buyer incentive trend #1 creates (or ought to create), WotC are fighting a downhill battle due to having to sell stuff that suits increasingly more specialized campaign styles. They've certainly recognized the worrying trend, and so resolved to split the Dark Sun book into two products, so every Dark Sun GM has to pay them $60 total (the Campaign book's page count has been reduced compared to Eberron/FR, because they sell the bestiary section separately). Clever marketing - they realize they aren't going to sell Dark Sun as widely, and so make the fewer buyers pay twice.

PS. All of this only concerns their physical product and not the DDI. I'm sure they can continue with the DDI pretty much forever because there they don't face any problems with production costs to be remedied by a large buyer populace.

PPS. Okay, so much for 4E minis. What about WotC' Star Wars minis? They gonna be terminated too? Doesn't look to me likely at all.