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Bootleg, Such a wasted oportunity

Discussion in 'Off-Topic English' started by Mc_Clane, Aug 29, 2018.

  1. Mc_Clane

    Mc_Clane Zhànzhēng bùzhǎng
    Warcor

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    I've been thinking this for a long time now, It seems this miniature range is utterly forgotten.

    From the beginning Bootleg was a controversial miniature line, trying to be some sort of "Artistic alternative sculpture product range" It's lack of gaming applications has became It's weakspot. In private Talks to CB employees I've came to the conclussion that the lack of sales and the huge miniature catalog has made this range difficult to profit from and expand.

    But I refuse the idea that this range was a complete failure. There are some successes inside this selection of miniatures. Mainly the Pentesilea amazon and the O-12 commissioner that have decent sales compared to the amount of time they're seen on the tables. That makes me rethink the reasons why this artistic range should be gone for good.

    I think CB is wasting a business opportunity here. Alternative sculpts are the business window they're leaving behind. It's proven to be a profitable business in aristeia an it easily could be a thing for infinity inside Bootleg. How many of you would want to see those discarded concepts come to life? How many of you dislike some of the newish designs? how many of you like old school sculpt/designs?

    Some of you may have purchased already sculpts you don't like, or maybe you've discarded completely the idea of purchasing the new miniatures because you don't like them. Maybe you've been searching the entire net for conversion material for your army, etc...

    This is some selection of the things I'm talking about
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    I sincerely love to see an alt-miniature line from some of those old fashioned designs with an updated sculpt. Maybe with a more anime like aesthetics. It would be an excellent source of conversion material and an opportunity for old fashion miniatures to have a new life.

    Why don't explore this kind of business branch via oficial webstore special sales, or outsourcing it to partners like @Luxumbra ?

    What do you think about it?
     
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  2. gamma ray

    gamma ray Well-Known Member
    Warcor

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    One of the recurring comments I get from other wargamers in my area about Infinity is something along the lines of "The miniatures are *so* detailed" but then follow up with "But I haven't really seen anything I want to put on my display shelf"

    When I've shown them some of the Bootleg stuff, they've generally agreed that's more what they're looking for. Certainly for me, an entry level painter with no conversion experience, Bootleg packs like the O-Yoroi and Scarface appeal to me a lot.
     
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  3. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    Well, in essence what you suggest is the "skins" system from Aristeia to be applied to regular Infinity profiles? Hopefully, in a limited, blister format?
     
  4. Errhile

    Errhile A traveller on the Silk Road

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    It would be great. Especially for characters.

    On the other hand, while Scarface, O-Yoroi and TechBee Bootleg models look great, they have no practical application there. They're pure display pieces - with a hefty price tag (pun not intended). Contrary to Lizard or Maghariba Pilots, who can be used as actual tabletop models.
     
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  5. Lothlanathorian

    Lothlanathorian Not a custom title

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    They could also use it to make, I don't know, alternate arms/loadouts for extant models. That would be cool maybe.
     
  6. SirGrumpyPants

    SirGrumpyPants A little grumpy

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    I like the idea and where you are going with it, but I guess it comes down to if its worth spending the time and money on creating the sculpts and doing all the physical production for it.

    I suppose outsourcing to a partner could work - if CB can supply the general concept art (ie. unused ideas) and 3d sculpts to work from it should make the production process somewhat easier, at least from a creative standpoint.

    It still begs the question of whether the sales make it worthwhile in the end for anyone. That, and it needs to be reasonably broad in appeal to hit the volume of sales.

    I dunno... if CB hasn't bothered with it for any reason other than workload/lack of time, I doubt its worth the investment for anyone to take up.
     
  7. xagroth

    xagroth Mournful Echo

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    In the Interplanetario interviews (in spanish) I got the impression CB does not like to outsorce, they prefer to have control (incidentally, the Aristeia core boxes were so... meh because CB's printer is much much more detailed than the one the Chinese had, so they now send the masters from Spain instead of the 3D files, thus the better quality of the later plastic models).

    Aristeia Skins are profitable enough they will keep doing those. Having the same for Infinity, specially for models without a second model, might prove to be even more. And we all want a new Moran sculpt!
     
  8. Aspect Graviton

    Aspect Graviton Friendly Alien Overlord
    Warcor

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    That Idea has sufficient legs and a practical example, basically forgeworld upgrade kits. The issue of course is whether there is enough market for it to be viable, Infinity players don't need 20 ORC troops with Spitfires or 150 shoulder pads denoting a specific regiment, the scale that FW work in and the price they charge make it viable.

    Things there definitely are a market for: spare weapon sprues, the amount of chopping and changing required to not play proxy is currently extremely high. These exist in some cases like the old spec ops but many are now out of date or don't have one to begin with.
     
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  9. Lothlanathorian

    Lothlanathorian Not a custom title

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    They could do alternate arms/loadouts for specific troop types and do them as a blister/box so you can't just get a Spitfire load out for the Orc, but EVERY other load out in the same box. This would then allow them to do like they are where they do, generally, two bodies for each troop type, and then treat this as an SWC pack. So you'd have to get a box/blister of the trooper and then you get the SWC loadouts box with all of the alternate arms/guns.

    If doing it like that doesn't work for them, they could always do it as an on-demand style service, but the price would be a little higher than if they were mass produced and there might be a slightly longer wait to get them as they'd only be available direct from CB.

    I honestly think either of those options would work and we as a community would be (the majority, that is) okay with it. There'd be some pretty vocal haters, but we've had those types for forever, so it would literally be business as usual.
     
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  10. kanluwen

    kanluwen Well-Known Member

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    I've said for a long time that the smart play for them would be just to do alternate arms for the sculpts they have in the boxes/blisters. Doing stuff like a gender flip on the SWCs in a box; using the Grunts box as an example:
    It comes with HMG(Male), HFT(Male), Sniper Rifle(Female), Rifle+LGL(Female)
    Give alternate arm sets for Sniper Rifle(Male), Rifle+LGL(Male), HMG(Female), HFT(Female) that use the same poses.

    Every box could, if done properly, build 8 or possibly even more profiles--the limiting factor could be the arms having to build the exact same pose as the other version.

    I would not be okay with it being "only available direct from CB". If they did an initial retail release and then pulled it back to just their store, I'd be possibly okay with that depending on how available it was but making it "direct only" isn't a viable option for something like this.

    Smart money would be to just add the sprues into boxes as they do them, then just call it a day.
     
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  11. Lothlanathorian

    Lothlanathorian Not a custom title

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    I actually thought about tagging you after I had made that post, but had to go and figured you'd end up in here :p

    I didn't think about just sticking all of the arms in their the box as an option, but that would certainly be much better than a direct-only approach. Give 4 bodies, with arm options for alternating loadouts or for being able to equip any of the weapon options. I'd be perfectly okay if the sniper was always male and the HMG/Spitfire was always female (as an example) if it meant also getting the a Multirifle, the Combi with whatever arms, BS, etc. in the box, also, even if you had to buy two or three boxes to be able to built each one. Granted, not everyone would buy that many as some of us just never use certain profiles, but this would be pretty nifty keen and would solve one hell of an issue in a pretty efficient manner.
     
  12. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Direct-from-CB would be a deal-killer for me. Either the 'Murricans are horribly spoiled by USPS (possible), or SpainPost is obscene. I once pre-ordered a book (Art Book 1) direct from CB. Shipping cost about as much as the book did! Never again.

    What may be a more reasonable option for CB might be to set up a store on Shapeways (or some other 3d Printing house), limited to whatever best-detail printers Shapeways has. This basically removes the setup costs/time for making weapons sprues or whatever, guns with arms seem to run about $3 for 40k scale models on 'Smoothest Fine Detail Plastic'. CB would probably want to mandate a minimum of Smooth Fine Detail, and strongly recommend Smoothest. (Used to be Frosted Ultra Detail, and Frosted Extreme Detail, with FXD being the higher-rez option)
     
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  13. kanluwen

    kanluwen Well-Known Member

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    I look at it like this:
    Doing 'mirror' loadouts means that complaints about posing or multiples can be shut down fairly easily. It also means that they can be sneaky and do something like the Taskmaster, where a single arm can be swapped out for the pose.

    Using the Grunt example from earlier?
    The HMG and Sniper male would be the exact same pose and use the exact same 'supporting' arm for their gun. This means you'd have to get another box to get both...but it also would mean that you could make an extra female Sniper or a female HMG.

    Honestly, I'm trying to address a few possible concerns.
    a) Cost. We don't want to drive the prices up too much for production or materials and this is a good way of doing it. An extra arm for each pose would go a long way. Going a step further would be adding an additional head for each pose and a 'basic' weapon(rifle, combi rifle, smg, whatever).
    b) Desirability. We don't want to make it so this product would outshine another option, but let's face facts: people proxy more than convert in my experience. Converting Infinity stuff is not customer or player friendly. Adding additional poses and options makes the 'official' product more interesting than a proxy in many cases.
    c) Viability. Is this a reasonable thing to do and could CB reasonably do it? Yup. I definitely think that can.

    Will they? I doubt it. Seeing as how they keep finding new ways to taunt their fans and they drove away Dasaan, I'm trying very hard not to root for them to get a wake-up call from the financial side of things.
     
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  14. Leviathan

    Leviathan Hungry Caliban

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    Don't know that much of that is remotely likely - an alternate character skins thing is far more likely to happen, along the lines of Aristeia. But i imagine it would only be done for really popular and iconic characters and troops - like what they did with Penny for example, or the tabitha Bolt.
     
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  15. kanluwen

    kanluwen Well-Known Member

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    So literally they wasted a sculpt on a cosplayer and a model nobody gave a shit about?

    Great business sense! Much wow!
     
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  16. Leviathan

    Leviathan Hungry Caliban

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    Eeeeyyup.

    Or have you forgotten chibi-Musashi?
     
  17. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Fixed that for you.

    Also, I don't remember that the Cosplay Bolt has ever been offered via CB's webstore. IIRC it was just GenCon direct sales and then Tabitha got the entire stock that didn't sell at GenCon as the co-licensing agreement. You certainly need to buy one from her Etsy store now!

    Alt Pantyslayer is honestly the better sculpt, IMO. Better 'tude than the vanilla sculpt, I can see Alt Pantyslayer grabbing Jerkilles by the hair and dragging him out of trouble.
     
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  18. kanluwen

    kanluwen Well-Known Member

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    I don't believe for a second that a sculptor "wanted to make" that Penthesilea sculpt. They've used that line too many times for me to really feel it's actually been a thing.
     
  19. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    Marketing is soo important and I don't think it was marketed to the right people and places. We would see it in our Infinity and war game circles but it really needed to be marketed in completely different areas of the miniature market. Market to hobbyists and not war gammers. Those that paint for the sake of painting.
     
  20. kanluwen

    kanluwen Well-Known Member

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    The problem is that "those that paint for the sake of painting" aren't going to be interested in overpriced generic mecha and girls figures.

    And yes, Corvus Belli's offerings were overpriced. They're overpriced in general if we're going to be honest.
     
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