The tabletop world is getting dangerously close to collapsing due to consumer-level technological advancements, and Games Workshop will be the first to feel the major brunt of it.
FDM 3D printers are getting a lot cheaper and a lot easier to use. With a single Ender 3 and a spool of filament, people can produce models of nearly any size, at home, at a much reduced cost compared to even discounted GW prices (which are ridiculously expensive and show no sign of coming down).
"But FDM printers are still bad at fine detail!" You might say. "They can't match the quality of plastic and resin models made by companies like GW!"
Here's the thing: they don't have to!
If you want to print tabletop-quality models at home, allow me to introduce you to the Elegoo Mars, and SLA printing overall.
For roughly the same price as an FDM printer and filament, you can get a 3D resin printer and bottle of resin and start churning out retail-quality models from the comfort of your own home. Granted, there are some additional purchases that will need to be made first (UV light, IPA, etc.) and some additional safety steps to take with resin printing, but it still works out to be way cheaper than buying a box of Space Marines. The cost savings only becomes more prevalent when you decide to build a larger force.
The future of tabletop wargaming like 40K will be focused around digital rules and .STL files for models, which means the margins are going to be much lower. You can see this starting already with the rise of 3d modelers offering their designs on Patreon for a monthly subscription. For $10, you can get a shit-ton of .STL files to print and customize your force for way cheaper than any traditional wargaming company currently on the market. And we're starting to see this already with Titan Forge, one of the aforementioned Patreon publishers with a crowdfunding campaign featuring all-digital rules, all-digital unit cards, and all-digital .STL files for models.
GW pissing off a good number of its fanbase like this, in order to appease the SocJus crowd (with no money or actual interest in playing the game) is only going to hasten the collapse of a huge portion of the tabletop ecosystem. If GW starts circling the drain, other companies are going to take notice and hop onto the all-digital bandwagon. Which, in turn, will hurt the FLGS down the road you shop & play at.
The entire tabletop gaming world is barreling towards a cliff, and myopic grandstanding like this by GW is only hastening the inevitable.
And just to be clear, because I don’t know much about 3d printing.
The kind of people who would pay literal thousands of dollars for a hobby are also the same kind of people who would just buy a 3d printer, yes?
It’s not that ‘not everyone owns a 3d printer so GW will be fine’, it’s that GW’s core market are exactly the kind of people who would buy a 3d printer?
Taken from my KiA post on reddit:
The tabletop world is getting dangerously close to collapsing due to consumer-level technological advancements, and Games Workshop will be the first to feel the major brunt of it.
FDM 3D printers are getting a lot cheaper and a lot easier to use. With a single Ender 3 and a spool of filament, people can produce models of nearly any size, at home, at a much reduced cost compared to even discounted GW prices (which are ridiculously expensive and show no sign of coming down).
"But FDM printers are still bad at fine detail!" You might say. "They can't match the quality of plastic and resin models made by companies like GW!"
Here's the thing: they don't have to!
If you want to print tabletop-quality models at home, allow me to introduce you to the Elegoo Mars, and SLA printing overall.
For roughly the same price as an FDM printer and filament, you can get a 3D resin printer and bottle of resin and start churning out retail-quality models from the comfort of your own home. Granted, there are some additional purchases that will need to be made first (UV light, IPA, etc.) and some additional safety steps to take with resin printing, but it still works out to be way cheaper than buying a box of Space Marines. The cost savings only becomes more prevalent when you decide to build a larger force.
The future of tabletop wargaming like 40K will be focused around digital rules and .STL files for models, which means the margins are going to be much lower. You can see this starting already with the rise of 3d modelers offering their designs on Patreon for a monthly subscription. For $10, you can get a shit-ton of .STL files to print and customize your force for way cheaper than any traditional wargaming company currently on the market. And we're starting to see this already with Titan Forge, one of the aforementioned Patreon publishers with a crowdfunding campaign featuring all-digital rules, all-digital unit cards, and all-digital .STL files for models.
GW pissing off a good number of its fanbase like this, in order to appease the SocJus crowd (with no money or actual interest in playing the game) is only going to hasten the collapse of a huge portion of the tabletop ecosystem. If GW starts circling the drain, other companies are going to take notice and hop onto the all-digital bandwagon. Which, in turn, will hurt the FLGS down the road you shop & play at.
The entire tabletop gaming world is barreling towards a cliff, and myopic grandstanding like this by GW is only hastening the inevitable.
And just to be clear, because I don’t know much about 3d printing.
The kind of people who would pay literal thousands of dollars for a hobby are also the same kind of people who would just buy a 3d printer, yes?
It’s not that ‘not everyone owns a 3d printer so GW will be fine’, it’s that GW’s core market are exactly the kind of people who would buy a 3d printer?