Open gaming mini license

[totsuzenheniParticipant 5651xp 0]

I don’t know but i’m not sure that’s quite what happened @blinky465. It seems to me the music industry was fairly successful in shutting down the likes of Napster and might have put a lid on that but then the likes of Apple got in on it. In the long run i think the change to predominantly non-hardware based music purchases would have happened in any case, but the music industry might have been able to manage a better revenue stream for the music companies and producers.

[blinky465 17028xp 0]

Yes, they “shut down” Napster (by simply buying it up and turning it into a legitimate outlet). But alternatives kept springing up (as well as non-web based hosts, like Usenet and torrents etc). It’s only really when the music industry embraced downloads that those alternatives basically became redundant.

And, having embraced downloads, the industry “superceded” them with streaming music instead.

But the point is, they got onboard and it fundamentally changed the delivery mechanism of music for ever. Had they not got onboard, they were losing revenue (and obviously by enough to make them make the move to embrace the technology they previously just tried to shut down).

Who buys CDs and LPs any more? Twenty years ago, the idea that you wouldn’t amass a music collection by lining up plastic cases on a shelf was unheard of 😉

[sundancer 42976xp 0]

@blinky465 mp3 had the huge benefit of: you didn’t need to buy anything. You had an internet connection and a PC and off you go. Napster and emule all were freely available as well as mp3 playing software. And 3D printing requires a still rather big investment.  There is no doubt it will change and influence the industry but I can’t really tell in what way. Too many possibilities. Too many roads.

[horati0nosebl0wer 19647xp 1]

*sigh* Such a nice thing to see that a random thought can become a thread for thought.

With all the analysis of the past to the present for future forecasting I’m thinking that the hobby as a whole can be summed up to the actions we take. Like any nerd culture there are the ‘posers’ who hang on for the social clout of being different and not conforming to the social norm. These are the people who just say they are into the topic of gaming and don’t do. You can find them if you look. The hobby is making and doing. Putting physical material together, laying down paint, writing for world building as fluff/rule sets or even constructing mental models that exist as digital media.

Perhaps this is a revolution to the hobby as far as doing. No more ‘hanger’s on’ as when RPGs became popular and everybody wanted to do it. Maybe now we’ll see some blowback from the ones who wander further afield and push the envelope into deeper places of what we imagine. Kingdom Death (as a one stop shop) and numerous designers on myminifactory or cgtrader are good example of this with the development of their body horrror aesthetics. Honestly there’d be no “safe” mainstream market producer for their products. GW nerfed Slaanesh models for that very reason and Nurgle is still pushing it (there can be all the gonnecocca-syphi-herpil-AIDS with intestinal prolapse and festering putrescence but don’t dare show bare genitalia or alien mutation of the human form). I think that videogames like Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Dark Souls have made these grittier design elements cool in the same way that White Wolf brought the edge to TTRPGs.

Now we have the chase of the cool kids behind the first adopters that explore dark reaches. Transhumanist biohackers are probably sitting around their 3D printers and reveling in their finds as we amble along in developing means by which Joe/Jane Average can swallow new tech to amuse their children while working their lives away.

Sorry for the tangent… just more wandering thoughts after seeing a great response to the initial post.

[totsuzenheniParticipant 5651xp 0]

I still buy CDs @blinky465. I can’t get everything as downloads, especially given that i’m after WAV rather than MP3. I’m in a similar situation with books. I thought i would have largely switched over to e-books and i tried an e-reader, starting about a decade ago, but in practice they are lacking and, again, i can’t get everything i want on them. In fact it’s the very types of books that i thought e-readers would be good for (large multi-volume academic tomes for one) that are neither available and would not be facilitated in the way i would have liked on e-readers.

[blinky465 17028xp 0]

@totsuzenheni – doesn’t this sort of reinforce the music analogy then? I mean, your requirement for wav over mp3 would – to my way of comparing the two – put you more in the “music officionado” section (in the same way many people still insist vinyl is “better” than digital – they have a preferred format and don’t want to “compromise”).

But the music industry didn’t wait for you to get onboard. It didn’t wait until every available CD had been converted to a digital file. It simply said “there’s enough here for *most people* to get onboard with it” and made the change.

In the same way, a few – ever decreasing – number of people refusing to buy anything that wasn’t lead didn’t stop resin and plastic from becoming popular in wargaming. In the same way, people refusing to buy into printing at home won’t prevent many large gaming companies – and I’m including GW in here, once a critical mass has been reached – from going down the digital delivery route? Yes it’s early days. But, for me, it’s the only viable direction of travel.

I’m just not buying the “GW are too big to hold out” argument, nor that “dinosaurs will hold back progress”. Progress will continue, whether individuals hold out against it or not. For me, it’s just a matter of time.

Anyone not streaming music now didn’t prevent digital streaming music services from advancing. If you’re not buying streaming audio or downloading files, you’re already a niche consumer.

@sundancer – an mp3 is a useless digital file unless you have something to play it on. Whether a computer or a phone, costing hundreds – if not thousands – of pounds/euros/dollars, or a portable mp3 player (which, when mp3s were first becoming popular, were still relatively expensive bits of kit). Some people play mp3s through a crappy 10mm tinny speaker in their phone, some people invest hundreds in top-end speakers and amplifiers. At some point (and particularly back when we’re talking about mp3s reaching critical mass to hit the consumer market) a rather large investment was needed to be able to download and play them.

Will be interesting to re-visting these posts in the vast internet archive in about ten years and see which way the industry went 😉

[sundancer 42976xp 0]

Will be interesting to re-visting these posts in the vast internet archive in about ten years and see which way the industry went ?

Yes, probably someone has invented something “industry disrupting” and “revolutionary” that we can’t imagine yet. (Star Trek replicators anybody?)

Or the world has gone completely to shit and we all just play with sticks and stones again.

[totsuzenheniParticipant 5651xp 0]

I’m not convinced the analogy to the music industry gets us much further than an observation that when a new technology appears some people will take it up to some extent and that to some extent it will replace previous technologies @blinky465. I don’t think the music industry analogy can tell us enough about whether or not, and to what extent, the take up of 3D printing will make casting and business models like Games Workshop’s redundant or not for us to make much by way of accurate predictions. It’s a single case study, as it were, and there are considerable differences between the music industry and the miniatures industry and their various formats. (The book industry is different again.) We could make an analogy to LaserDiscs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaserDisc) or MiniDiscs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniDisc) as much as we could to MP3s. That’s not to say that 3D printers won’t largely replace casting miniatures; i’m not making a case either way as such.

That written, it occurs to me that there is a better analogy to 3D printers, and that’s printers. Printers have not, for the most part, replaced books.

[limburger 21705xp 0]

the music industry has barely acknowledged the existance of digital options.
I’d even argue that without Apple getting very lucky with their initial deal we wouldn’t have Spotify et al.

It’s taken roughly 20 years for them to get this far.

With 3D printing we’re at the beginning of that voyage.

We’re at the start of the Napster-era with geeks using new tech to enjoy their hobby.

I wouldn’t be surprised if GW (or someone equally big) bought Heroforge (and then ruined it by not understanding what people wanted out of that service).

Part of the problem for GW is that the assembly of minis is as much part of their hobby idea as the priming and painting is.
I suspect that the primary reason for their ‘easy build’ line is one of cost (less need to worry about build options if there’s only one way to assemble) and not an attempt to snag a newbie. The latter may have simply been a bonus.

There’s a reason why Forgeworld still exists.
3D printing could be a 3d division for GW depending on how fast it gains critical mass or it could become a thing for Forgeworld.

I think what we really need is for the equivalent of Apple iTunes / Tesla / Google to light the fuse.
Until such a thing happens I doubt 3D printing will be any different from all those other things that have enabled the cottage industry within this hobby to stay in business. It’s not yet ready for the average consumer and no one prints enough to warrant the investment compared to just buying the stuff in a (web)shop.

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 1]

> I still buy CDs

I’ll up you one. I even buy boardgames and miniatures instead of playing videogames! 😀

As for 3D printers, I would think that the high cost of the printer itself is enough of barrier to select only those committed to the hobby, and it’s not yet in the Consumer phase. That said, if you can find a use for something every day, I’m sure it’ll get to that stage. Microwaves were expensive, and now they’re cheap and we use them every day. Computers and laptops were expensive, and now they’re cheap and we use them every day. Televisions were expensive, and now they’re cheap and we use them everyday.

I’d probably use a 3D printer (almost) every day for a storage solution for all these boardgames and miniatures I keep buying… 😛

[limburger 21705xp 0]

It’s in the same price-range as a mid-range airbrush-setup as I’ve seen resin printers in the 300 Euro range.
As such I’d even argue that it only looks expensive because you rarely look at the entire cost of the rest of the stuff we’ve grown accustomed to in our hobby.

The only thing that is really out of reach for most of us are those laser-cutters used to cut MDF kits.

[horati0nosebl0wer 19647xp 0]

Mmm… speaking of airbrush systems, just quickly, I think that there are more parts involved to using that tech in order to have a working system. Get your hands on an Iwata Custom Micron series airbrush (or a Harder&Steenbeck if you want), a Benchvent extraction fan system (any size) with a Silentaire compressor (not to mention an airhose and adaptors) and you see that there is comparable cost. I went overboard in pushing top of the line items but they do add up and can be measured by comparison in whatever currency you fancy.

What these things can’t make up for is our emotional investment. Vinyl and CD have a tangible tactile element that make them perceivable in more than one sense and attachment made in the mind in greater scope. Here it might be the same way with GW that model builders for tanks, trains and aircraft keep their fanbase. Hell, take a look at the arena of Figure Modeler magazine caters to and see what kind of attachment the IPs they deal with have. Characters from movies and all sorts of bric-a-brac in resin for the love of the idea they represent. Its essentially the same with anime figure collectors.

Looking at the future the OGML is the commercialization of what has been to the present a fan flavored labor of love. With the lack of any storage issues, other than virtually, there’s no limit to the amount of IP. It seems like the means of production is the one big hurdle.

[phaidknott 7023xp 0]

The main problem I see with so much 3D printing is “how” do the traditional sculptors make a living from it (ppl like Kev from Hasslefree for example)?

As the STLs can be freely shared (and doesn’t seem to have the stigma of the old “recasters” of old getting reported by the community), I can’t see how they could maintain a revenue stream high enough for them to make a decent living. A lot of the current sculptors who just sell the STLs (and doesn’t manufacture a physical product) are certainly talented, but I wonder how many still have a “day job” to make ends meet (while the income from STL sales is a bonus income).

I certainly see it’s going to make a difference as we see sculptors from 2nd and 3rd world economies coming into the market in the same manner we saw call centre work get outsourced to these cheaper markets (and possibly the demise of a lot of vets from the Nottingham lead belt from continuing to sculpt for a living).

All in all I’m not seeing everything here as a positive. But technology evolves, and perhaps traditional sculpting and manufacture of minis is just going to evolve towards 3D prints for all of our minis.

But for me the whole 3D printing is another hobby, and I can only just about keep up with painting these things (nevermind manufacturing them. But then there’s been some 3D printing things I would LOVE to have obtained (like the recent Bloodbowl stadium kickstarter complete with seated fans and scoreboards), but I can’t justify the time to produce the things when I could be catching up with all the painting I need to do 🙁

 

[horati0nosebl0wer 19647xp 0]

I agree that the future is not roses for all. We get to enjoy the transition to having both (for as long as we do). The pain of it all is that this is a market of desires. We desire more as our imaginations become more realized in the may details that we can’t push by hand. Its daunting to see painters who do their gigs for box art all the time and many painters here that easily could make it by if there were the money for all.

Considering that all I think that perhaps we’re better off than at the moment we have AI the likes of “The Bicentennial Man”. With all the design work that has been pushed into the minis showcased at the 10 and 15mm scales maybe its realizing our boundaries, which we continue to push, and limits, we will never surmount. The 3D printer seems to be giving us more of a conundrum to literal scalability of effort.

It seems like a tangible afterthought as you could take scanned design models from models at 7″ (17 cm) [Spawn/other collector figures] or 3.75″ (9.5 cm) [GI Joes] and shrink them to our gaming sizes. Technology offers interesting options.

[ced1106Participant 6224xp 0]

> As the STLs can be freely shared (and doesn’t seem to have the stigma of the old “recasters” of old getting reported by the community), I can’t see how they could maintain a revenue stream high enough for them to make a decent living.

I doubt boardgamers will print out their games anytime soon, so I figure there will still be a market for digital sculptors. I think we can look at YouTube, Patreon, and KS for an idea of income streams: Less money per person (and many will do it for free), but more people making money. For better or worse, that’s how technology, especially for entertainment, works.

If the quality of miniatures goes down because of .stl, that’s bad for the hobby. But I haven’t heard complaints on the Reaper KS forums. .stl files allow a creative hobbyist to let others share in their work, without all the hassle, risk, and time, of operating a miniature casting business. Additionally, Architects of Destruction and Galladoria Games, who do 3D printing, at least for now have been busy printing 3D sculptures for their customers.

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