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Reply To: Open gaming mini license

December 30, 2020 at 3:41 pm #1593256

Participant

6224xp

> Think one thing to remember is the advances in 3D printing are probably driven for things outside of the wargaming hobby. Not sure what the “original” market for 3D printers was for (was it more for engineering, prototyping etc). I suppose we need to look for the forces that drive overall 3D printer sales to try and anticipate where the advances will come from (and be), and “if” they are going to be useful for Wargamers printing out minis/terrain.

Yep, that’s the Business phase of the Entrepreneur / Business / Consumer model of technology.

A few data points:

* Prototyping.

* Custom design, such as medical uses.

* Unavailable parts, such as for old appliances.

* Faster turnover than off-site production.

fwiw, HeroForge is a good match for 3D printing, with their custom miniatures, mostly for RPG’ers who want an exact miniature of ‘their character’. Pretty obviously, that’s a very narrow niche which excludes miniatures in boardgames, and even miniatures in wargames. Even then, HeroForge customers may be fine with having HF or a 3D printing service print the miniature and send it to them, because HF is not a good match for 3D printers — an RPG player doesn’t have a need for more than a few, or even more than one, custom miniature.