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With 3D printers becoming more and more common, is games workshop worried about people just printing their own models? Clearly they would be able to be used in tournament play at least not early versions but eventually 3D printers will be able to replicate models on sprue. Should games workshop be worried and perhaps finally lower their prices? 

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but one of  the biggest problems I have with the game is pricing of different models, example a squad of guardsmen will set you back about $35, while a Leman russ costing $60. They both are essentially the same with regards to weight of plastic contained in the box but the tank is nearly double the price.

Just wondering what other people think

Eventually, maybe, if prices do not lower



They have more competition from China recasting, where no one seems to care about Copy Right of Intellectual Property.

Not really:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/573271.page

Short answer, no. Long answer, noooooooo.

It's going to be a long time before 3D printers are capable of rivaling the material quality, smoothness, and level of detail of injection molded plastic models at a comparable price, much less a cheaper one. The ones you see being used to print masters for resin casting, for instance, still require extensive cleanup after to improve surface finish, and are very, very expensive.

If printers were somehow truly a threat, it would probably force GW to lower their prices (which would be a good thing). And that's a war they would win, thanks to the benefits of mass production. Injection molded plastic models really are so cheap to make, especially when you own your own tooling and production facilities like GW does, that I fail to see how 3D printers could really compete on price if GW chose to lower prices to compete.

Not to mention if printer technology did advance sufficiently to be truly disruptive, you'd still need talented 3D modelers to actually make the model files. GW already has these artists, and they already have the 3D models. Nothing would stop them from buying industrial versions of the same printer technology and cranking out 3D printed copies on demand, again for cheaper than you could at home.

This argument is basically analogous to the book publishing industry. Are bookstores obsolete now that we all have inkjet printers? No. Bookstores are in trouble because of e-books, which is more like GW being in trouble because of video games.

UrsoerTheSquid wrote:
With 3D printers becoming more and more common, is games workshop worried about people just printing their own models? Clearly they would be able to be used in tournament play at least not early versions but eventually 3D printers will be able to replicate models on sprue. Should games workshop be worried and perhaps finally lower their prices? 

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but one of  the biggest problems I have with the game is pricing of different models, example a squad of guardsmen will set you back about $35, while a Leman russ costing $60. They both are essentially the same with regards to weight of plastic contained in the box but the tank is nearly double the price.

Just wondering what other people think

I think any business model based on high priced models is in trouble. But if they change their model, I think they can survive. They are already in the IP selling business, they just need to make that portion fully effective.

I responded on the other thread that someone referred to earlier in this thread. I think 3d printing is closer than people might think. There are getting to be enough printers out there that are capable enough to make printing models a reality. When I put this model down on the table most people have no idea it is a 3d print unless I tell them.



Getting a good 3d model is the real thing holding at least me back from printing more stuff. I have a few really good ones and some I have made myself that are passable.

I don't think GW will really get displaced for the most part but I think you will begin to see more and more stuff 3d printed as time rolls on. 3 d printing does not really scale very well to mass produce things, but for custom things or a home user not needing to scale up production to a commercial level and just print a thing or 2 here and there it will become more and more common. Right now I am printing up a few more of those Russ/Battle Wagons so I can get 5 so I can roll out the Blitz Brigade formation. I need 2 more Battle Wagons so I will print them up for a total of about $12 rather than the $100 I would pay for 2 Wagon kits. Makes sense to me and the quality is good enough for me.

Loborocket wrote:
When I put this model down on the table most people have no idea it is a 3d print unless I tell them.

Then stop showing it to people who don't know what a 3d-printed model looks like. The print lines are incredibly obvious, and anyone who knows about 3d printing is going to recognize it. And even people who don't know the signs of a 3d printed model can recognize that it's a badly done copy of a LRBT, even if they aren't sure what method was used to create it.

Makes sense to me and the quality is good enough for me.

Sure, but that just means you have low standards. People who want a nice model aren't going to be 3d printing anything in the foreseeable future.

This thread makes it's reanimation protocols roll every other month.

The printers are not the easiest to use.
The printers are too expensive for wide adoption.
Creating the files they use requires a significant investment of time, not only to do, but do develop the skills required to do so.

When they are $300, available at WalMart, and 40K models are all over the torrent sites, they will probably take up less of the market than Chinese Recasters currently do.

Currently recasting is much cheaper and better than 3d printing. It's sometimes even better quality than gw/fw models.

Not yet. You can't print a model cheaper and better than 40k can make one, the problem is sitting on the horizon but it's waiting on a technical breakthrough to actually hit.

Nah. We only buy recasts now and they are much cheaper than 3D printing the models.

The point of 3d printing is for 'rapid' prototyping, not mass production.
If you want a specific item or model, it is good for that, but printing an army is not a great idea.
Before the codex-cull of entries without a model, those now-dead units and models were begging to get 3d printed. Now though, not as much.

It is utterly AMAZING how much BETTER Informed the DakkaDakka crowd is regarding 3D printing to that of the inhabitants of The Miniatures Page (who seem to have the opinion that GW is eminently threatened by 3D printing, as is the miniatures industry as a whole).

I have worked with 3D printers and mills for almost 15 years now, and it will be at least another 5 years before 3D printers are ubiquitous enough to affect the economy, and at least 5 more before they have the detail to produce anything near what can be produced by traditional miniatures companies.

And....

I am pretty sure that anyone who is familiar with 3D modeling knows, GW will simply switch to selling the base-meshes needed to print out a model.

Making those things isn't as easy as people think.

MB

Sure GW is in trouble...if there ever emerged a market for minatures with crappy detail.

3d printing isn't as inaccessable as it was. You can get a decent kit for £300-400 for a prusa i3 with a 0.4 nozzle. You need to assemble, twiddle and fiddle it, load the firmware that you need to also twiddle and fiddle and then start printing.
Filiment is cheap, but we all know plastic is cheap, its the time and effort. Injection moulding is better and cheaper - if you need a lot of an item.

Rapid prototyping, even on a home scale is good for getting a one off, or a bit that you cant find (or making things like terrain)

while the lines are 'obvious'and big/small depending on the height setting, you can easily coat surfaces them in liquid greenstuff and sand them to a finish, however this is yet more servitor hours.

So yes it is cheap to print a crappy space marine for 0.05pence + time + electricity (2 hour print = 5p?) then you need to spend another 2 hours fixing it and it's still not going to look as good as one you get from GW.

To get that level you'd need high quality files and an industrial rapid protoyping machine - probably a resin/laser one. It would take ages and cost a lot.

The general guide is that if you need more that 100 of a piece it's better to get it injection moulded.

On top of that you have the strength of the piece, injection moulded pieces will be stronger than the filiment-laminate of a 3d printed piece.

It may sound like I'm rubbishing 3d printing - im not I love my printer, it's great for one offs like cos-play accessories for my friends, terrain pieces that I can finish by hand and cast up in resin etc.

What it's not good for is the level of detail required for 28mm/heroic scale wargaming

Nope. The Printer never killed off the publishing industry either.

It is far easier to make your own mold and pump out the models, printing takes far longer for worse results.
http://www.smooth-on.com/Model-Making/c1290/index.html
http://www.stormthecastle.com/miniatures/casting-miniatures-tutorial-index.htm
http://www.freemansupply.com/video.htm

A long time ago there were no thousand sons models with the fancy headgear.
So I sculpted parts to upgrade a chaos space marine.
Low melt metal or plastic works well.
If using low-melt metal always powder the mold with talc: it removes surface tension and gets better flow.

Anyway, NO 3D printing will not replace what GW is putting out now, BUT is awesome for making something if your CAD is better than your sculpting to then turn around and cast.

with a 3d printer costing grandage still? no!

do you work for GW OP?

the only peeps who will profit from this are chinese and reeking of solvents! (i am refering to re-casters here, i aint got no time for bigotry!)

 TheCustomLime wrote:
Nope. The Printer never killed off the publishing industry either.

Cost. PDFs cost little, but books do not cost that much more. GW miniatures, however, have a GIANT cost difference between retail and recast. Once 3D printers get affordable, we'll see changes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 SirDonlad wrote:

the only peeps who will profit from this are chinese and reeking of solvents! (i am refering to re-casters here, i aint got no time for bigotry!)

Recasts from China nowadays have a very high quality standard.

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:
If printers were somehow truly a threat, it would probably force GW to lower their prices (which would be a good thing). And that's a war they would win, thanks to the benefits of mass production.

That's the threadkiller, as far as I'm concerned.

A plastic mini produced by mass production injection molding will always be cheaper than a 3D printed mini of equivalent quality. Full stop. The assumption being made by a lot of people in this thread is that in 5-10 years, you will be able to make a mini at home of comparable quality to GW's mini, for less or equal price. That's just not going to happen - the cost savings of mass produced injection molded plastic parts will always outpace the price and capabilities of small-scale 3D printing.

...which is not to say that GW's massive markups will be safe. There will eventually be downward pressure on their prices, forcing them to actually compete on price with 3D printing.

 DanielBeaver wrote:

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:
If printers were somehow truly a threat, it would probably force GW to lower their prices (which would be a good thing). And that's a war they would win, thanks to the benefits of mass production.

That's the threadkiller, as far as I'm concerned.
A plastic mini produced by mass production injection molding will always be cheaper than a 3D printed mini of equivalent quality. Full stop. The assumption being made by a lot of people in this thread is that in 5-10 years, you will be able to make a mini at home of comparable quality to GW's mini, for less or equal price. That's just not going to happen - the cost savings of mass produced injection molded plastic parts will always outpace the price and capabilities of small-scale 3D printing.
...which is not to say that GW's massive markups will be safe. There will eventually be downward pressure on their prices, forcing them to actually compete on price with 3D printing.

Re-casting is cheap and easy, I was able to make my own molds and in little time and cost pound out little men at ~1/10th the silly cost of GW kits with metal.
Proof here, rather long:Basically:
You can have a marine for about $5 from GW, 55 cents in metal or 5 cents in plastic made "somewhere else".
Again, way back when I had done this with my own sculpted items and I am showing a case how easily those folks in China can be very competitive in recasting.

So back with this thread: unless we can get a serious "turbo-mode" to 3D printing it is unsuitable at this time for pounding out a volume of models cheaply compared to other processes. Oddly, I still feel some money should get to GW since they did make these models no matter how long ago...

<edit> Having re-done this math irritates me, you know GW is able to physically produce product for FAR cheaper, they do have overhead to cover but still... sheesh!

(instructs a mechantendril to doff his cranial flow enhancer to 'Talizvar' for his efforts in self-casting parts)

They're not in trouble yet, and won't be for a while.

3D printing as it currently stands, is relatively primitive and expensive, and as such GW remains both drastically cheaper and superior to anything 3D printed.

And until effective and reliable equipment comes along to "scan" something in 3D so it can then be reprinted in 3D, direct copies will be difficult.

Until cost, quality, and scan capabilities drastically improve, GW is fine. This will change eventually, but I don't think it'll be any less than a decade, possibly two, before it becomes a realistic threat to GW's business.

That said, once those things happen, it will be a huge deal, though GW at that point may also be able to simply sell the sprue/model pattern as a digital download for you to print yourself, though how they'll prevent the patterns from being pirated is anyone's guess.

In answer to the OP, not directly. That said, rapid prototyping is bringing miniature production of high quality within the realm of possibility for even small producers.

Make your 3d model, create a spru and CNC mill the mold, garage plastic model production. All of which was prohibitively expensive even a few years ago but is now within the realm of one-man operations. There's a guy that owns his own garage shop with a plastic injection machine and everything....the name of his company escapes me but I'm sure someone here knows it.

So. Competition, even small-potatoes, can pull money away from GW (and probably already does if you want to be honest) which will hurt them in the short and long-term.

 Vaktathi wrote:

And until effective and reliable equipment comes along to "scan" something in 3D so it can then be reprinted in 3D, direct copies will be difficult.

This is a 3d scan of a Eulaema bee



http://3d.si.edu/explorer?s=g65BGY

The file can be downloaded and printed.

The scanning of very small things at high detail level is possible.

It's possible, but not on anything near a consumer level (the level we're really getting at here) as far as I am aware.

To be honest, I don't want them to be 3d printed. Mainly because it will be harder to do conversions.

 adamsouza wrote:
This thread makes it's reanimation protocols roll every other month.

I lol'd.

Da Stormlord wrote:
To be honest, I don't want them to be 3d printed. Mainly because it will be harder to do conversions.

Not if you can 3D print the sprue

good point, but the detail produced will not match that image.

currently GW and FW use 3d printing for their prototyping - the recasters will save a little bit of money (little being the operative word) by downloading the 3d file and make a mold themselves just like GW/FW do.

the biggest draw of that to them being they can quickly produce 'acceptable' versions of GW/FW stuff before its even on sale!

otherwise its just a lot of extra hassle and not as reliable as the media would lead you to beleive - metal printing machines are actually accurate but only because its a laser which does the bonding work and the material fuses together into one homogenus mass.

anyone who has worked with machines knows that it doesnt stay set up the way it was when it started!

any changes in flow rate, heat build-up, material inconsistencies and even inaccuracy due to gearing slack can turn a 'model' into a 'broken model' and even into a 'lump of scrap' - impressive stuff!