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Dudeface wrote:
I will say that, from my personal perspective, a lot of vocal 3d printer owners tend to be quite egotistical and abrasive about it.

I expect mentally a lot of that comes from the same place as the anti-GW sentiment of folks who switched to a non-GW game (I know Warmachine and Infinity cliques used to be especially loud about it)

 JamesY wrote:
https://only-games.co/collections/avatars-of-war

You can still buy physical minis on a legit print on demand service. I really don't understand the issue beyond preference of medium. No one is being prevented from accessing their products based on this decision.

Isn’t that the service Wargames Atlantic partnered with, the one with the poor customer service and expensive shipping to the US?

Also, having gotten into the 3D printed craze, I’m burned out on the material. HIPS and cast resin for me.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I will say that, from my personal perspective, a lot of vocal 3d printer owners tend to be quite egotistical and abrasive about it.

I expect mentally a lot of that comes from the same place as the anti-GW sentiment of folks who switched to a non-GW game (I know Warmachine and Infinity cliques used to be especially loud about it)

And like many cases, the majority are not that hostile and its only a minority who are just very very vocal all the time about it.

Also there's a portion who don't intend to be hostile or abrasive, but they are very fired up about the new thing they are into and have a very abrupt posting style that makes them sound very abrasive/rude

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
https://only-games.co/collections/avatars-of-war

You can still buy physical minis on a legit print on demand service. I really don't understand the issue beyond preference of medium. No one is being prevented from accessing their products based on this decision.

Isn’t that the service Wargames Atlantic partnered with, the one with the poor customer service and expensive shipping to the US?

Also, having gotten into the 3D printed craze, I’m burned out on the material. HIPS and cast resin for me.

All I know of it is that it's MMF's production wing. Never had any dealings with it myself.




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 Overread wrote:
A range of their models predate the 3D printing arm of their releases. So there's selection that, once gone, might never return. Or might only return with a new design.

Isn't that true of every manufacturer; technology and or market changes mean that products change, get updated or go out of production?

 JamesY wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:
A range of their models predate the 3D printing arm of their releases. So there's selection that, once gone, might never return. Or might only return with a new design.

Isn't that true of every manufacturer; technology and or market changes mean that products change, get updated or go out of production?

Changes within the same production model are quite common, what is new for the past few years and what worries me ( we are seeing this on Salute too) is a massive drop of all traditional production in favour of 3d print workflow only.
I dont think even any passionate fan of 3d Print cannot see how this is quite damaging for the industry as a whole. Its our foundations after all.
Remember guys that all was built on traditional for 5 or so decades and in just a few years its eroded, for many reasons not only 3D, but 3D seems like the cheaper/production way companies are going forward.

As for the vocal rude people well I assume they are the minority and not representative, easy to ignore. What's more difficult is the lack of regulations in place, that IMO is making the legit services harder to speak out about the pros and cons of the medium.

If avatar of war kept a range of current production in place alongside new Printing, I think that would be great. But no, these companies are slimming down... some that cant compete with the cheap prices of not having stock, close in silence never to be heard again too. Pretty dire like I said before.

 JamesY wrote:

 Overread wrote:
A range of their models predate the 3D printing arm of their releases. So there's selection that, once gone, might never return. Or might only return with a new design.

Isn't that true of every manufacturer; technology and or market changes mean that products change, get updated or go out of production?

Yes - and people dislike it.

Wargames and models are an enigma in the modern world. Many modern businesses are focused purely on new products* with customers who only want new product; or who are only directed toward new product.
Wargames don't do that, there are many that are running on 10-20-30 year old sculpts with customers 100% happy for those models. Wargames are also slow - many customers have a backlog; many want to see a game that has 5-10 years of viable life in it before they'll even choose to spend money and time on it.

The result is that people don't like seeing products vanish from access to the market because along with the backlog, we also all have a shopping list of things we'd like to own.

The upshot is that gamers/hobbyists dislike seeing models lost. Sure many times its like GW does it and its not "lost" but simply replaced, yet even then there's a bunch of classic designs that are popular. Just go look up the Diaz Deamonettes which sell for silly money on ebay and the like.

So yeah they aren't shutting down fully, but that still means people are sad to see a bunch of designs and sculpts that they would like to own, vanish from the market. Small creators also never flood the 2nd hand market like GW does and often their smaller customer base will hold onto models far longer too. So whilst GW might retire a sculpt, you can generally get it if you're willing to wait and spend. Heck with some patience and cash you could build a whole Diaz Deamonette force if you wanted and that's before we touch on GW's other unique aspect of being recast/copied as well.
Step down to the other firms and that wait time could be years to decades before a model might appear on the market for sale. The stock of them is far smaller and heck there's every chance it might just get listed as "generic thing" rather than branded.

*with more than a few now designing products with intentional limited lifespans/fails and other elements that either force or very heavily encourage upgrading to the new product. Even down to how they handle repairs; block 3rd party repairs and more.

Sorry but immah fly off the handle now cause I'm tired of the cognitive dissonance.

 Overread wrote:
So yeah they aren't shutting down fully, but that still means people are sad to see a bunch of designs and sculpts that they would like to own, vanish from the market.

Should have bought them.

People can't be out here not buying the models, and then complaining they go out of print.

Obviously people with printers are the ones actually spending the money at Avatars of War, or AoW would not be pivoting to servicing us exclusively.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Sorry but immah fly off the handle now cause I'm tired of the cognitive dissonance.

 Overread wrote:
So yeah they aren't shutting down fully, but that still means people are sad to see a bunch of designs and sculpts that they would like to own, vanish from the market.

Should have bought them.

You can't be here not buying the models, and then complaining they go out of print.

Obviously people with printers are the ones actually spending the money at Avatars of War, or AoW would not be pivoting to servicing us exclusively.

You do realise that buying any full range is a long time exercise/investment.
One person buying 4 boxes for 30each during a few months invests more than downloading cheaper STLS.
Now divide that by the amount of companies that you want the full range and yes its a long investment. Obviously you dislike seeing it closed when theres still things you need to get.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Sorry but immah fly off the handle now cause I'm tired of the cognitive dissonance.

 Overread wrote:
So yeah they aren't shutting down fully, but that still means people are sad to see a bunch of designs and sculpts that they would like to own, vanish from the market.

Should have bought them.

People can't be out here not buying the models, and then complaining they go out of print.

Obviously people with printers are the ones actually spending the money at Avatars of War, or AoW would not be pivoting to servicing us exclusively.

I'm not overly familiar with how much overlap there was between their physical and STL ranges in honesty but in an extreme example, hypothetically all it takes is for 1 reseller to buy the STLs and be licensed appropriately and AoW will never sell anything to anyone else ever again. The danger of STLs is that they also undercut the owners production and retail via other people printing and selling for a lower price because they bought the STL's for a nominal amount, bought a few minor currency of choice's worth of resin and printed out 10 units to sell at several hundred % mark up.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Sorry but immah fly off the handle now cause I'm tired of the cognitive dissonance.

 Overread wrote:
So yeah they aren't shutting down fully, but that still means people are sad to see a bunch of designs and sculpts that they would like to own, vanish from the market.

Should have bought them.

People can't be out here not buying the models, and then complaining they go out of print.

Obviously people with printers are the ones actually spending the money at Avatars of War, or AoW would not be pivoting to servicing us exclusively.

So your angry that people aren't just richer in time and money to do everything they want?

Or that people discovered AoW only last month or last week or recently and aren't willing to just buy every model (including multiples) that they want in one big order?

I mean ok, but in the end we don't know what their sales of physical models were like nor their operating costs. A LOT of things have gone up in price over the last year and a half and many model firms have had to make changes. New materials (big investment); downsizing physical production; shutting it down; raising prices etc... This isn't just a bubble of people not spending; its a bubble of everything in life going up in price forcing changes. It might be AoW are seeing rising costs; no rising market sales and have no ability to invest in a different production method to make it viable over downsizing to just STLs - and whilst 3D printing is utterly awesome and amazing its not without its own risks.

Dudeface wrote:
I'm not overly familiar with how much overlap there was between their physical and STL ranges in honesty but in an extreme example, hypothetically all it takes is for 1 reseller to buy the STLs and be licensed appropriately and AoW will never sell anything to anyone else ever again. The danger of STLs is that they also undercut the owners production and retail via other people printing and selling for a lower price because they bought the STL's for a nominal amount, bought a few minor currency of choice's worth of resin and printed out 10 units to sell at several hundred % mark up.

"Piracy" has existed for as long as personal computing has existed, and yet here we are, in a corporate dystopia ran in large part by software companies and IP holders. But also in a world where a modest number of small creators are able to make a living largely because fans actively support them even with full knowledge that their wares can be had for free on Telegram.

Hopefully, AoW has been doing digital releases for long enough to gauge correctly if enough ends up in their pocket to count themselves in with that group.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I'm not overly familiar with how much overlap there was between their physical and STL ranges in honesty but in an extreme example, hypothetically all it takes is for 1 reseller to buy the STLs and be licensed appropriately and AoW will never sell anything to anyone else ever again. The danger of STLs is that they also undercut the owners production and retail via other people printing and selling for a lower price because they bought the STL's for a nominal amount, bought a few minor currency of choice's worth of resin and printed out 10 units to sell at several hundred % mark up.

"Piracy" has existed for as long as personal computing has existed, and yet here we are, in a corporate dystopia ran in large part by software companies and IP holders. But also in a world where a modest number of small creators are able to make a living largely because fans actively support them even with full knowledge that their wares can be had for free on Telegram.

Hopefully, AoW has been doing digital releases for long enough to gauge correctly if enough ends up in their pocket to count themselves in with that group.

Really? A company with small group of employees, own production and aspirations to be a bigger company should content with being "small creator are able to make a living largely because fans actively support"... That is effectively supporting its closure.

Baffling the future you guys wish to the companies that produce the things you like.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
I'm not overly familiar with how much overlap there was between their physical and STL ranges in honesty but in an extreme example, hypothetically all it takes is for 1 reseller to buy the STLs and be licensed appropriately and AoW will never sell anything to anyone else ever again. The danger of STLs is that they also undercut the owners production and retail via other people printing and selling for a lower price because they bought the STL's for a nominal amount, bought a few minor currency of choice's worth of resin and printed out 10 units to sell at several hundred % mark up.

"Piracy" has existed for as long as personal computing has existed, and yet here we are, in a corporate dystopia ran in large part by software companies and IP holders. But also in a world where a modest number of small creators are able to make a living largely because fans actively support them even with full knowledge that their wares can be had for free on Telegram.

Hopefully, AoW has been doing digital releases for long enough to gauge correctly if enough ends up in their pocket to count themselves in with that group.

I at no point mentioned piracy, I suggested that a licenced 3d printer set up on a public format such as Etsy buying the STL's then opting to print them at a reduced cost than their own in-house produced products puts themselves out of business essentially all for the sakes of a single sale of STL's.

 NAVARRO wrote:

Really? A company with small group of employees, own production and aspirations to be a bigger company should content with being "small creator are able to make a living largely because fans actively support"... That is effectively supporting its closure.

Baffling the future you guys wish to the companies that produce the things you like.

Well, if we're gonna put bad takes in people's mouths, I'm going to say that you, seeing AoW as a business first, would then support them ceasing sculpting if it meant they grow as a company doing something else, like maybe casting Warmachine metals as a subcontractor.

I see AoW as the artist, Felix Paniagua, first, and the rest as necessary infrastructure to get his art out into the world. The infrastructure part is being changed as the art will be coming out in a new medium. That will, admittedly, suck for people who cannot easily access this new medium, but ultimately will allow the art ot reach more people, 100% certain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dudeface wrote:

I at no point mentioned piracy, I suggested that a licenced 3d printer set up on a public format such as Etsy buying the STL's then opting to print them at a reduced cost than their own in-house produced products puts themselves out of business essentially all for the sakes of a single sale of STL's.

I understand, but effectively it's the same thing in this case, undercutting sales by external reproduction. And surely AoW knows better than to set themselves up for a legal version of it.

Dudeface wrote:
I at no point mentioned piracy, I suggested that a licenced 3d printer set up on a public format such as Etsy buying the STL's then opting to print them at a reduced cost than their own in-house produced products puts themselves out of business essentially all for the sakes of a single sale of STL's.

You are assuming that is allowed. I would assume the license on the STLs is specifically non commercial and for personal use only. Normally a commercial license would be much more expensive. If people choose to set up shop on a non commercial license at any sort of volume I don't think that is going to go well for them.

 Overread wrote:


Yes - and people dislike it.

...

The result is that people don't like seeing products vanish from access to the market because along with the backlog, we also all have a shopping list of things we'd like to own.

Yeah I do get that; I have been in the hobby some 35 years, so there have been plenty of times over the years where I have been on the receiving end of the issue. That said, I can't realistically expect for a company, especially a small one, to hold a stock of everything that they have ever made just in case one day I decide to actually start/carry on that project that I had been intending. That's a huge investment in space, materials and equipment that the sales probably just can't support.

I would imagine that with the size of AoV, this is likely an 'only way to continue the business and it survives' decision, rather than an intended middle finger to their long standing customer base.