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Post by enpeze on Oct 11, 2010 1:32:59 GMT -9
I know this is maybe a little bit odd, but I confess, I am a World of Warcraft fan. I am wondering why noone has yet consideret to issue a line of WoW esque paper minis. So I think there are several possibilities to go into this: 1. Make clones. Change some details of a WoW creature but maintain the distinct WoW style. As long as the mini designer dont call his blonde red shirted elves mini "Blood elf" and his furry squirlmen "Furbolg", I think there should not be much problem 2. Ask Blizzard directly for permission to draw a set of paper minis of their universe. I guess they will not say no to such a request. (they seem quite nice and the paper mini business is so microscopic small that its not really a competition to anything Blizz releases) At worst they ask for a percentage of the income, but so what if you can official advertise on several WoW sites for your minis. -There is the Blizzard shop where it seems that 3rd party merchandising products are offered. The ideal place for paper minis. For this you get a potential customer base of 12 Mio! subscribers instead of the usual 120 hardcore fans. I know, if I had the artistic talent that some of you have I would not hesitate one moment to do this.
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Post by Adam Souza on Oct 11, 2010 8:19:31 GMT -9
This has come up in the past.
I think it comes down to none of the artists having enough love of WOW to want to contend with their legal department over licensing fees.
In my opinion, both the WOW PRG and Miniatures games were never terribly successful. At least not successful enough that there would be a viable market for Commercially available WOW Paper Miniatures.
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Post by josedominguez on Oct 11, 2010 8:47:17 GMT -9
I can imagine the legal action : you made orcs that look just like our's and Games Workshops..... oh wait
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Post by enpeze on Oct 11, 2010 9:42:40 GMT -9
yes this is true. Everyone steals the design from each other and sells it as own idea. I would never dare to mess with GWs IP. Additonally the people behind GW are a bunch of greedy idiots and would not allow anything. But I think that Blizz is alot friendlier with its IP than GW.
Adam Souza Regarding successful or not. I am not really sure about the correct numbers but I estimate that they at least sold several hundred thousand or even millions of minis. (Alone in my circle of friends there are hundreds of WoW minis lying around on shelfes and as children toys) How many files do you think sells onemonk/san studio with one set? 100? What I want to say is that the sale can only improve. So if a good set is in the Blizz-shop and sells only several thousands of sets to the WoW community it will maybe not be a big sale for you, but alot more than any set in the history of onemonk. I would not advise to underestimate the amount of sucribers. This is not a minor MMO like warhammer online or D&D online with ridicolous 200k subcribers, this is warcraft with 12.000.000!
No, not the sale is the problem. The problem is the second thing you said. That noone has enough love for such a project. (ok, I have the love but no talent)
Of course, one have to be a little bit businessman too and take some risk and some work (eg. like making contact and writing an email to Blizzard marketing and creating some demo minis for showing) as its always the genesis of successful businesses stories in life.
Fazit: Nay-sayer? No chance, no risk, no money.
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Post by Adam Souza on Oct 12, 2010 7:29:55 GMT -9
I would be happy to be proven wrong, and would be one of the first to buy a set to show it.
Unfortunately, I still believe that 1% of WOW subscribers base is a much greater number than our entire paper minaitures community, which thrives mostly on freebies. Generating that many sales would require an EPIC success for paper miniatures gaming.
We would sing songs about it ;D
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Post by enpeze on Oct 12, 2010 8:53:42 GMT -9
Yes. I really think that there is a market of several thousand people out of those many millions which would buy such a set. Mostly for their children, for dioramas, video art and even roleplaying games. IMO the main prob with the paper mini bizz is IMO that noone has an idea how to market it properly and so its virtually unknown to the public. Even most roleplayers and tabletoppers which is the main customer base dont know anything about onemonks/san stud paper minis.
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Post by glennwilliams on Oct 13, 2010 5:32:39 GMT -9
Yes. I really think that there is a market of several thousand people out of those many millions which would buy such a set. Mostly for their children, for dioramas, video art and even roleplaying games. IMO the main prob with the paper mini bizz is IMO that noone has an idea how to market it properly and so its virtually unknown to the public. Even most roleplayers and tabletoppers which is the main customer base dont know anything about onemonks/san stud paper minis. My local FLGS had no clue even about paper terrain. In their defense--stores sell resin and plastic, and that's what the gamers use in all the local stores I've been in (we won't mention the stores of That Other Game with Lawyers).
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