Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Hairesy wrote:
It is pretty cute how we've cultivated a sense of moral outrage at playing against someone using recasts or prints. Like really, if you work at a game store sure fine. Protect your inventory, but then again... why aren't you investing in a printer that people can rent?

Here's the thing. When we enjoy something most people want to support those who create the thing we enjoy. It not only rewards them, but provides them money to invest into providing more of the thing we enjoy.

It doesn't matter what company or individual it is - if they make something we like then financially supporting them enables them to create more of what we like. Sure "BIG COMPANIES" are often seen as faceless and sure they are 100% in it for the money. So sure some goes into fat pensions, investors, bonuses and holidays for the boss. And some goes to Joe who spends all day doing a job sculpting stuff we love to play with.


For wargaming there's a sensitive part because a great many of the firms - ok lets be real pretty much every firm except GW - really is a small business. They really are a handful of people working at a job they love. Heck even within GW its not a business that generates vast sums of pay so most of the staff are there in creative roles partly because of the passion they have.

Stolen designs, however, aren't feeding into the system. A recaster or someone who copies a sculpt (be it copies sculpting or copies via recasting or via a 3D scanner) is just leaching off that. They aren't producing an original work; or giving us more. They are simply taking something someone else has developed, copying it and then selling it to us at a reduced rate to make quick money. They are worse than a company being "all in it for the money" because they aren't even putting the money they earn back into the hobby; its purely leached out.

So sure sometimes people do get irate at the idea of promoting that within hobby clubs and groups. You aren't paying to the store you play in, or at least any store. So you're not helping hold up the infrastructure that enables us to play nor which advertises and gets new people in; you're not paying to the creators and the company that created the thing; you're not paying into any part of the established structure that provides the game.



One person does it, it doesn't matter. A whole game club starts doing it because its cheap? Well chances are they'll lose their local physical store support so in time might well lose any newblood joining in. A culture that is allowed to grow within the greater hobby? BOOM suddenly avenues for new firms are cut off. You can't become the next Infinity or Burrows and Badgers if everyone is happy to use stolen designs/scans/recasts because its cheaper. Heck 3D printing already has to battle this in extreme because its so easy to steal STLs and put them up for sale. There's even one group that regularly advertises in the very FB groups that creators manage, offering 1000s of STLs for £30 or something similarly insanely low.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
It is pretty cute how we've cultivated a sense of moral outrage at playing against someone using recasts or prints.

It's really cute how we've cultivated a culture where stealing is like totally okay man.

Copyright infringement is not theft.

But it is easier to say than

“Depriving the rightful owner of a piece of intellectual property of relevant income related to the acquisition of a physical manifestation of the said intellectual property by an infringer of said copyright”

 Ouze wrote:
Copyright infringement is not theft.

It is when we're talking about real, tangible goods, not 01s. You still take money that should have went to people who actually made concept art, sculpts, 3D models of sprues, tooled them, made photos for boxes and art for books, etc, and give them to thieves that did nothing besides being parasites stealing the design and casting it in Emperor knows what cheap, toxic resin getting profit margins two orders of magnitude bigger than what GW did (which makes usual lame excuse of people buying from said thieves 'because GW margin is too big' especially stupid)

I can understand pirating digital music from colossal company that pays musicians next to nothing, especially seeing it's out there in radio, spotify, youtube and such and you could just record it. Stealing real, physical goods from company that makes a point in having workers in western country paying them local wages and benefits (plus big end of year performance bonus instead of just shuffling all the money to bosses) when they could move operations to Africa or Asia ain't it, chief, and equating it is just wrong.

 Hairesy wrote:
It is pretty cute how we've cultivated a sense of moral outrage at playing against someone using recasts or prints. Like really, if you work at a game store sure fine. Protect your inventory, but then again... why aren't you investing in a printer that people can rent?

Part of the "Charm" of one of my local shops. I offered to Print terrain for them....Hard Pass.

 Irbis wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Copyright infringement is not theft.

It is when we're talking about real, tangible goods, not 01s

I mean, it isn't. It just plain isn't. At least in the US (which I should have stipulated when I first said this), this is a well established bedrock precedent. Any argument otherwise (in the US) is basically feels over reals - especially when you oddly gave a morality carveout for copyright infringement for digital music.

If there is a jurisdiction in which IP violations are prosecuted under theft statutes, I am unaware of it. Otherwise it really is a case of false equivocation to make a loss of potential revenue look like like a harsher treated and regarded crime.

A chihuahua is not a rottweiler despite some similarities and words mean things.


Also, since when are scanners even good enough to do this? Every 3D scanner I've ever seen sort of sucked and had nowhere near the resolution you'd want for this kind of thing.

As long as you play their games (or use models that look like theirs) you still are "feeding into the system", no matter if you pay money to GW or someone else

 Hairesy wrote:

Businesses must either compete, or go broke. All we are doing by slavishly devoting ourselves to GW is enabling crony capitalism to overtake a niche hobby.

What you are proposing isn't supporting a business competing with GW but a company stealing from GW. There is a difference

The first is a company like Privateer Press, Infinity, Arch Villain Games, Lord of the Print etc.... Companies that hire (or are) artists to create work which is then put into production and sold as models/STLs. Who pay for artwork, lore, rules, models, world settings. Who promote the game, provide structure for competitive events etc...

The second is a person with a 3D scanner. Or a casting machine. Or skill in sculpting, but perhaps not in original designs. They aren't spending money on making something new, on supporting it with artwork, lore, rules, helping community events etc.. They are purely copying and reselling for a lower price. A price that a firm doing all the above can't compete.



Again you are perfectly free to not pay money to GW. You don't have to play their games. You can use 3rd party models from a range of firms making counts as armies; or 3D print ones. You can pay One Page Rules if you want. You can promote other games like Infinity, OPR, Warmachine at your local club etc...
You have the power to do a whole lot of good with your purchase choices and to help and support other competing firms.



Again I'm all for competition and competing firms in the market. I'm all for choice and having more models and creative designs and stuff. I'm all for making the market a better place for both gamers and creative people who have talent who choose to spend their working life producing stuff that I love to buy. I'd rather do that and encourage that than encourage people to steal/use recast/scanned etc... stuff that is just leaching out of the hobby that I love. Again by all means buy 3rd party stuff, but don't give it to Bob and his 3D scanner or Dave and his "I've got billions of STLs for £1" mega download. Give it to AVG, Wargame Exclusive, OPG, Badgers and Burrows, Infinity etc....

As far as I'm concerned, if it's made from scratch it's legit and I'll happily use it. Sure, I've got files that are almost 1:1 replicas of the MkIV Space Marines (for instance) I could buy from GW, but they're not scans, they were sculpted by someone generous enough with their time to make them and put them out there for the gaming/printing community. I was never going to buy those Marines from GW as I've not actually played any of their games since the early days of 40k 7th ed, and I download the files on the off chance that I decide one day that I fancy painting a Marine. GW is not losing my business because it was never there, and I have no involvement in their side of the hobby beyond filling my own shelves at home.

When it comes to original sculpts based on existing IP, I'm all for it. It's essentially fan art, and I think the key word there is art. Art should be paid for, and the person who made a Primaris version of a long-neglected Space Marine character or a large-scale figurine of Guilliman is definitely not 'leeching' or stealing from anyone, they're channeling their enjoyment of GW's game/lore/fiction into a new artistic endeavour and offering a product GW definitively does not sell, so a) they deserve to be compensated for their time and b) GW (or whoever) are not losing any money to the customer of this artist (if anything, said customer is already a fan and is/has given them plenty of support and money over the years and is just looking to expand their options).

This basically speaks to my stance on IP in general, which is that laws should protect the original work in its original format and not things inspired by/derived from elements of it in a different format/media. To me, anyone should be able to sell a print of some Witcher art they painted, or a Batman cosplay prop they made, or a Mandalorian figurine they sculpted.Those things are explitly not the same as the original product and are created from scratch, often with more care and attention than any 'official' merchandising is (the difference in quality between my knock-off Chinese replica Skywalker lightsaber and the Hasbro/Disney ones it sits next to is not a favourable comparison for the House of Mouse). Essentially, I don't really think that the first person to come up with an idea should be the only one to benefit from it, when that idea goes on to inspire tons of other people to produce their own art in different ways.

People like to defend IP laws by saying they're what stops Disney going and making a movie of your self-published novel or Amazon mass-producing your teacup design, but faaar more often they're used by corporations to shut down small-scale creative endeavours while they sit on piles of cash (which almost certainly does not find its way to the original artists, despite them claiming to care about that), and that to me is just crappy.

Me printing a Space Marine, or an Iron Man, or a Drizzt or a Gandalf to stick on my shelf is not going to bring down anyone, but if I pay for those things it might just lift up the person who produces the art that I enjoy.

I am a bit amused about how "IP theft" done by british garage companies has always been tolerated and welcome. Hasslefree, Copplestone, Heresy, GZG... have always lived off of other creatives' work, if we want to put it like some above have.

In my local scene, our attitude toward recasts is "don't ask, don't tell".

Proxies and stuff like that, we're pretty much universally good with, as long as the model has about the right dimensions and it's easy to tell what it counts as.

 Ouze wrote:

 Irbis wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Copyright infringement is not theft.

It is when we're talking about real, tangible goods, not 01s

I mean, it isn't. It just plain isn't. At least in the US (which I should have stipulated when I first said this), this is a well established bedrock precedent. Any argument otherwise (in the US) is basically feels over reals - especially when you oddly gave a morality carveout for copyright infringement for digital music.

If there is a jurisdiction in which IP violations are prosecuted under theft statutes, I am unaware of it. Otherwise it really is a case of false equivocation to make a loss of potential revenue look like like a harsher treated and regarded crime.

A chihuahua is not a rottweiler despite some similarities and words mean things.


Also, since when are scanners even good enough to do this? Every 3D scanner I've ever seen sort of sucked and had nowhere near the resolution you'd want for this kind of thing.

In Japan currently you can go to jail up to 2 years and be fined with up to 10 million yen for copyright violations. I haven't heard of anybody being sent to jail so far but it's there since the Abe goverment modified the law to apease manga an anime publishers (that not creators)

M.

To answer the question in the title:

I don't like the current GW aesthetic, but I do like some of the more foundational concepts.

Most of the GW-adjacent or GW-proxy STLs that interest me are interpretations of the GW-thing in the creator's own style. (A good example is OnePageRules's Robot Legions over GW Necrons.) Especially if it's in a more "Middlehammer" or "Herohammer" style over the modern, overwrought bling-a-ding-ding GW style.

So a straight 3D scan of a GW model interests me as little as the GW model itself does. Now, a 3D scan of an old, OOP GW model that's not available anymore? I'm still more interested in, for example, Monstrous Encounter's own twist of 4e/5e era orcs than a scan of the old plastic orcs, but at the same time it sure would be nice to be able to print a replacement for my long-lost WHQ elven ranger. (Though, again, if I found someone who'd sculpted said model in their own style, I'd probably throw them some money for it. I'd expect a straight 3D scan to be free on Thingiverse as more of a "for the community" archival effort.)

 Overread wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:

Businesses must either compete, or go broke. All we are doing by slavishly devoting ourselves to GW is enabling crony capitalism to overtake a niche hobby.

What you are proposing isn't supporting a business competing with GW but a company stealing from GW. There is a difference

The first is a company like Privateer Press, Infinity, Arch Villain Games, Lord of the Print etc.... Companies that hire (or are) artists to create work which is then put into production and sold as models/STLs. Who pay for artwork, lore, rules, models, world settings. Who promote the game, provide structure for competitive events etc...

The second is a person with a 3D scanner. Or a casting machine. Or skill in sculpting, but perhaps not in original designs. They aren't spending money on making something new, on supporting it with artwork, lore, rules, helping community events etc.. They are purely copying and reselling for a lower price. A price that a firm doing all the above can't compete.



Again you are perfectly free to not pay money to GW. You don't have to play their games. You can use 3rd party models from a range of firms making counts as armies; or 3D print ones. You can pay One Page Rules if you want. You can promote other games like Infinity, OPR, Warmachine at your local club etc...
You have the power to do a whole lot of good with your purchase choices and to help and support other competing firms.



Again I'm all for competition and competing firms in the market. I'm all for choice and having more models and creative designs and stuff. I'm all for making the market a better place for both gamers and creative people who have talent who choose to spend their working life producing stuff that I love to buy. I'd rather do that and encourage that than encourage people to steal/use recast/scanned etc... stuff that is just leaching out of the hobby that I love. Again by all means buy 3rd party stuff, but don't give it to Bob and his 3D scanner or Dave and his "I've got billions of STLs for £1" mega download. Give it to AVG, Wargame Exclusive, OPG, Badgers and Burrows, Infinity etc....

Couldn't agree more. Support other, more competent, businesses. And hey, if Bob wants to start 3D printing, support him too I say. It wasn't that long ago games included extra cardboard tokens, 3d printing is just an extension of that. Or could be. I'd happily pay GW for quality STL files of older units. They're stupid not to do it, imagine the money they could make by releasing old metal models as STLs.

You are proposing to support guy who does nothing of value though. Talentless scum.

Support people with talent. Not talentless thiefs.

You are basically saying you don't want anything new of good value come in future. Death of models.

 Hairesy wrote:
I'd happily pay GW for quality STL files of older units. They're stupid not to do it, imagine the money they could make by releasing old metal models as STLs.

I suspect that they're imagining the money they make by selling new plastic kits to people instead. Selling STLs of older models would mean diverting resources to get those models scanned and cleaned up to an acceptable standard, for a very uncertain return on investment and the potential for those STLs to just wind up getting shared around and undercutting their sales.

I wouldn't expect to see GW selling STLs until the technology hits a point where the files can be reliably governed by some form of DRM.

One problem with the STL market is that STLs are insanely fast at devaluing. Because the market has early on latched onto the Patreon model there's been a massive race to the bottom in 3D printing in terms of volume of delivery and value for a an STL.

You have some charging £10 or less for 100 or more models per month. That's 1200 new models from one creator group a year.


This has impacts on quality control, features, detailing, practicalities and a host of other things that impacts a lot of creators.
I think its why right now it works for small firms - small teams. But for a firm GW's size I can't see it working out over plastic model delivery.
There's also an element of customer burn-out that's yet to really hit because the market is growing' let alone creator burn out

tneva82 wrote:You are proposing to support guy who does nothing of value though. Talentless scum.

Support people with talent. Not talentless thiefs.

You are basically saying you don't want anything new of good value come in future. Death of models.

That is quite a leap, on both accounts. Our fictitious 3d printing entrepreneur is not worthless, or at least he wasn't when I made him up, why you gotta devalue my fictitious characters man? Sure, he could be feeding a crack habit, he could also be feeding four kids by himself because his wife died in a horrible ballooning accident. You don't know that Bob the 3d printer guy is scum. I mean, sure he could be, but then what are you saying about me? You think I support crackhead 3d printer people? That's rough bro.

insaniak wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
I'd happily pay GW for quality STL files of older units. They're stupid not to do it, imagine the money they could make by releasing old metal models as STLs.

I suspect that they're imagining the money they make by selling new plastic kits to people instead. Selling STLs of older models would mean diverting resources to get those models scanned and cleaned up to an acceptable standard, for a very uncertain return on investment and the potential for those STLs to just wind up getting shared around and undercutting their sales.

I wouldn't expect to see GW selling STLs until the technology hits a point where the files can be reliably governed by some form of DRM.

But what happens to that money? These companies just exist to pay shareholders, so who cares about what people want so long as the company can support itself while turning a profit. Sometimes it's not even necessary that the company should support itself, if that's what the shareholder decides. And when we get to the point where DRM can reliably govern files on peoples computers, shareholders will decide how that works too and we'll just keep shoveling money at them. I know it's ultimately nothing but altruism to think a company with a decades long legacy beloved in a niche market would throw their fans a bone by letting them print old minis they had no intention of making again, but goddamn it if you can't hope at least a little then what the hell, right?

 Hairesy wrote:

Couldn't agree more. Support other, more competent, businesses. And hey, if Bob wants to start 3D printing, support him too I say.

If Bob can only make it into the market through scanning and selling other peoples work, then Bob can go feth himself.

Depends.

Is it something GW will currently sell me?

Bad.

Is it an OOP miniature that I could only buy from a reseller on ebay, who is themselves not GW, so there is no option to give the original creator money to obtain the thing?

Love those folks. Proper little museum curators, IMO.

 Overread wrote:
One problem with the STL market is that STLs are insanely fast at devaluing. Because the market has early on latched onto the Patreon model there's been a massive race to the bottom in 3D printing in terms of volume of delivery and value for a an STL.

You have some charging £10 or less for 100 or more models per month. That's 1200 new models from one creator group a year.


This has impacts on quality control, features, detailing, practicalities and a host of other things that impacts a lot of creators.
I think its why right now it works for small firms - small teams. But for a firm GW's size I can't see it working out over plastic model delivery.
There's also an element of customer burn-out that's yet to really hit because the market is growing' let alone creator burn out

Exactly my thought. My first patreon was Titanforge because I loved their Eastern Empire line, but their current stuff just does not do it for me. really blocky, looks like it was forced. Other companies do some magnificent work, but then over the months it starts looking like they had 2-3 really good models and the rest were rushed to meet a certain quantity count to keep subscribers happy.

tneva82 wrote:
You are proposing to support guy who does nothing of value though.

While it's still unambiguously copyright infringement, I see value add coming from these STL uploaders that you don't see with recasters. All recasters do is undercut the legitimate product by offering a direct equivalent, but anyone distributing STLs is providing a specific product that GW does not. People buy from recasters because they want GW models without GW prices; people buy STLs because they don't want the physical model, they want the design, and there is no legitimate option for that.

This is especially relevant to OOP models. Someone who uploads an STL of an OOP model is illegally infringing on GW's copyright, but they're not siphoning a dime from GW and they are absolutely creating value. If GW offered STLs of OOP models I can think of quite a few I'd like to buy, but I can't, so I have no compunctions about buying third-party STLs that copy those designs.

The reality of the situation is that as 3D printing gets more popular, there will be more and more people willing to pay for STLs that they can print at home on their own hardware, rather than expensive injection-molded models. I'd guess that GW isn't willing to go down the route of selling files when there isn't credible DRM for it, but that leaves demand in the market that others are willing to (legally or not) fulfill.

 Hairesy wrote:

insaniak wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
I'd happily pay GW for quality STL files of older units. They're stupid not to do it, imagine the money they could make by releasing old metal models as STLs.

I suspect that they're imagining the money they make by selling new plastic kits to people instead. Selling STLs of older models would mean diverting resources to get those models scanned and cleaned up to an acceptable standard, for a very uncertain return on investment and the potential for those STLs to just wind up getting shared around and undercutting their sales.

I wouldn't expect to see GW selling STLs until the technology hits a point where the files can be reliably governed by some form of DRM.

But what happens to that money? These companies just exist to pay shareholders, so who cares about what people want so long as the company can support itself while turning a profit.

That's not true, and is the point that Overread was making earlier. GW exists to turn a profit through selling wargaming models, rules and related products. In order to do that they have to reinvest most of their revenue into continuing to produce those things. That's what Overread was getting at when he points out someone selling a straight scan isn't competing. There's no way any business that creates new, original models can compete with a guy who simply scans them and sells them on, whether the company is GW, PP, or any one of the myriad one-man sculptors out there. If everyone decides it's fine to just go and buy a scan of an existing model the end result is no more models to scan.

Slipspace wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:

insaniak wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:
I'd happily pay GW for quality STL files of older units. They're stupid not to do it, imagine the money they could make by releasing old metal models as STLs.

I suspect that they're imagining the money they make by selling new plastic kits to people instead. Selling STLs of older models would mean diverting resources to get those models scanned and cleaned up to an acceptable standard, for a very uncertain return on investment and the potential for those STLs to just wind up getting shared around and undercutting their sales.

I wouldn't expect to see GW selling STLs until the technology hits a point where the files can be reliably governed by some form of DRM.

But what happens to that money? These companies just exist to pay shareholders, so who cares about what people want so long as the company can support itself while turning a profit.

That's not true, and is the point that Overread was making earlier. GW exists to turn a profit through selling wargaming models, rules and related products. In order to do that they have to reinvest most of their revenue into continuing to produce those things. That's what Overread was getting at when he points out someone selling a straight scan isn't competing. There's no way any business that creates new, original models can compete with a guy who simply scans them and sells them on, whether the company is GW, PP, or any one of the myriad one-man sculptors out there. If everyone decides it's fine to just go and buy a scan of an existing model the end result is no more models to scan.

Exactly, but it also goes further than that too. GW especially so, but in general all companies turning a profit on their product also benefit from marketing that product. They build games, rules, marketing campaigns, competitions, heck GW has stores of their own on the highstreet. Those companies work by spreading awareness and getting more people into their respective games and into wargaming itself (again GW does a lions share of that I feel for wargaming, but others do their best too).

It's also not just them, its supporting the local game store (be it indie or gw or whatever). The place where locally people will be marketed too, tempted to join and which ideally can act as a local hub. Even if you can't or don't play there, its a physical common resource and focal point. It's where you can at least advertise your local game group.

This is the structure you help support by buying models from official sources. You spending money is paying those for those stores overheads, wages, profits, holidays, shareholders if they are big enough.


That's why I say even if you don't want to buy GW models, at least buy stuff that reinforces the structure of wargaming.
And sure one person is not going to make a difference. However the attitude we present toward things like scans and recasts is what influences other people's purchase choices. Online we can present our angle to a vast population and if we generate a social attitude that is ok with scans and such then it isn't just one person's money, its dozens, hundreds. It can risk becoming a growing population that eventually can become a significant impact.

 Overread wrote:
One problem with the STL market is that STLs are insanely fast at devaluing. Because the market has early on latched onto the Patreon model there's been a massive race to the bottom in 3D printing in terms of volume of delivery and value for a an STL.

You have some charging £10 or less for 100 or more models per month. That's 1200 new models from one creator group a year.


This has impacts on quality control, features, detailing, practicalities and a host of other things that impacts a lot of creators.
I think its why right now it works for small firms - small teams. But for a firm GW's size I can't see it working out over plastic model delivery.
There's also an element of customer burn-out that's yet to really hit because the market is growing' let alone creator burn out

I don't know if that's necessarily the case.

The Patreon model is a limited-time promotional discount. Most of the big name patreons where you can get a crazy number of STLs for a low price...do sell those STLs at more typical prices for STLs on myminifactory - for the most part, anecdotally, it seems like you pay about 15$ for a single large model or a unit, and about 5$ for a single model character STL.

Take for example Lost Kingdom Miniatures - I got in on the patreon this month after falling in love with their Mori Elves line, because this month is an expansion of that line. There's 10 infantry minis, 3 unicorns, a big deer, and a magic tree, for 13 bucks.

Go on their online store, and you'll see most of their units, that's about what you pay for them. I think I paid 12$ for a unit of heavy infantry about the same size as the 3 unicorns, and 15 for a big golem thing the other day.

So the patreon is effectively a limited time sale for about 75% off for a replicable digital good. to me, saying that that devalues what an STL should cost is a bit like saying that the existence of Steam Sales devalues what a video game should cost. Maybe. But since steam's introduction, video games have not actually gotten any cheaper at full price. Steam just introduced deeper, more frequent sales, because it is a digital medium with fewer production costs than a video game that you've put on a disc with an instruction booklet in a cardboard box and then shipped around the world and stored in a warehouse for a while.

That's it. Theyre still making the same profit vs sales volume calculations, theyre just not factoring in the costs for physical goods.

Hairesy wrote:Our fictitious 3d printing entrepreneur is not worthless, or at least he wasn't when I made him up, why you gotta devalue my fictitious characters man? Sure, he could be feeding a crack habit, he could also be feeding four kids by himself because his wife died in a horrible ballooning accident. You don't know that Bob the 3d printer guy is scum.

If the only worth that Bob the 3D printer guy contributes to the hobby community is directly copypasting and printing other people's work, then yes, Bob is worthless and scum.

We don't care about his hypothetical crack habit or his fictional children, because that's not what's being criticised here, and you know it.

Insectum7 wrote:

 Hairesy wrote:

Couldn't agree more. Support other, more competent, businesses. And hey, if Bob wants to start 3D printing, support him too I say.

If Bob can only make it into the market through scanning and selling other peoples work, then Bob can go feth himself.

Cannot agree more.

I think the key difference is that normally a product launches at X price and, typically, thereafter its price reduces over time. Be that through depreciation and/or through timed sales. Yes sometimes things do increase, but that's typically a result of things like production cost increase or limited production runs making for limited supply. Now the former can have an effect on any market, but the latter really isn't unless a creator chooses to make it so with 3D printing by restricting sale.


So the product starts off at a heavily discounted rate through Patreon. Like it or not that sets a "price" in people's mind as to the value of that product. When it goes on retail later it seems REALLY expensive. So people are more likely to wait for a sale (or sign up to the patreon for the patreon sale price which many do offer). The risk, however, is that if its anything "popular" in design people might just wait for the next patreon.


Eg myself I got interested in Lizardmen. Now I know that Lost Kingdom do a fantastic line of them; heck I think they were one of the first big STL releases and the quality is still there today. But its expensive to buy into all the STLs now for the full army. It's vastly cheaper for me to find other designers doing similar work and buy from them through patreon. Yes I might still get the LK models, but not all, maybe only some and maybe only on sale.




This is the same kind of reasoning as to why when Epic Games Store was getting started and did a big sale on games, a lot of the developers got up an arms against them and against the sale. Sure it drove sales and sure Epic covered all the monetary difference so the developer got full price whilst the customer got a discounted price. But the developers argued that now the game had been on sale, a portion of the customer base (which must be significant) would now never buy the game once it went full retail price again. They would wait for it to go on sale again because the "sale price" was the value of the product now that it had been discounted.




That as I see it is a concern for the STL market, but I don't think its one we will see worry people right now whilst the market is growing; whlist the number of designers is growing, but still small and a million other reasons. Heck it might be we never reach a point where it is a concern for the market; but I can see it being a concern for individuals who aren't part of larger teams who might have to step back from the Patreon model due to design burn-out; who then need to rely on their backlog of models to support them and, perhaps, a slower release schedule going forward.

We copy IP all the time often we call this experience and learning. Every day billions of photographs are taken and probably only a handful are "original". More than 99.9% try to mimic some kind of photograph the shooter has seen before. The same is with books and stories or the billions of songs sung under the shower. So when does it become a problem ? When you sing a song under the shower the composer will not mind. When you play it with your band in the cellar he will not mind. If you record the song and sell it, competing with the composer/interpret using his own song and cutting into his potential profit, he will take offence.
IMHO this is quite simple and understandable.
I use the same "measure" for 3D printing. If you create a lookalike model or a clone from the ground up for yourself and nobody else it's fine. It does not matter whether you scanned it or designed it. As long as you didn't buy the stl it will be fine.
As soon as you create and sell a lookalike/clone it's wrong. Again no matter how you created it, there's no difference in scanning and designing a clone.
If you do a similar model i find it ok to do so as long as there is no doubt that it is not a clone of a model or even a model from the manufacturer.
What is similar or not similar enough is open for discussion. A model that could be mistaken for a certain model from the original manufacturer is definitely too similar.
I assume that the people who think copying and selling work cloning other peoples products is ok, are those people who never have anything created worth copying or at least nothing they earn money from.
Even "a model no longer available" is no excuse. We do not have a god given right to get/own a certain miniature.

Oh my, so many multi-quotes, so little time.

The point is to make people feel okay with doing their own thing. Why should GW have the monopoly on gaming? Should people not buy older editions and play them now too? Honestly. GW just rereleased Squats, now was that a community driven decision or were they just renewing the IP on space dwarfs? You guys are disagreeing that companies exist to turn a profit, but your argument is that GW exists to turn a profit doing wargaming stuff... well the truth is that if GW was all we had half the community would be priced out. Should I refuse games against people who built their own terrain, because GW sells some nice factorum stuff. I'm gonna try that next time I get a match and see some scratch built terrain, see how it goes.

And you know what they say about the word assume, so...

The real test of this will be if or when GW releases a new Battlefleet Gothic. BFG is a game that has been out of print for years, with second hand models so rare and pricey that the only way for new gamers to play is to buy proxies or prints.

I don’t believe any of us have a problem with companies like Battlegroup Helios making original minis in the style of BFG. (Right?)

But the prints. There are so many 3D prints of BFG out there. Some are stylistic homages, some are straight up tips from the BFG video games, but most are “close enough” attempts to recreate the old BFG ships in a form suitable for printing and playing. People also print the ships in different scales, both huge and small, making the hobby their own in a way that could never be done before 3D printing.

At this moment, these prints are not taking money away from GW. In fact, they are making money for GW, as new players end up buying paints, novels, perhaps some plastics from the 40k range that caught their eyes.

If GW brings out BFG, a lot of players will want the official rule books, bases, tokens, range rulers, and so on. They would likely buy the miniatures if they felt the price was worth the value. If GW prices weren’t cuckoo-bananas-bonkers, buying official minis would be a no-brainer.

As we know, there are a lot of customers who will pay a lot of money for GW products so long as they can find games. GW already killed BFG once, and they would do it again. 3D prints would, however, provide a lot more opponents for the actual GW customers to play against, so that they could continue to find games and buy product.

Do you believe GW would make more from having a supported game that brings in “whales” and few casual customers, or do you believe GW would make more money eliminating 3D prints and the overwhelming bulk of the player base?

I admit I am a bit biased in that I would never buy GW products at their current prices, even if there were no alternatives. I find it ridiculous to assume most 3D prints represent a lost sale.