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 Blaggard wrote:

 pretre wrote:
No, but it is still higher than most people are going to want to pay. And it has been 20 years since 1993. Granted, 3D printing is moving faster, but still that is not the short term.

ok then, see that £50 with 5760 x 1440 dpi and tons of gizmo's chucked on top?
That would have cost £417 in 2008 (£483.72 w/ inflation). Without the scanner. Without Wifi. Without USB support. here.

Down to 10% of the cost in 5 years for the same printing specs.

Right, but that is an established technology that you yourself showed has been on the market for 20-30 years. 3D printing has been around for less than a decade.

Right, but that is an established technology that you yourself showed has been on the market for 20-30 years. 3D printing has been around for less than a decade.

It's actually been around for nearly 20. Mid to late '90s. It's only come into the public eye in the last 10.

2d printing has been around since about the 1940's, some guys were given $400k to do something with one of the first computers. 3d's been around since 1986.
Difference between the 2d boom and 3d's current gains is that we've got so much more information floating about. we've got kickstarters for the things. They are consumer printers being designed for cheapness and accuracy. It's no longer just big companies running on the technology trickledown.

However if 3d printing fails I will eat these words, I just think it won't.

 pretre wrote:
So, passing the metaphor. GW will still exist but whine about how 3D printing is killing sales

Except GW's business model is already in trouble. They have stagnant or declining sales volume, and their only business strategy is "cut costs by removing 'unnecessary' products/services" and "raise prices". Now imagine what would happen if GW lost 30% of their customers.

and has some highly specialized and expensive 3D Printing equipment.

For now, yes. But the point is eventually it will become cheaper and more widely available.

Counter proposal: Smaller customer base means the impact of pirates has less of an impact on their bottom line. i.e. people who have the cash to buy 3D printers are not a large enough percentage of the base to significantly impact sales.

Right now, yes. When 3d printers become cheap enough for the average person to buy this won't be true anymore. Just look at what happened with CDs: at first burning your own required specialized and expensive equipment that only businesses could afford, now it's cheap enough that you don't even consider the price.

Yeah, I think consumer availability was what I was talking about.

In the long run, will 3D printing be successful? Sure.

Will it cause the demise of miniature companies? Unlikely.

Ferozz wrote:
Let me just toss this out there. I suspect that it really can't be that hard to make copies of Magic Cards that are good enough to fool just about anybody

You suspect wrong. Counterfeit cards have existed for a long time, and it's very obvious when it's a fake.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 pretre wrote:
Will it cause the demise of miniature companies? Unlikely.

Well, maybe because GW will die before we get to that point.

And it won't be the end of miniature companies in general. There will always be someone able to make a profit in the industry, but GW isn't that company. They don't have the flexibility or innovation to deal with that kind of change, and their dependence on absurd price levels will not survive in a 3d printing market.

 Peregrine wrote:
Right now, yes. When 3d printers become cheap enough for the average person to buy this won't be true anymore. Just look at what happened with CDs: at first burning your own required specialized and expensive equipment that only businesses could afford, now it's cheap enough that you don't even consider the price.

And yet CD burning is a tiny percentage of the market even though almost every computer and laptop comes with a burner stock. As a reformed Napster addict and then CD burner and ripper and blah de blah for 5-10 years, I gave up after a while. It just isn't worth it when I can pay $3 a month for Pandora or get everything I want for pennies (or free) on my iPhone.

Sure, in 5-10 years, we will see $50-100 3D printers that you can get for your desktop. People will still buy the minis except for the hardcore and it will remain a tiny part of the market. Of course, then something unforeseen will occur in the 3D market as well that will make the debate over printing your own minis silly. (Like my holographic iPhone projector)




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:
Well, maybe because GW will die before we get to that point.

And it won't be the end of miniature companies in general. There will always be someone able to make a profit in the industry, but GW isn't that company. They don't have the flexibility or innovation to deal with that kind of change, and their dependence on absurd price levels will not survive in a 3d printing market.

This time again in 5 years?

 pretre wrote:
s a reformed Napster addict and then CD burner and ripper and blah de blah for 5-10 years, I gave up after a while. It just isn't worth it when I can pay $3 a month for Pandora or get everything I want for pennies (or free) on my iPhone.

And you think those things happened because the music industry was generous and decided to offer lower prices? Of course not, they did it because piracy and cheap CD burning were too much competition for their full-price products. The music industry was able to adapt to a world in which you can legally buy/stream/whatever music for much cheaper than CDs used to cost, but do you really think that GW would be able to adapt to a world where a tactical squad has to cost $5 to compete successfully with pirated copies?

If 3D printing stands to be the death knell of GW then what is going to stop it from killing all miniature based companies? All tabletops game companies sell minis as their bread and butter. GW's prices are high but not too much higher then everybody else when we are being reasonable. So if printing 3D knock offs becomes cheaper then buying GW models it will likely be cheaper then buying any other companies models too.

So I propose this question. Are gamers so self destructive and stupid that they would kill their own hobby and labor of love to save some money?

Personally hobbies to me are a luxury that you decide are worth money. You don't have to buy it, you don't need it, you just want it. So why is everybody always trying to screw the company out of a dollar (because that seems to be a major reason to do it lately)? If you love 40k so much that you spend hundreds of hours on the aspects of it, why do you want to see it go away? Seriously has anyone even honestly thought to themselves what they will do if or when GW finally fails?

Tycho wrote:
The one thing that always seems to get lost in these talks is the mater of input. Before you can output a model from a 3d printer you need input. Which means you will either also have to buy a 3D scanner and sculpt your own models (assuming you are not outright stealing from GW) to scan (in which case you're better off sculpting and molding instead), OR you have to be able to use something like Zbrush or Maya AND be capable of producing quality, water tight models with correct thicknesses for everything. Maya alone is in the 4 - 7000 dollar range. I don't see enough people being able to this that it's going to hurt GW all that much.

The other possible route might be buying other people's models (there's plenty of sites where you can do this now but they tend to wildly unreliable) but in that case I could even see GW capitalizing on it. Something like "Purchase our 3D space marine pattern at x cost and be able to print all you want for 30 days". At which point the model would expire (which is easy enough to make happen now). Either way, I'm sure there are plenty of ways to take that and monetize it the way Apple has with iTunes.

It will be a while before 3-D printing can match the traditional casting process for detail.

It already does match the detail. http://www.shapeways.com/gallery/art?li=home-art" target="_new" rel="nofollow"> http://www.shapeways.com/gallery/art?li=home-art

It's just that those printers are not easily available to the home consumer.

I think this is pretty on target. I think most commercial 3d printing services can get pretty close to the detail a durability needed. The cost is still a bit too high though. The 3d printing service industry is still aimed at building fast prototypes not for major consumer production.

The remarks about input are valid, but you can get 3d modeling software for free. http://www.123dapp.com/ this software is made by Autodesk, the same company who makes high end modeling software used by professionals. It is pretty capable stuff. I have used it to create terrain pieces.

I think GW should embrace this technology and make a library of their models available for "on demand" production. This could save money on production runs and basically make their entire library of models something people can buy as they wish. It could potentially open up customers ability to build custom stuff either by printing bits, or allowing the "online" modeling of a custom model using original GW parts. I think this could open a whole new delivery method for GW that would be good for them and the customers.

GW is probably the best positioned to do something like this. If they don't someone else will. I would imagine there would also be the opportunity for who ever works out this service to print for multiple miniature production studios.

 Peregrine wrote:
And you think those things happened because the music industry was generous and decided to offer lower prices? Of course not, they did it because piracy and cheap CD burning were too much competition for their full-price products. The music industry was able to adapt to a world in which you can legally buy/stream/whatever music for much cheaper than CDs used to cost, but do you really think that GW would be able to adapt to a world where a tactical squad has to cost $5 to compete successfully with pirated copies?

Of course I don't think that the music industry did it out of the kindness of their heart. That's just silly. I do think that GW will adapt, however.

As I said, see you in 5 years where one of us can have a good chuckle because their predictions came true.

No it won't. Not for a long time anyway. Long enough that GW will go bust from something else first.

 Blaggard wrote:
However if 3d printing fails I will eat these words, I just think it won't.

It won't fail, but I don't think it'll get the mainstream support people think it will to make it as cheap as other consumer electronics until the technology gets some major innovations.

VHS, then DVD, then Blu Ray players got cheaper because they had mainstream appeal (renting movies, owning movies).
Record, Cassette and CD players got cheaper because they had mainstream appeal (owning music).
2D desktop printers got cheaper because they had mainstream appeal (printing your own documents).

3D printers... I just don't see the mainstream appeal yet. You need to remember the vast, vast majority of consumers don't do things like play wargames. 3D printers, to them, will look like an expensive printer than can print a trinket than can buy for $5 at a market. Anything actually useful the average person can think of to print (which will boil down to electronic and automotive spare parts, anything around the house that can break, etc) is simply not suitable in the material 3D printers currently work with. Printing a part for an engine in resin or plastic when it needs to be hardened steel is going to end up risking lives due to its unsuitability.

So yeah, the technology itself won't fail, but in its current state, I can't see it getting the mainstream support other major household electronics have gotten simply due to the average person having no actual use for it with the material it currently works with. Which means they won't get cheap enough for the average wargamer to want to buy and experiment with for a good few years yet.

Even when 3D printers become widely available, printing an army will still be expensive. If it ever becomes cheaper to print a high quality 3D model then it is to cast them, then mini companies would have already started printing instead of casting. It should always be cheaper for a company to mass produce something than it is to produce it at small scale consumer level like that. That being said, when that time comes, it will come down the miniature companies to keep their prices competitive with the in home ability to make them with a consumer level 3D printer.

If you wanted to open a bigger can of worms, how many other markets would this affect. Will it eventually be cheaper for me to 3D print my kids legos out instead of buying them? What about action figures and collectibles? Heck I could print whole toys, or at least their major components. Anything company that sells things cast out of plastic and resin would have to worry if 3D printers ever became cheap to buy and operate as well as widely available.

That being said, I don't really see 3D printing becoming that widely available and cheap. Its more of a niche market than normal printers or CD burners. Like -Loki- said, the average person doesn't have a use for a 3D printer, so the market for them would be smaller, keeping their price and development high and slow.

 pwntallica wrote:


Like -Loki- said, the average person doesn't have a use for a 3D printer,

This will be hard to believe by most of you tadpoles but I can remember when people used to say the EXACT same thing about HOME COMPUTERS. If 3d printers become cheap and easy to use people will find ways to use them.

I wonder if the people that are so hopeful that GW will go down the tubes give much thought or care about the hardship that will cause to GW employees and employees of related businesses. All this talk about how fast 3d printers will become cheap, how the source files will be created, and what percentage of people will print their own vs buy them from a manufacturer is speculation raised to the power of three.

I think a much quicker impact will be the ability of third party vendors to use the technology to make accessories for the dedicated hobbyist. It would be nice for discussions of 3d printers to become more than a springboard for people that are obsessed with the long predicted demise of GW.

 pretre wrote:
Of course I don't think that the music industry did it out of the kindness of their heart. That's just silly. I do think that GW will adapt, however.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. Given GW's inability to adapt to the modern world and utter dependance on constant price increases to stay in business I seriously doubt that they have the ability to adapt to that kind of dramatic change.

As I said, see you in 5 years where one of us can have a good chuckle because their predictions came true.

Well, that's assuming 3d printers advance that fast. I'm very confident that 3d printers of sufficient quality to match GW will eventually become available to the average person, but I'm not going to make any predictions about how many years it will take for that to happen.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
If 3D printing stands to be the death knell of GW then what is going to stop it from killing all miniature based companies?

Other companies might be able to adapt. They might be able to sell 3d printer files and make enough money, they might make an online leveling system where you can register a legitimate model (with a one-use serial number) and have it gain upgrades as you play games, they might focus on writing good rules and let the model business be a nice bonus, etc. Of course not everyone will succeed, but I think that miniature wargaming as a whole will survive just fine.

So I propose this question. Are gamers so self destructive and stupid that they would kill their own hobby and labor of love to save some money?

Given what we've seen with the video game industry the answer is a pretty obvious yes. People will gladly pirate anything they can, no matter what the consequences are in the long run.

 pwntallica wrote:
It should always be cheaper for a company to mass produce something than it is to produce it at small scale consumer level like that.

Yes, but production costs are only a small part of it. The company has to pay the artist to design the model, pay to run a store, pay to keep a decent inventory of their products, pay to ship everything, pay the rule designers, pay for marketing, etc. The random person with a 3d printer just pays the raw material cost.

That being said, when that time comes, it will come down the miniature companies to keep their prices competitive with the in home ability to make them with a consumer level 3D printer.

And this is what will kill GW. They're only staying alive through constant price increases, having to drop their prices would instantly destroy the company.

JWhex wrote:
This will be hard to believe by most of you tadpoles but I can remember when people used to say the EXACT same thing about HOME COMPUTERS. If 3d printers become cheap and easy to use people will find ways to use them.

Computers had obvious home uses as soon as somsone made the first word processor. I'm not denying that.

What I'm denying is that, in their current state 3D printers don't have one I can see. They print in resins or plastics, which for most people, are not useful materials. What every day item can be printed in resin or plastic that the general population will need but can't buy at a dollar store for less than the material for the print costs?

Until it can start printing in metal or other durable material, home uses for a 3D printer just seem redundant.

Again, I'm not saying 3D printers will never have a home use, since there's plenty of potential. Just in their current form, with the materials they can print with, they don't have much of a household use. Just like computers, when they were punch card readers, never had a home use. The potential is there, I just don't think the end product is there yet.

It certainly would be cool if 3D printers became cheap and widespread, but who knows how many years that will be.

In the meantime, it is not even cheaper for me to print out a 2D book than buy it at the store... economies of scale are at work but that can change.

I would say that 3D printing is already having an impact on GW, but not the way that most think... it is aiding the computer design process, and making it easier to develop miniatures and thus miniature games, which combined with kickstarter, mean a lot more competition and distractions from GW... and shapeways is already fairly successful and gaining steam.

More games out there mean more gamers that are used to playing around in different systems, and not dependent on GW.

 -Loki- wrote:


Until it can start printing in metal or other durable material, home uses for a 3D printer just seem redundant.

You can 3d print metals, ceramics, and a variety of different plastics.

http://www.shapeways.com/materials/material-status

3d printing is on the cusp of changing the way consumers can buy goods. "Custom" made will start to become as cheap as mass produced goods. 3d printing and other methods of on demand manufacturing will begin to level the playing field and eliminate the advantage and economies of scale. Companies should take notice and understand how this will affect their relationships with their customers. Customization and personalization wil become more and more common. Miniature gaming seems like a really good place for this kind of product delivery.

Edited to correct the quote. Sorry

Loborocket wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:

JWhex wrote:


Until it can start printing in metal or other durable material, home uses for a 3D printer just seem redundant.

You can 3d print metals, ceramics, and a variety of different plastics.

http://www.shapeways.com/materials/material-status

3d printing is on the cusp of changing the way consumers can buy goods. "Custom" made will start to become as cheap as mass produced goods. 3d printing and other methods of on demand manufacturing will begin to level the playing field and eliminate the advantage and economies of scale. Companies should take notice and understand how this will affect their relationships with their customers. Customization and personalization wil become more and more common. Miniature gaming seems like a really good place for this kind of product delivery.

I definitely did not write what you quoted me as saying, please edit your post.

The quote system's a little messed up, not his fault most likely.

 -Loki- wrote:

JWhex wrote:
This will be hard to believe by most of you tadpoles but I can remember when people used to say the EXACT same thing about HOME COMPUTERS. If 3d printers become cheap and easy to use people will find ways to use them.

Computers had obvious home uses as soon as somsone made the first word processor. I'm not denying that.

Actually it was not so simple as that because computers were expensive and dot matrix printers were also expensive and crummy. Daisy wheel printers were expensive and just forget about buying a laser printer for the average home. Also, people had typewriters or dedicated word processors that were not general computers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:
The quote system's a little messed up, not his fault most likely.

Yeah I noticed that when I replied, had to put in another end quote, but there is zero text in his post that I wrote

Guys and Gals (if any women have replied),

You all are thinking so two-dimensional here, pun intended, a consumer based 3D Printer wouldn't only be utilized for one, two, or hell even one hundred uses. 3D printers can create just about anything you set your mind to. Think about it on a logical stance for just one minute. Food, cars, plant soil, water, diapers, and etc (anything you can think of). Miniatures are just one of those possibilites that these printers could easily recreate. Consumers that are indeed interested in the miniatures market will be able to create armies in a matter of hours and these miniatures would come out fully painted or unpainted for the pleasure of the painters out there. You can even create game broads to your exact specs with the buildings, terrian, water, forests......

If GW didn't somehow make it a point to support 3D printing then the future of the company could easily go down but imagine if they supported it and made it a viable reason to purchase the materials needed to help you recreate their products at an even more affordable price. They would make bank with their support of the future. If they continue to sit in the present then we could very well see our beloved hobby start to go into a thing of the past :(

Malik_Raynor wrote:
Food, cars, plant soil, water, diapers, and etc (anything you can think of).

In science fiction maybe. In reality 3d printers are very limited in what they can do. You're pretty much stuck with solid plastic of various types, and a small range of low-strength metals. We're not even close to creating something as complex as food, and building a car is impossible with anything resembling current methods (unless you want it to immediately fall apart and/or have the engine explode).

Of course in the context of miniatures it's just a matter of time before we can do it easily, since a gaming model is just a solid piece of plastic and the only difficult part is getting the fine detail to print at an acceptable level of quality.

GW woudn't support is a its not something that they did in the '90s. They've not even got the hang of the internet yet, let alone 3D printings ramificiations.

Hate to say it but I think you might be a little behind with the current discoveries. http://www.webpronews.com/3d-printed-organs-are-here-and-theyre-very-tiny-2013-04 Read that! It's awesome.

BTW, 3D Printers have successfully created two houses and a gun!

 Peregrine wrote:

Malik_Raynor wrote:
Food, cars, plant soil, water, diapers, and etc (anything you can think of).

In science fiction maybe. In reality 3d printers are very limited in what they can do. You're pretty much stuck with solid plastic of various types, and a small range of low-strength metals. We're not even close to creating something as complex as food, and building a car is impossible with anything resembling current methods (unless you want it to immediately fall apart and/or have the engine explode).

Honestly, you are just not up to speed with the capability of advanced 3d printing technology. Researchers are already printing out materials that replicate some of the functions of living tissue. They are creating microbubble networks and using lipids in their 3d printers. Even more amazing is the team that is using living stem cells and "printing" them. Using stem cells and lipids is a pretty far cry away from being stuck with plastics and some metals.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/04/05/3729985.htm

Stuart Gary
ABC
3D droplet

Droplet networks 1 millimetre in diameter encapsulated inside an oil drop in bulk water (Source: G Villar/Oxford University)
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Ad Fab Synthetic material capable of performing some of the functions of living cells has been built using a specially modified 3D prototype printer.

Developed by researchers at Oxford University, the new materials, called 'droplet networks' could eventually be used to replace damaged human tissue or deliver drugs to specific locations.

"We aren't trying to make materials that faithfully resemble tissues, but rather structures that can carry out the functions of tissues," says Professor Hagan Bayley, who led the research reported in the journal Science.

The printed structures consist of networks of tens of thousands of connected water droplets, encapsulated in aqueous compartments about 50 microns in diameter and printed out of a lipid film which remains stable for weeks.

The film uses protein pores to form pathways which can mimic nerves, allowing them to transmit electrical signals from one side of the material to the other.

The droplet networks can be designed to fold themselves into different shapes after printing (see video), mimicking muscle movement by transferring water from one cell to another through osmosis.

"At the moment we've created networks of up to 35,000 droplets but the size of network we can make is really only limited by time and money," says Bayley.

The researchers used two different types of droplet, but say there's no reason why you couldn't use 50 or more different kinds.

Malik_Raynor wrote:
Guys and Gals (if any women have replied),

You all are thinking so two-dimensional here, pun intended, a consumer based 3D Printer wouldn't only be utilized for one, two, or hell even one hundred uses. 3D printers can create just about anything you set your mind to. Think about it on a logical stance for just one minute. Food, cars, plant soil, water, diapers, and etc (anything you can think of). Miniatures are just one of those possibilites that these printers could easily recreate. Consumers that are indeed interested in the miniatures market will be able to create armies in a matter of hours and these miniatures would come out fully painted or unpainted for the pleasure of the painters out there. You can even create game broads to your exact specs with the buildings, terrian, water, forests......

If GW didn't somehow make it a point to support 3D printing then the future of the company could easily go down but imagine if they supported it and made it a viable reason to purchase the materials needed to help you recreate their products at an even more affordable price. They would make bank with their support of the future. If they continue to sit in the present then we could very well see our beloved hobby start to go into a thing of the past :(

I know they can be used to print all kinds of things. That's why I mentioned legos and other toys. At work in another department they have a 3D printer that can print using conductive material that allows them to print circuit boards. The problem is how practical it would be for a home user to utilize. You need a printer big enough to print what you are trying to create, or at least print its largest individual component. There is also the cost of the material. The only reason they custom print the circuit boards at work is because it is cheaper than getting them custom made, and accurate enough for testing. They are only used for prototyping. Once the component is finalized, it is still cheaper to get them massed produced based on the specifications they used for the last print.

Even if these things came down in price, the printer and the "ink" would have to be cheaper than what you were planning on buying. Yes people will have in home uses for them. Mostly for printing things that are either hard to get, or custom made, or works of art style. Yes people will use them for other things, but that's what the main market for it will be.

There is just no way that any company (minis included) would just sit there and let themselves be printed out of business. If it is cheaper for you to print it, then they will just have to lower their prices. Yes everyone complains about GWs pricing and other policies. But you bet they have a team of analysts that look into this stuff. People are obviously still buying their products. If that changes, they would have to change their pricing. You cant honestly believe that a corporate accountant would look at their plummeting sales, discover the reason and go to the board and say, "well our only option is to drop the prices and adapt to the changing market" only to be met with "nah, lets drive this company into the ground".

Many industries have had lows as a result of changing technology (ie music, movie, gaming), and they eventually adapt. I couldn't see this being the death of TT mini games, or GW in particular.

Worst case, a corporate based restructuring would reduce/eliminate GW stores first. GW stores must turn at least some margin of profit, or they would be closed up. If they started running in the red, they would probably just shut that store down. Honestly, if GW needed to trim overhead, I would just have them close most of their stores, and stop limiting independent retailers. That is pretty much the only business practice that doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, raise the prices, because obviously people still pay it. But don't stop people from selling your stuff at no cost to you so you can pay your own staff to sell it instead. Over all the GW company could be reduced by a huge margin and still be a major player in the mini market.

summary: Do I see people in the future using 3D printers to print minis? Sure, but more based on custom poses or wargear, not whole armies. Do I see 3D printers putting GW (or any mini company) out of business? No way, even people in my high school accounting class could easily prevent that.

Malik_Raynor wrote:

BTW, 3D Printers have successfully created two houses and a gun!

3D-printers have not created a gun. They have created a lower receiver of a gun, which contains no parts which come under propellant pressure. Thus it can be built from anything (for example, paper), as long as you don't care about it's non-existent durability and hazards to you and your immediate surroundings.

 Peregrine wrote:
Right now, yes. When 3d printers become cheap enough for the average person to buy this won't be true anymore. Just look at what happened with CDs: at first burning your own required specialized and expensive equipment that only businesses could afford, now it's cheap enough that you don't even consider the price.

And you are missing the point that despite how ridiculously cheap and easy it is to purcahse CD/DVD burners the music industry and the movie industry are still here. DVDs still rake in plenty of cash in sales, because despite how "cheap" it is there is still only a certain type of person who is downloading DVD movies and burning them at home. Not everyone does it. Not everyone is going to do it either. So the market maintains enough honest people, or at least people who are honest enough because they are too lazy to go through the hassle of downloading their movies and music from the interwebs. iTunes has sold BILLIONS of music tracks and also sells ebooks, audiobooks, movies and TV shows as well. The industry has adapted and continues to exist and thrive despite how cheap and easy it is to copy DVDs or CDs these days.

If GW doesn't adapt and change its current sales model I don't expect they will be around long enough for it to matter what happens with 3D printers.

Skriker