madd0ct0r wrote:
hey all,
We've seen an explosion in small manufacturers over the last few years, and printing costs are only dropping. Sooner or later the 'start-up' cost for a new miniture company will be in the design time, not really manufacturing.
so what will happen?
Things getting cheaper until everyone is only making marginal cost (if that's not true already)
A massive explosion of manufacters chasing an increasingly fractured market?
A steady state reached where manufacters start-up and drop out (due to whatever reason) at about the same rate.
6mm suddenly becoming a schoolyard craze?
A combination of two and three, I'd say.
We're already seeing the explosion and frecturing of the market, though 'fracturing' is a misleading term. I'm currently invested in five mass combat games (10mm or less, including a mass Naval combat system - VaS). I'd like to find the time and money to add at least a couple more. I have models from six different commercial manufacturers (low volume/custom suppliers not included), with at least vague plans to purchase from three more in time.
I suspect many are in the same boat - the market is becoming fractured, but is becoming a
6mm market instead of a market for [insert game here] at the same time. Eventually the market will saturate, with perhaps half a dozen 'leaders' and a bevy of smaller concerns.
It's largely the same pattern I'm seeing in 28mm gaming now that the GW monolith is starting to erode.
_________________
SG
Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.