Their existence is not controversial. The idea that the only correct and sustainable way to accommodate costs rising is to make the customer bear the brunt of rising MSRP is perplexing though, especially for somebody creating the impression that they have deep knowledge of economy. And if the company that is currently on their 3rd Kickstarter, already expects to be running a 4th one, while they've not yet shipped the 2nd and barely managed to provide any kind of FAQ support (after 2 years) for their 1st is not a perfect specimen of being "crowdfunding addicted", as they clearly are using this immediate gain of revenue as a crutch for day-to-day operations and to depreciate the impact of COVID / Chinese logistics... I'm not sure what to tell you.
So what’s your proposal for keeping the doors open at the company, and paying for current products, new products, and free support? Production prices double/triple, so you expect product prices to -not- rise by even 10-20%? Meanwhile the rest of the global economy has done what has to be done, ie raise prices. 10-20% price rise on a product which has had costs double is pretty fair, most realistic people would agree. Those are the non-Infinity projects. They’re separate, firewalled from the rest of the company financially. Maybe read up on that part, or follow their posts about it over the last few years. Interesting stuff, established company letting a few side-experiments rise or fall on their own.
Hey PS, appreciate your moderation and work here and respect your position. @archon and @Camo Token , @Erhille and I are just having a healthy debate here. We’re not going after each other personally, just each others’ ideas. I’m enjoying the chance to maybe help some people understand that you need to actually pay for ongoing “free” game system support. It seems like an important debate to have when people talk poorly-considered smack about CB’s pretty reasonable pricing on their own forum. And who knows? Maybe one of these guys has a magical formula for supporting a game company amid massive inflation without raising prices. Anyways, your prerogative to shut this down if you like, but would appreciate the opportunity to continue the discussion as long as we avoid personal attacks please.
Which is, let us remember, not free. Same as rules are not free, ITS isn't free, etc. No such thing as a free lunch. All these "free" things require time and money (operating the company, paying the people) to create and run. The company decided not to charge us openly for these, but the money to cover their cost has to come form somewhere. And since basically the only thing this specific company is openly charging us for are the miniatures, well, that's where you pay the hidden cost of everything else.
Well, it's not free. But to get the code the organizer get a price package for the event too. And that is something A LOT of companies don't do. (and you paid for rules and maybe army builder too)
You catch my drift. Yes, CB do make a lot of clever decisions on how do they run their game, support-wise. Marketing-wise. Etc, etc. And kudos points to them for doing that. One can play the game without paying CB a penny: just download the rules, and use paper stand-ins instead of the miniatures (yes, it wouldn't be tournament legal), or proxying with models from an another game (we had a WH40k player in my local meta who did that for a year, then he finally decided to step into the water and buy Infinity models). Not saying one should, but it is possible. And again, kudos points to CB for making this an option. But the bottom line is - it did cost the company time / effort / money to make it happen. And someone has to pay the company for it. That someone is the people buying the miniatures, because it is the only thing we do buy from CB with significant regularity (ok, a few pepoel do buy the books, too. I'm not one of them any longer). Because nothing is really free. Now, I don't see it as a problem - merely a consequence of the business model CB choose. An alternative would be what you have listed: having a price tag on each bit separately. I can understeand some people would prefer that. Myself, I like the things in Infintiy more the ways they are. Though I naturally agree they aren't perfect. Then again, life itself rarely is perfect, so there we are...
Well, all I know is that I can't worry about how or why CB does something a certain way. I can only worry about myself. When times are tough, entertainment is the first thing to be cut. Infinity is still favorite game and miniatures but I've got to make wiser choices now. There's also other cool games out there as well. Especially skirmish! It's fantastic how many have come out and I think it's due to CB and Infinity. They weren't the first but I don't remember there being ANY skirmish scifi or fantasy games out at the time when it came around. It's not like I'm leaving Infinity. I'm just cutting down on what I buy and they made it a lot easier by not coming out with any or very little Yu Jing this year. I can support Infinity like I already am by doing demos and teaching games all of the time. My group just got three new people in the last few months! I may even try to run a tournament since out local warcore seems too busy to do it.
It does feel like things are waking back up a bit, doesn’t it? It’s a good time to bring new players in and support events. It’s a funny paradox that league gaming, like local music, might thrive a bit more in tighter economic times. Feels like that here in Seattle too. I’m teaching 2-3 new players and there’s a bit more activity in the various shops. [Our challenge hereabouts is not lack of players, but a wide geographic area with players really spread out, and no central shop with good Infinity support and hours to congregate a solid Infinity scene. That’s kind of a “goldilocks issue” though, as we do have some -decent- minis wargaming spots… they just need to be shown that giving Infinity some support is financially and socially worth their attention.]
Miniatures of Lobos (I accidentally thought they are other unit) have exoskeletons like in film Elysium (2013) and that was funny.
Ah! Thank you. I was a little confused. Remember visually only one of them. But missed the profiles. (This shows that I am a little more casual players...) If I would see them on the table, it would help me more x) Anyway, looks good. Except peaces of ladders on one of the miniatures, but that is a question of taste.
Diablos are heavily internally enhanced as well (hence they have STR instead of wounds) so I image the exoskeleton is meshing with internal augmetics at that point, you wouldn't want it to go any further as it would interfere with manipulation of mining equipment and weaponry. They're essentially weaponised versions of the indentured Rocaworks prospector.
Man, that Rocaworks mini was dope. I'd love to get that thing on the field. Crouching and about to rip someone apart with his hands, waaaay more intimidating than "giant explosive hammer yo!".
I think that heavily depends on which side of the "giant explosive hammer yo" you stand :-D I am fine with both (or al three) of them, they all seem new and unique and not just "bigger versions of"-designs. And the exosceleton to link them is a good way to show, that what works in a civil environment (mining) also works in a military one (and lets be honest: is often developt by the latter)
The fact that Roadbot won't be in the Army until March is rather dissapointing - we have plenty of profiles that are still waiting for models in the army, wouldn't it be possible to update the Army earlier on? Esp. that Roadbot is a gamechanger for O-12 and brings a much-needed breath of fresh air to both vanilla and Starmada. I guess this should be directed at CB Staff directly, but I don't want to ping them over a fairly small issue lol
I hope the Roadboat will be able to do fireteam duo with Oko and Lawkeeper in Starmada, that would be awesome.