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I saw a 3D printer in Sam's Club the other day, and it got me thinking about how this will impact Games Workshop and 40k as a whole. I've got my thoughts on what GW might do, and I wanted to get your thoughts, fellow dakkaites.

Can't Stop The Signal
3D printers are getting cheaper and cheaper. A quick bit of google searching shows that you can get one now for $350. Unlike napster, 3D printers have a myriad of applications and GW can't try and stop the sale of them. Like all technology, the price will continue to drop and the detail will continue to increase.


Take A Steam Approach
IMHO, the best solution for GW is to try and sell their own 3D model designs, and license who can make them. Let's say that you can build X particular marine for $10, and then you can buy another pose for another $10. This would continue to allow people to pay for high end sculpters to make the amazing models that we have grown to live, combined with lowering the cost of the manufacture and storage of models.

You might think "Well, I'll just have every model in my army look the same and build one for $60 with Marine, Captain, Rhino, Drop Pod, Melta Marine, and Plasma Marine". Sure that's possible, but I am willing to bet most people will want to have a lot of variety in their models. You can see examples of people's desire to be unique in online games such as Guild Wars.


Would GW Actually Embrace Technology?
GW has already begun to embrace the technological approach, as they now sell ebooks for the codex's. Who knows, they might even sell 3D printers along with the designs from their site. I would enjoy having a 3D printer with the emperor's seal on it. They might find 'ink' that is better for painting and sell it.

As such, it's not unreasonable to expect GW to embrace a new technology such as 3D printers. Given that it would remove the requirement for manufacture and inventory storage, it might really help their overall profit.

Anyone pirating or selling illegal sculpts would likely be sued into oblivion, as we all know GW is fond of lawyers. This exists today with movies and music, yet HollyWood is still sitting on record profits.


Improve Quality of Source Material
GW has had a serious lack of playtesting and balance of their rules for a long time. If they cannot continue to just sell tons of models, they may need to focus their IP on better quality of books to encourage more people to play. It would slow down the release of new source material, as it would need to be playtested carefully.

Their supplements would need to improve in quality to get people to buy them on their own merit.


Game Stores
The biggest problem I see is the impact this would have to the FLGS. Most of their profit comes from Magic the Gathering. Seriously, let's not delude ourselves, were it not for MtG, we would not have a place to play with our toy soldiers. After MtG, model sales are huge. How can the FLGS keep up? Could they sell patterns themselves? Paints?
Today people can buy their models online to save money, yet the FLGS still stay in business. The FLGS are critical to the survival of the hobby, as if there is nowhere to play, then noone will play.


In Closing...
What are your thoughts? Can GW embrace the 3D printing technology and make a success? How will it change the face of miniature wargaming?

Good question. I have no idea how it will affect miniature making companies. Not only GW will be affected but also PP and others. There will be copyright issues for sure.

We have this thread once a month. The consensus is its going to be 10+ years before affordability and quality meet in printers. You can get either now but not both. That 350 dollar printer makes models that have lines and ridges everywhere and just isn't worth the effort.

Must be that time of year again for one of these threads!

That $350 printer cannot even come close to the detail that GW can currently produce. Go ahead, buy it, find the digital files for a Space Marine, download them, and try to print out that one Space Marine to the highest detail possible. Oh, it took 22 hours? Cool. So 220 hours total for a 10 man squad? Awesome! You'll need about 40-50 models, so 1,100 hours and you'll still have the same amount, if not more prep work (file lines/flash and what not) then what GW can make today.

This technology is interesting, but it's going to be years before it even comes close to the detail that GW can produce today. Sure, it'll get cheaper and cheaper money wise, but resource wise?

Unless you become a digital sculptor, you'll be relying on others to digitally sculpt a model for you. Do you think they are going to do that stuff for free? Or are you one of those people that believe everything should be free, and we should all be able to just take whatever we want from others, especially digital material? After all, it's not like it's a real item. It only exists on the interwebz/in my computer.

Your premise might have some traction in about 15-20 years, but the gaming industry is not even close to being affected by 3D printing the way you make it out to be.

But I'll explore the fantasy that not only will 3D printers become stupid cheap, but the digital files to print your favorite army are readily available, and that it takes less then 1 hour to print a single model. I can see an FLGS becoming more of a Hobby Store, where they will have several of these 3D printers, and you will pay a fee to have them print your models for you. The only problem I can see is that GW in the past has ruthlessly pursued it's Intellectual Property rights in an extreme fashion. I can't imagine they will ever just allow a person to print their own armies to play.

Will GW embrace this technology? Considering that they just invested something like over 150 million pounds into a state of the art plastic injection molding process, facility, and sculpting tools just a couple years ago- no, I really don't see them adapting to this technology unless a 3D printer comes out that can print 1,000 models in less then 10 minutes for the pennies it takes GW to produce a model right now. Injection molding is insane and I really don't think you quite understand the scale or process to understand why 3D printers will never replace it any time soon.

Everyone wants a special snowflake army, until they see the amount of TIME and RESOURCES it takes to make one.

I dunno if it'll actually effect sales overall. TBH It's almost no different than people making Copies of Magic Cards on Copy paper, gluing them on the front of some 17 cent common and sticking it into the card sleeve. You can't really tell if a painted Model or a Sleeved card is any different, but you never hear people bragging at the Card shop that they do that( at least the MTG communities I've been around/in. The people that do that are pretty much committing Social Suicide in that group) But I always heard of someone bragging that they bought the Holo Alt art Ugin(or whatever the FotM card was) for 75 bucks.


You might have more people that 3D print models, but I don't think it'll be that much worse than it is now. We all probably know one guy that has casted Models or bought Chinese FW at our local FLGS, but I don't think it'll become a major issue.

Because at the end of the day people subconsciously understand that if they want their store to be open, they gotta buy stuff from the store.

Well, would you rather buy a book, or use your printer and print it out, and then bind it yourself?

It's not practical.

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
Well, would you rather buy a book, or use your printer and print it out, and then bind it yourself?

It's not practical.

To be completely fair most books are reasonably priced. You better believe I have printed formations from GW books I dident want to shell out 400 dollars for because all my formations are in 6 different books.

If I could get a high quality machine and make my own custom models I wouldn't even need gw anymore. 500 bucks plus materials and time is nothing considering GW's new policy of making 150 dollar models now a days.

3D printers won't make a scratch to GW.
Exactly like printers didn't impact guys who make posters, adverts, etc...
It is not because a tech enable, theorically, people to make something vaguely like what pro make, that pro cease to exist.

GW is like cockroaches. They will survive.

That being said, I like GW otherwise we wouldn't be here. It is said, if you complain about prices for GW, right now you are not a GW customer. By that I mean, GW doesn't rely on you to buy their products. Just like so many people torrent movies, and music, they are not hurting either. Also anyone who torrents a movie/music/game, would in most cases never have bought it in the first place, so again, no lost sales.

While a few people might do it, they in most cases would never have bought much any ways from GW. Also why kill a game you like? I mean if you want more 40K, why steal from it and not support it?

Just asinine to steal something and expect to keep playing it.

 Tamwulf wrote:
Unless you become a digital sculptor, you'll be relying on others to digitally sculpt a model for you. Do you think they are going to do that stuff for free? Or are you one of those people that believe everything should be free, and we should all be able to just take whatever we want from others, especially digital material? After all, it's not like it's a real item. It only exists on the interwebz/in my computer.

Your premise might have some traction in about 15-20 years, but the gaming industry is not even close to being affected by 3D printing the way you make it out to be.

20 years ago, VHS is all we had. 15 years ago, the Xbox was the best console on the market -- designed to play on those VGA TVs. 10 years ago, there was no such thing as an Iphone.
If you think it will take between 15 to 20 years for 3D printing to become detailed and affordable, I have a bridge to sell you.

Apparently you also did not read any of my ideas about how GW could still sell sculpts. It appears your entire post was a standard answer without reading what my post was about --- how could GW adapt.

In regards to the 150 million investment, it's not like they would have to shut off that factory tomorrow. Even if they did, it's not worth 150 million. Just like that car you bought yesterday is still not worth the same amount you paid for it. In 2014 GW listed it's factory assets as 21 million. A 123.5 million dollar company can write that off if needed.

Davor wrote:
GW is like cockroaches. They will survive.

That was what my entire thread idea was about.

What is the best way for GW to survive over the next 10-20 years?

 labmouse42 wrote:
20 years ago, VHS is all we had. 15 years ago, the Xbox was the best console on the market -- designed to play on those VGA TVs. 10 years ago, there was no such thing as an Iphone.
If you think it will take between 15 to 20 years for 3D printing to become detailed and affordable, I have a bridge to sell you.

The issue, IMO, is the lack of demand. There's a huge potential market for a better phone or game console, and that lets a company have a realistic chance of making a profit on investing in new technology. And it simultaneously allows large-scale production to drive costs down. But with 3d printers it's uncertain whether any real market exists. Most people are buying them because it's a fun toy and cheap enough that they don't feel bad about printing a couple random bits and then letting the printer collect dust until they finally get rid of it. And the few plausible ideas for the average person using a 3d printer put way more emphasis on things like the strength of the part than on extremely high resolution. The market for the kind of high-resolution printing that you need for miniatures is so small that there's very little pressure to make that technology cheaper. Someday it might come down within reach of the average person simply as a side effect of other developments, but there isn't going to be a strong push to make it happen faster.

It's possible that 3D printers might go the way of Google Glass.

In industry I see this being extremely valuable to save money. Given a choice to custom order a part for $300 or pay $20 to have one printed out in house, the market will drive to development of them.

If course, since we cannot see the future, this is all just theorycrafting anyway.

 labmouse42 wrote:
In industry I see this being extremely valuable to save money. Given a choice to custom order a part for $300 or pay $20 to have one printed out in house, the market will drive to development of them.

Sure, but "in industry" is still a tiny market. And the part of the market where $20 vs. $300 for a part is a significant difference is even smaller.

GW themselves would likely switch over to the tech if it is shown to be truly viable. Would likely save them some money.

I've used my school's 3D-Printer for very basic terrain pieces (Columns, Barrels, some short stairs). But I had to print them larger than I intended them and then spent ages sanding off the lines that the layers leave. And while there are industrial 3D printers that are very accurate and capable hiring a service would probably end up more expensive.

So, perhaps in a few years. But not right now.

3d printers are definitely the way of the future. Maybe not for another 10 years, but I think this will affect not only the miniature model industry, but many industries.

If GW and other companies don't embrace this technology, we will be seeing something similar to what happened to the music industry after digital media and downloading became viable.

Piracy will be rampant and independent kickstarter type companies will pop up everywhere because they don't need the shelf space/stores to push their products. You could just quickly download a schematic for your printer and off you go.

There are a few things GW need to do if they want to survive, or perhaps even reap the benefits of the new technology.

They need to start producing and selling their own 3D printers and start creating downloadable schematics for their own sprues that can be printed from home and in store, especially if it is a web only order. You could just buy the product form the webstore and they could print off the sprues right there in store. They can use the unnecessary shelf space to add more painting/gaming tables.

They also need to start communicating with their consumers. They need to start developing the community in their own stores and make sure that the people who attend their stores are going there for all of their hobby needs. They could start promoting more games and campaigns in store and maximizing their space to add more tables for gaming. The fact that most GW stores have only 1 table for playing and usually only a single staff member is mindbogglingly stupid. They need to get people into the store and never leave. Embrace the game on a competitive and interactive level. When people feel like they are part of something, they are more inclined to want to give their money to the cause.

The fact that GW has been living in their ivory tower, never communicating with the average consumer, seldomly producing a product that people actually want and instead giving us products that we never really asked for (case in point: creating dinobots for chaos that nobody asked for instead of giving us new cult marines/chosen etc.). Don't listen to the community as far as what we desire from a gaming stand point (AOS sucks so much balls, and for the most part so does 40K) and consistently increase prices has created an atmosphere of resentment surrounding GW. They need to revive their image in the public eye and get people excited about things, keep them in the loop, create interaction and create a cult of personality surrounding their brand.

Unless they manage to do this, I see very troubled times heading their way if and when the 3d printer takes hold.

 Peregrine wrote:
Sure, but "in industry" is still a tiny market. And the part of the market where $20 vs. $300 for a part is a significant difference is even smaller.

If "tiny" describes computers, cars, cell phones, disk drives, furniture, most food, and thousands more.
"Look, the ejector on our toothpaste assembly line has broken. Well, lets print up another one really quick and get this line going again"

Don't get me wrong. It won't be much of an impact on that scarf that your mom knits for you -- unless she wants that 12" needle to make it and would rather print it at home than go buy one from a store.

3D printing has the capacity, as Brutus_Apex mentioned to completely change our lives as we know it. It's going to happen within out lifetimes. 10 years is a reasonable estimate.

It will be interesting to see how companies react and adapt to it.

 labmouse42 wrote:
"Look, the ejector on our toothpaste assembly line has broken. Well, lets print up another one really quick and get this line going again"

But that market is largely covered already. You don't need extreme high resolution printing to handle something like that, you need high strength parts that can survive extended use in a high-wear machine. It doesn't matter if the finished part has an ugly grainy texture. So if that's the market that is driving 3d printer development then we'll end up with 3d printed miniatures that are really durable but still look like garbage.

Don't get me wrong. It won't be much of an impact on that scarf that your mom knits for you -- unless she wants that 12" needle to make it and would rather print it at home than go buy one from a store.

That's a pretty big "unless" in there. People aren't going to buy 3d printers that can occasionally make something and save them a trip to the store, just like people rarely buy their own machine shops just in case they need to make a replacement part for something. There's a very limited set of circumstances where 3d printers are useful enough to justify owning one at all, and those circumstances are not common ones.

 TheManWithNoPlan wrote:
I've used my school's 3D-Printer for very basic terrain pieces (Columns, Barrels, some short stairs). But I had to print them larger than I intended them and then spent ages sanding off the lines that the layers leave. And while there are industrial 3D printers that are very accurate and capable hiring a service would probably end up more expensive.

So, perhaps in a few years. But not right now.

This is pretty much it. A company I used to work for had one for prototyping medical devices like sensors and wands. It's pretty cool, but what you produce is so far inferior in detail to what you can purchase in miniatures that I don't think there would be any draw for people who place a value on nice miniatures. On top of that, the amount of sanding to get relatively large objects to the point where they're nice is a little crazy.

Also, the filament spools aren't cheap (something like $30 each IIRC), and it's all still pretty finicky (there are some duds, which still cost you materials and time). Ironically, 3D printers are better at making bigger models, but as the models get bigger, it makes less economical sense to 3D print them. For example, there's no point in printing an aquilla strongpoint; it's cheaper just to buy the kit.

I think that we're more than a few years out for 3D printers to be a viable solution for modelling, but as I am very familiar with many pieces of 3D modelling software, I would definitely be an early adopter if they could generate models that even looked like the LAST generation of GW plastics (pre-2009), and even if it made no financial sense to do so -- it would be just way too cool to pass up.

From the private 3D printers I've seen- they're absolutely terrible and I would not buy one to print miniatures. The only ones that produce quality stuff are things only companies can afford and have to work very, very hard to make a return on expenses. Maybe within five, seven years they'll be better- but until then I'll continue to buy miniatures the old way.

Supose you have a model and you want more of them lets ee how much effort it would take do do so.

Buying a model: Walk to the store pay a few bucks done.

3d printing a model: Buy 3d printer, scan model, fix your scan in 3d software,hollow out the model, add support structures, print out the model, wait for it to be finished, fix the printing artifacts.

Casting the model: buy casting and molding materials, mix molding materials, make the mold, materials make a mould, mix the casting material, cast it, wait, fix your casting errors.

Now lets order this

effort it takes
Buy in store < casting < 3d print

in investment needed
Buy in store < casting < 3d print

Quality of the model
Buy in store < Casting < 3d print

Knowledge and skill needed to make it work
Buy in store < casting < 3d print

In money per model in mass production
Casting or 3d print < Buy in store

So why would you ever assume that 3d printing would make a big difference now. As long as the majority doesn't want to take the effort of casting its own stuff then no way in hell that they would ever try to print it.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
To make a comparison with MtG.

There are near perfect* color printers in every city, and the databases of the cards are all over the internet. You don't need to be that skilled to pull this off. There are even sites out there to simplify your work. If you wanted you could print your MtG deck for ~5 euro. it would take you approx a few ours to make that deck and still almost everybody buys their cards in the store or online resellers.

* The quality of the best affordable 3d printers doesn't even come close to the quality of most printers found in university libraries or other public places.

There is also an assumption that 3D printers will gradually get better. This simply isn't the case. All of the current methods are already at the limits of their resolutions. New materials or methods are needed (and the current methods & materials have been around long enough for the patents to expire - you can imagine that there was huge incentive to find new, better methods before that happened and they did not appear).

Your choice right now is:

Laser and metal powder - fine enough and strong enough but will not be cheap to buy and operate without a completely new laser technology. Also, a laser of this power will never be suitable for domestic use, they're just too dangerous.

Laser and resin - almost fine enough and just about strong enough. If you really want to try printing miniatures this is the one. Form labs have two models at reasonable prices.

Melted polymer injection - not nearly fine enough but plenty strong. These are the cheap ones that are appearing at the moment. Might be suitable for crude scenery but not miniatures (plus they get very, very slow as you increase how fine the layers are).

Dental plaster and solvent - nearly fine enough but very fragile. Also messy. Cheap kits are available but there's little interest since you can't make useful things with them.

 labmouse42 wrote:

In industry I see this being extremely valuable to save money. Given a choice to custom order a part for $300 or pay $20 to have one printed out in house, the market will drive to development of them.

But it's not $20 to make that part in house.

Someone needs to take accurate measurements of the part to recreate the design (assuming you keep someone with CAD skills around just to make spare parts when they break). Then you need to test that since the material you're 3D printing will not be the same material as the original nor the same strength. Then when the part fail prematurely you need to modify the design to strengthen it - repeat until successful. You've also just violated whatever warranty/support contract you had with the manufacturer.

Every disruption to the production line is costing you a pile of money. This is not a viable strategy. Much more sensible to get a replacement ASAP (you're probably paying for 2-4 hour response times on support, can you make a design and print the replacement faster than that?) and then order a spare to keep in-house.

If this was a viable strategy then why do manufacturing companies not all have in-house machine shops to fabricate replacement parts?

Because the staff and time are not cost effective. Plus you still need to pay for engineering support to diagnose more complex failures and to get replacement parts that you cannot 3D print so getting all of your parts support via the same method is simply more effective.

I like 3D printers for additional customizeability(like shoulder pads) however I don't see them doing full models or kits anytime soon.

there is a other choice as well: http://carbon3d.com/


i guess such tech will cemoce affordable during the next 5 years

 _ghost_ wrote:
there is a other choice as well: http://carbon3d.com/


i guess such tech will cemoce affordable during the next 5 years

As much as they make it sound ground breaking it's SLA with alternative materials (their method isn't patentable). Those materials are pretty interesting though. It'll be interesting to see if they can get the claimed speeds whilst also getting the high quality... They also don't comment anywhere on the cost of the materials - if they were inexpensive you'd expect them to be making a point of saying that.

 Scott-S6 wrote:
There is also an assumption that 3D printers will gradually get better. This simply isn't the case. All of the current methods are already at the limits of their resolutions. New materials or methods are needed (and the current methods & materials have been around long enough for the patents to expire - you can imagine that there was huge incentive to find new, better methods before that happened and they did not appear).

If this was a viable strategy then why do manufacturing companies not all have in-house machine shops to fabricate replacement parts? .

Watch this video. Don't take my word for it, listen to a chemist talk about the future of 3D printing. Watch him print up a structure that would normally take 3-10 hours in under 8 minutes. He also addresses the question of why manufacturing companies do not 3D print parts today -- and how that will change

You are falling into the old " my research great and going to change the world support my research" trap. :_P . This is the way to get your research funded in the modern age.
Seriously he isn't the only one doing this. Just watch these kind of movies from 10 years ago and try to research how many actually succeeded in changing the world.
I for sure can remember a lot of game changing events that should have happened now when my professors where right 10 years ago.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you like to make some 3d stuff. Go and make it and search for a local 3d print / maker hub. There are lots of them. You might notice soon that using 3d software isn't like pressing Print of a copy machine.

Sure it might change in the future but it is a long time ahead.

 oldzoggy wrote:
You are falling into the old " my research great and going to change the world support my research" trap. :_P . This is the way to get your research funded in the modern age.

Scott-S6 stated "There is also an assumption that 3D printers will gradually get better. This simply isn't the case"
This video demonstrates that new methods of printing are being developed, and that the concept of 3D printing is not at it's physical limit -- like we have with battery technology today.

Normally I would agree with you. However, in this case Mr. DeSimone finishes his demonstration with "I look forward to seeing what can be created with this technology" after giving a demonstration of it. He is not looking for research funding, he was demonstrating what his team already built.

 oldzoggy wrote:
You might notice soon that using 3d software isn't like pressing Print of a copy machine.

I never said that it was. In fact, in my original post about how GW could adapt to this technology arising, I proposed the idea that they sell the designs in a similar way that Steam sells video games. I never suggested that "GW is dead, 3D printing will kill it!" GW has proven to be adaptable to new technology, and will adjust accordingly to earn a profit. My question was how do you think they will best do this?

3d printers, what are we really going to do with them? Make jewellery? Make toys? Is Mattel worrying over this that little girls are going to make barbies out of them or GI Joe figures?

What about Star War toys? Can't remember the name of the company that makes them, but are they going to worry about that no one is going to buy their man dollies?

What about the Chinese? After all, are they not like a 3d printer right now? I mean they do so many knock offs, have they really put a dent into all the knock offs they do? A lot of those companies haven't gone out of business because the Chinese sell knock offs off their products.

I guess the only people who will use a 3d printer is the people who buy knock off Forge World, or maybe Knock off Versarchi (how ever you spell it).

Again, if you are going to download torrent movies/music/GW codices/rules, you in most cases were never going to buy them in the first place. So again, no lost sales.

If companies went under because of the Chinese rip offs, then I am wrong, but if they haven't, I am sure 3d printers will not ruin a niche product like plastic toy soldiers. Just like how we still have book stores and people haven't stopped using dead tree format that people were saying was going to happen over 10 years ago.

People are still buying music. People are still buying videos. People will still be buying plastic toy soldiers.

 labmouse42 wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:
If this was a viable strategy then why do manufacturing companies not all have in-house machine shops to fabricate replacement parts? .

Watch this video. Don't take my word for it, listen to a chemist talk about the future of 3D printing. Watch him print up a structure that would normally take 3-10 hours in under 8 minutes. He also addresses the question of why manufacturing companies do not 3D print parts today -- and how that will change

It doesn't matter how long it takes to print the part. In many cases it wouldn't take an especially long time to fabricate the part on a 5-axis mill either.

But most manufacturing companies don't make spare parts for their equipment onsite (as you've suggested they should) using either method because there is much more to designing and testing a component than just printing/machining it. Not to mention that your own production line is not the place to be experimenting with component development.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 labmouse42 wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
You are falling into the old " my research great and going to change the world support my research" trap. :_P . This is the way to get your research funded in the modern age.

Scott-S6 stated "There is also an assumption that 3D printers will gradually get better. This simply isn't the case"
This video demonstrates that new methods of printing are being developed, and that the concept of 3D printing is not at it's physical limit -- like we have with battery technology today.

I didn't say that they weren't going to improve. What we aren't going to see is gradual steady improvement that many people are assuming that will occur. The $350 filament injection printers aren't going to get gradually better until they can print perfect minis - filament injection printers will never do that unless a new material is found. This isn't like making processors or sensors for cameras (or any of the electronics examples you gave) where they would gradually improve them with each iteration. The current methods have been essentially unchanged for ~20 years. New methods or materials are required for improvement and these will likely be very significant where they prove to be viable.

My point remains - none of the current 3D printing methods are suitable for home printing of minis. These are not going to gradually improve - they will be unchanged until new methods or materials become available. This makes predicting timelines for availability impossible.