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Post by Rhannon on Dec 21, 2016 0:32:32 GMT -9
... digital downloads of models primarily intended for gaming. Scale models and architectural models are a whole another market entirely, those were around long before that and will be around for a long time to come!... Perfect!
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Post by jeffgeorge on Dec 21, 2016 1:48:08 GMT -9
Of course, in discussions such as these, it all depends on what your definition of "is" is. Fads and trends wax and wane. I see no reason to question the observations of people like Christopher Roe that the commercial peak of papercrafting for gaming was some time ago--he was there as a player, he would know. The fact that at one time, some people were making a modest living publishing papercraft kits for gaming, and now fewer people are making a living in such a way certainly suggests some contraction in that niche market. For people late to the party--like me, for example--papercraft gaming (or gaming papercraft?) is still a new and expanding thing, though. I don't have a gaming group currently, and I'm not sure when I ever will, but I'm enjoying making papercraft minis and models very much. I've probably got 300-400 28mm papercraft minis finished and stored neatly in pocket pages in a thick notebook (ease of storage being a great selling point for 2D minis, btw!), that many more printed and glued, waiting to be trimmed and edged, plus at least as many again on my hard drive that I haven't printed yet. When I took my notebook to a D&D night at the local gaming store a few weeks ago, everyone was thrilled to see that I could pull out a very good, finished mini for whatever character they were playing that night, and several of them wanted to know where they came from. I may have to print up a sheet of links to DTRPG and all our members' brand sites to hand out on those occasions... And just because a thing is in a commercial down-cycle at the moment doesn't mean it's dead. I'm told that tabletop roleplaying is bigger now than it ever was (can't google up facts to back that up quickly, though...), after at least one major peak in the 80s, and valley in the 90s. Tabletop boardgaming is certainly experiencing a renaissance these days. People--and gamers are people--are always going to have ready access to high-quality, color 2D printing, from now until forever, so papercrafting gaming paraphernalia isn't going away. When average citizens have ready access to high-quality, inexpensive 3D printing (and not just hardcore 3-printing enthusiasts), home-manufacture of 3D gaming pieces will become more common, but I doubt that 3D printing will achieve the same level of assumed universal availability that 2D printing currently has any time soon. From a commercial standpoint, though, we are certainly at a different point on the opportunity curve with 3D printing than we are with papercraft. The papercraft gaming market is (fairly) mature, with the available products just about as good as they can get in the medium, and existing publishers meeting the demands of the market. In the 3D-printed gaming market, however, we are still on the rising slope of the curve; the products are still improving (along with the equipment), the potential of the medium is still being expanded, and there is still a lot of room for new players to carve out space in the marketplace. If you are looking for commercial opportunity in gaming-related modeling, 3D printing is certainly a better medium than papercraft today.
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Post by radoslawkamil on Jan 29, 2017 11:46:09 GMT -9
Haha I have to write that: Papercrafting is not and never will be dead! 3D printing is not the same. First is still rare and expensive. Second it not replace the pleasure of makeing something out of paper with Your own hands.
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shep
Eternal Member
Red Alert! Shields up! LENS FLARE!!!
Posts: 1,260
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Post by shep on Jan 30, 2017 0:25:49 GMT -9
Fads and trends wax and wane. I see no reason to question the observations of people like Christopher Roe that the commercial peak of papercrafting for gaming was some time ago--he was there as a player, he would know. The fact that at one time, some people were making a modest living publishing papercraft kits for gaming, and now fewer people are making a living in such a way certainly suggests some contraction in that niche market. Only that papercraft or at least paper minis is no longer a niche market with all the larger game companies producing their own paper mini sets for their games. Seems to me, they big ones simply cut the market...
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