blinky465
@grantinvanman – I think this is a big part of it now; the difference between a print-at-home 3d resin mini and a “genuine” plastic mini is almost imperceptible. You have to look really hard, and know what you’re looking for, to tell them apart these days.
For me, it’s not even about “filling the gaps”.
There are some great creators out there (many of whom actually worked/contracted for GW in the past) who are creating some amazing alternative-but-recognisable alternatives to GW established characters.
There are some sculptors on myminifactory and Patreon and Cults3d who are straight up ripping off GW designs.
I can understand GW shutting those down. Breach of copyright and, more likely, “passing off” means buyers might genuinely be confused between “rogue” and “genuine” miniatures.
But creators who are creating generic-similar-but-different-enough-to-tell-the-difference miniatures should be safe from this kind of litigation. It’s encouraging to hear that – so far – these platforms have also resisted GW pushing too hard to get anything and everything banned (though they have also complied, where GW has a legitimate complaint).
There are lots (and lots) of poor quality GW proxies on sites like myminifactory and Patreon.
But there are also some incredible creators, producing stuff at least as good as GW out there, and I’m all for supporting the little indie teams (some, it turns out, not so little either!)
Some are even now “coming after” GW themselves – creating their own worlds and lore. Check out One Page Rules.
They’re going full-on with their own ecosystem – no longer is their stuff GW-adjacent; it stands up on its own, as an entire, new (and complete) gaming system. You don’t play GW Kill Team with OPR minis. And you don’t play OPR Firefight with GW minis. You play OPR Firefight, in the OPR world, following OPR lore, with OPR minis.
Maybe this (and the recent “leak” of thousands of GW minis onto Telegram) is what has got GW so riled up at the minute.
I don’t think GW can keep fighting it.
They need to accept that print-at-home digital files are important for the future of the hobby and join in.
Or they need to shut down every single outlet for GW-alike-STLs.
And so far, the crazy fools look like they’re going to try exhausting the latter option first.
By which time, they may well lose so much goodwill and customer loyalty that by the time they implement the former, they’ll be almost irrelevant in their field. Like the AOL of tabletop gaming – a massive behemoth of their day, that simply failed to keep up.
