You’ve said that stls aren’t viable. If they aren’t viable why are you so concerned? They are viable and they won’t kill the industry if companies accept that 3D printing is part of the future. If they embrace it, they’ll make money too and the infrastructure will change to reflect this. Jobs are lost either way. Would you refuse to use the advancement of the internet, of computers, of better farming equipment because it costs people their jobs? Production lines, automation, will cost people in miniature production those jobs faster than 3D printing will. Advancement has always meant change. The world moves forward. It leaves people behind. Refusing advancements because they’ll cost jobs will mean that we are stuck in the past forever. To clarify. You stated that stls weren’t viable. I stated they are. The data shows that they are viable and that companies are beginning to realise this. If CB embraced stls I’d still buy the miniatures both to support the company further and as a means of convenience. I may be out of resin and want my toys now. For further information I don’t need to buy the miniatures from CB now. I can print proxies as I play at home, not in tournament. I buy the miniatures from CB as I like them. I will continue to do so regardless of if I can print them or not. I’d prefer to have the option of printing them. It wouldn’t cost CB anything and provides an extra Avenue of monetary growth for the company.
Are not viable, in this case. For a 2 person company making proxys for other games, is viable. For a miniature company with multiple money incomes, it could be viable. For a company that selling physical copies of their figures is the only income, is not viable. You will keep buying stl from CB if they do that. For any person like you, will be thousands that dont. Why spent money if i can get it free on the internet. I dont see how that could benefit the company World moves forward. Ok. here, for example, since covid, health system change the appointment system to a fully computerized system, you can only get an appointment with your doctor by using internet or your smartphone. Nice job leaving behind any person with more than... 60 years and those who live in a rural part and dont have access to internet (yes, those people still exist). Electric car are the future. I have one charge point 50km to north and the other 120 km to the east. I can charge it in my garage. With the electricity prices skyrocketing, good luck. Well, i can get public transport, right? Back in the days i have 3 options of buses and 4 or 5 trains daily to go from my city to the Interplanetario in vigo. Now i have a weekly bus and 1 trains daily, and at horrible times. Progress are made for those who lived in the big cities, and forget the entire rest of the country. So, excuse me if i'm not happy with your idea of progress.
So never make make any advancements because people get left behind. Okay. Not going to happen. That attitude is why we’re all never getting off this planet. You've compared 3D printed miniatures to people dying as they don’t have access to their doctors appointments via computers. Very few people in western culture don’t have access this way. Will you refuse to build a nuclear reactor because we may not need the energy now? We will need it in the future. If it isn’t built then we won’t have it. Which is why we’re currently in the situation we’re in. Stls are viable for CB. If I buy their miniatures and their stls that at least doubles the profits. It’s viable for anyone who wants to embrace it. On a final note, I live in the mountains of Wales, thank you not any big city. My idea of progress is the worlds idea of progress. It’s not necessarily good for me either but it’s how we’ve moved forward as a people. I don’t personally mind getting left behind if it makes the rest of the world a better place.
Do they sell 99 now? Right now they sell one figure and then nothing after it anyway. I'd be willing to pay for an STL figure and then need to pay to get it printed. I'd have to because I don't own a printer. But if I did I'd have to buy the resin. If anything they should do stl of different heads or arms that can go to the figure they already put out.
Unfortunately they may have to if that's the way the industry goes. It's either that or loose everything. Sadly that's business and change happens. Your example of Fusilier is not very good. If CB does an Fusiler they would make all of the profiles themselves, there's no need for someone else change the STL at all. CB could finally do a profile of every single profile all at once. You pay per figure or bundle of figures. Printing multiple copies would be almost the equivalent now of doing resin copies. But it also allows them to do more. They loose people in the shop but gain some more digital sculptors who can make more figures, and game developers to create more games. It might be a while but it could happen. Also, changing STLs is not easy. It takes some learning of programs to do it and not everyone has the time or ability to do it. I'm not so worried about CB. Who I am worried about is my Game Store! They will no longer have something to sell, and it will be hard for them to pay for a location that allows for playing. Unless they do something too like becoming a 3d printing service.
Making your own stls are getting easier but it is still difficult unless you know what you’re doing. I wouldn’t be worried about your local store! Even if there were no miniatures to sell there’s still the ccg’s, the role-playing books, hobby tools and paints. If they’re like firestorm they’ll also sell 3D printers and the resin. Edit: I’d not be worried about any game store to be honest or even the manufacturers of these games as there’ll always be something that it’ll be better to buy than 3D print. Until we get replicators like in Star Trek. At which point human society will cease to exist.
Non-specialist Lei Gong doesn't appeal to me at all in WBA. Adil is another option, but he is a little more fragile if he gets hit with shock for instance. Again both fill a specific niche as a non-hackable CoC for WBA, one is just more melee-oriented and the other more F2F focused. Lei Gong is able to take a wound when trading within 8". B4 SMG is pretty decent at killing thing within 8" due to the ammo types. I mean personal use is always going to vary, I just don't really see what role SMMR Lei Gong is filling in a WBA list compared to the CoC version, but again that is solely my mindset. I personally never count on using Lei Gong's albedo, if it comes up, great, but that is quite a rarity.
Oh, absolutely. It’s going to vary from person to person. I think the dice gods hate me using lei gong though.
Yeah, progress is always better. That is the reason we will need to leave the planet. We're not gonna agree, so, end of my participation here.
If i sold an STL and 100 figures were printed with that archive, now there are 100 figures in the market and i only got money for 1 of them.
You’re still not getting it. Fair enough. Progress is indeed always better. We aren’t going to agree, that is clear so I’ll leave it here.
Ah, yes, that's surely why the RPG market completely died because everyone can print a PDF. So no company ever adds / sells PDFs, especially as standalone product. Nobody! DtRPG doesn't exist either. Nu-uh. Your ideas and views about consumption of digital goods are hilariously uninformed and outdated.
Pricing an STL the same as a figurine seems a bit ridiculous. The distribution and material costs are widely different between the two of them, as are the expected sales numbers and risks - particularly if you are attempting to limit commercial sales from those STLs (a commercial printing license of an STL could be offered, sure, but should probably be significantly pricier than one or maybe even one hundred minis) Is there a market for STLs? Probably. Is the market big enough that it's worth the risks and expenses? There's plenty of people better suited to answer that, but my uninformed guess is that the market isn't big enough.
For my part I never said that Corvus Belli SHOULD do anything. I merely pointed out that they could and that I wished that they would. It’s big and getting bigger. It’s large enough to cause concern in some people and interest in others including larger games manufacturers such as Wargames Atlantic. Now I’m going to recuse myself from any further comments on stls. I’m not going to add any more fuel to a fire that began with me wishing that something unlikely was going to happen. It seems to be a hot button issue and has derailed this thread handily, for which I apologise. If we can please get back to discussing the upcoming releases in 2023. Of which I’m dearly hoping the shakush will eventually be one.
not for the minis but i believe CB has to sell weapons,tinbots koalas etc by STL. Some arms, hacking hands would be welcomed. if they sell the mini in STL format, i am afraid people copy and sell it more easilly.
It's already incredibly easy to get a hold of cheap, high quality recasts. As with piracy where it's been conclusively shown, the answer is simply to provide better quality products...
Indeed. To the point wher I was tempted to buy a recast Beyond Crimson Stone set, because all I needed from it, really, was the Vostok. And I was able to get the knockoff for about 1/3 price of the real deal. Yes, I resisted the temptation. So far, so good... As for STLs being that much cheaper - it isn't a given. A (really large and serious) local bookstore chain sells e-books for similar prices as deadtree books: I've just checked, the same fantasy novel (which is on the market for several years, so there's no "new release tax") in e-book form costed 75% of the paperback's price. Yes, in the very same bookstore. And I remeber cases where an e-book was actually more expensive. Remember, kitty-cats, the first rule of the market: a thing is worth as much as the customer is willing to pay for it. Plus, comparing CB to other companies like Wargames atlantic is apples to oranges. Sure one can cut on manufacturing costs by selling .stl's - but CB do all the manufacturing for their metal and siocast models in-house. They do employ people form their local community, in many cases their friends or relatives. Slash the costs by moving the production to China or switching to .stl-only sales, and all those people they employ in theri hometown become redundant to the company...
