I suppose my avatar is a clue

Yes, 3D printing killing off all but GW would be an ironic twist indeed

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

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Tom Webb
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I don't think that will happen either.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

When you start playing a game, especially with collecting concepts like miniatures, you're buying into more than just a model here and there. You are also buying into the entire package of universe, history, look and feel, etc. So there's a natural limiting factor built in to just downloading some OBJ file and printing it with a random collection of models.

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He's a lawyer and a super-villian. That's like having a shark with a bazooka!

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My thoughts are that normal printing has been around for ages and not killed off the publishing industry.
Similarly I would expect that 3d printing will bring new options, but economies of scale, quality and convenience will mean there is still a big market for games companies(?).

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http://hordesofthings.blogspot.co.nz/

Nah. Most of the other games are skirmish, so it wouldn't be worth it. Besides, while it is pretty easy to create a vehicle with CAD, making a substitute personality model doesn't work out as well. Flames of War would be an example of a line that might be affected, but they have a rule that you can't participate in a FoW tourney unless your force is made up of like 50% official FoW models.

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Adeptus Monk-anicus
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I don't know. In the dark ages before grimdark had matured into the SpacePope and retinue we know today, anything went. In fact, the refusal to adhere to any thought through look and feel was at the heart of early GW as well as any one else. Arguably we are not at that stage anymore, but at the same time, a well enyrenched part of the hobby is playing with the genre by using other ranges and stuff to make things interesting. I know I am probably one of the least dogmatic fluffers here, not reading their fine literature probably playing a part. I find the often strict following of GW doctrine rather scary and would welcome a less rigid sense of the universe. We will all be fine, I am sure.

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

What I was trying to express was vendors like EW, DRM, C&C, and even GW have a consistent internally consistent feel to their collected ranges. That's exactly why I collect them all for my armies. That's different than a million individual files each with a different vibe which is more the type of scenario that is described usually with 3D printing.

If I may make an musical analogy, even though low cost computer software for studio style production is readily available for more than a decade, finding a Kutiman is a rare event and there still is a need for proper studios.


I totally agree with the scariness of GW the "one and true model" cult.

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I don't know about this - I'm torn. Most times, I kind of think it is appropriate - I want a Leman Russ to look like a Leman Russ, not a T-80, or an M-1, or a Gatorade bottle. Otherwise, it takes me out of the world a bit and I lose that sense of immersion and the visuals in my head.

Imagine you're watching a movie - "Saving Private Ryan." The US forces are in the ruined city, waiting for the German tanks to come into the killzone, so they can chuck the sticky bombs onto them. Here it comes... you can hear the wheels squeaking and the treads tearing up the cobblestones... There, over that pile of rubble!


That's my take. If you follow "less rigid sense of the universe" you're no longer playing 40K/Epic/Fantasy/whatever - you're playing "Generic Adventure Game!" Personally, I play GW games because I am a fan of the universe they have created. There are a lot of other systems out there that are probably as good, if not better, but I like flying skulls, and genetically enhanced killing machines, and guns that fire caseless ammo, yet still somehow winding up spraying shell casings everywhere!

Aside from that, GW exists to sell models - they are not a game company. If they allowed substitutions of their models at events 1) they would lose money and go out of business real fast; and 2) you'd get asshats who come in with a bunch of tokens from "Monopoly" and "Life" saying "Ok, this is my Space Marine Dev squad, this is my SM Tac squad, blah, blah, blah..." We've all seen "those guys" and all know it would happen in a heartbeat.

Does GW have crappy policies? Yes. Do they care about their fans and the people who helped to fund them to their present level of world domination? Nope. Is complaining going to make them change? Nope again. Because they know you and I are not spending any money with them anymore, so we are completely inconsequential to them.

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Adeptus Monk-anicus
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Well. Not clinging to the dictate of the month (which inevitably will change at a whim due to the Orwellian nature of imaginary universes) does not in my view necessarily equate to replacing well made Tiger replicas with silly wooden toys. I just miss the experimental, anything goes attitude of the earlier days, thats all.

Does GW care about me? I don't care.

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

Granted, but the universe, the game rules, and the product line have advanced to the point where experimental vehicles would just bog down the game unnecessarily. When experimentation was the flavor of the day, the game was more of an RPG with miniature elements - it is far from that now. That being said, there is an outlet for that kind of experimental spirit - the 40K roleplaying systems.

I understand where you're coming from - I remember the days of scout titans made from vinyl ED-209 kits and deodorant canister Land Speeders.

What's stopping you from making proxies, anyway? As long as you're not at a sanctioned tourney, I can't imagine your buddies are going to be jerks about "counts as" as long as it is reasonable...

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Adeptus Monk-anicus
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Yes, I regularly fail to grasp the formal rigidity of what nowadays constitute 'the hobby'. To me it is probably way more messy and unstructured. That goes for the models and the so called fluff. It exists within a practically endless wealth of other peoples ideas built upon other people's ideas and so on. Picking and choosing is what I enjoy.

And who is keeping me from making proxies? No one?

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

Comparing to movie and music downloads, the reason these had a big impact is because the barriers to both sharing and consuming (i.e. time, knowledge, cost) are small and the demand is high. If you rip your movies to your hard drive anyway, it is no big deal to share them on BitTorrent. So if 3D plans were extremely easy to produce (thus share), AND lots of things can be printed, AND printing is cheap, effective and in enough demand, the same will apply.

I just am not sure about the demand - how many of the things you buy could be printed instead for less cost (financial or otherwise)? Speaking personally, almost nothing I buy is worth printing even if the plans were available for free: very few things can be printed in their entirety without the materials used being important, and for mixed-material objects its just too much of a hassle sourcing everything and putting it together.

Compare to a book for example. Chances are I could download the text, and print it for significantly less than a hardback. But I wouldn't think of doing it - my printer can put ink on paper but it can't make all the components of a book and put it together for me. By contrast, once resolution and price point improve past a certain point, wargaming models are arguably perfectly suited to being 3D printed.

What isn't going to go mainstream: CAD'ing a replica of a space marine, then printing it, all to avoid buying a box of space marines. CAD'ing takes time, which is why manufacturers employ people to do it.

What might well go mainstream if the price is right: scanning a space marine (or downloading a good scan), and printing 10 more.

So if (and it's a big if) one day soon you can buy cheap and good scanners and printers AND printing costs significantly less than retail, then it will have a marked effect on the wargaming industry. Until manufacturers adapt by producing models that for whatever reason can't be printed, you won't see models being designed. Purely because the up front investment in creating the design, the background, the rules, translating the rules etc etc is too high. The manufacturer can probably make them for cheaper, but it's not enough to recoup their investment and make a profit.

Like I said though, it's a big IF.

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What I see as the problem is that right now production costs for miniatures are pretty high, so it’s easier to put a markup on them that pays for your creative studio (the artists, writers, rules developers, etc. – everything not directly related to miniatures manufacturing). If printing brings down the production costs for everyone, then creative costs will be proportionally much higher relative to the cost of a miniature.

I’d expect that to make it much easier to be like GW at its beginning – selling miniatures for other people’s games. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes it harder to be a creator and that’s what the industry needs most of all.

Of course once 3D scanners become affordable for home use, all bets are off.

All it would take is to have a single person scan a model, upload it to a torrent site, and anyone could download it and print it out.

Who knows what the future of miniature gaming will hold...

Likely the governments of the world will ban home use 3d printers all together - all it would take is some nut printing out a gun and killing a few kids - or maybe they would say that 3d printing would cost people jobs... Too much power in the hands of the people.

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