"Eureka axes the 100 and 300 Clubs" Topic

If you've not picked it up yet, Eureka Miniatures announced on the 5th November that they're discontinuing their 100 and 300 clubs with immediate effect: link

I personally found them particularly useful for getting 15mm modern figures into production. Russians, Chechen Rebels and most recently Australians. The Weird War 2 / Sci Fi Germans also proved to be very popular.

Eureka site the rise of crowdfunding as the reason for axing the 100 and 300 Clubs. It's unclear if they plan to use sites such as Kickstarter to organise future ranges that would have been funded through the clubs.

There were also several modern and ultra modern 15mm ranges which had 500+ pledges (from memory Modern PLA and Eastern European NATO) and others not far behind (modern Iraqi and Syrian insurgents) in the 300 club.

Would those interested in 15mm moderns be interested in Kickstarters to get some of these ranges made?

That is a real shame, especially since a lot of really great figure ranges were produced because of them.

Sad to hear it.

Perhaps someone else will pick up the ball and run with it.

I would hope that the are shutting this down and going with the kickstarter process, seems it would be a faster way to get the model to market.

I contacted them a couple years after they made the evzones for me to see how the figures were selling. I didn't ask for specific dollar figures (none of my business). I just asked how they had sold generally, because I'd hoped for a win-win situation where I got my evzones, and Eureka made a decent profit. They didn't lose money, but the evzones hadn't been wildly popular, either. I think we all bought evzones when they came out, then demand went flat.

I suppose if you get enough like that it does have a financial impact, and it is discouraging.

Note: for those of you with Foreign Legion armies, the Greek officers' uniform is very like the French--just paint buttons on the tunic, since the Greek tunic had hidden buttons. Go buy some of the evzone officers for variety.

Grelber

A very successful 100 Club suggestion was by me.

I wanted some Glover's Marbleheaders, Highlanders in Campaign Dress and Ragged Continentals. I supplied some pictures, with the vague "demand" that they be "compatible with Perry".
At the time, they would be made to whatever specs the proposer desired, and I figured this was as good as any. I had seen some rather strange "scales" with other 100 club productions, so I did not want figures that would not fit, and I thought that being Perry compatible would make them more prone to sell and open the door for future similar requests, if successful.
DAF and John Holly and others took the ball with the Arquebusiers, Voltaire debating Fritz, Saxons, etc.

This makes it a bit more … scientific.
Instead of making the proposer hawk the line all over the place, they have the Kickstarter phenomenon going.

If they replace the 100 Club with crowdfunding, then I have no complaints.

It also gives them a lot more control over the process. Instead of some eccentric proposing things he need sor HIS army, they can propose things they think have a good chance of succeeding.
The last time I checked the listings, they were full of a lot of weird stuff that had been stagnant for years. This cleans that out.

If they were wise, they would organize them internally, along the same lines as crowdfunding with full blown campaigns.

Speaking from experience, a company will lose a lot of useful money in using Kickstarter. An established company like Eureka (or any other) could likely do pretty well at this.

It would require some marketing and planning, but the outlets for communication are already out there. In my last Kickstarter the majority of my backers came to me through Facebook and TMP with very few of the remaining backers coming in directly from Kickstarter.

I imagine it is only a matter of time before reputable companies figure this out and use their brands and names to do it in-house instead of paying Kickstarter. Kickstarter will remain a good call for smaller folks or people actually running start-ups, but the numbers on some of the Kickstarters pretty much made massive amounts of money for Kickstarter themself.

-Eli

Speaking from experience, a company will lose a lot of useful money in using Kickstarter. An established company like Eureka (or any other) could likely do pretty well at this.

just curious

@ Grey Ghost: Because they could do what North Star did for In Her Majesty's Name and take prepaid preorders and not had over a percentage to Kickstarter.

Because Kickstarter takes 5% off the top. To this add another 3-5% for the individual transactions for the payments.

I for one would support another method of crowd funding from Eureka, as I really wanted those 15mm Modern PLA to come in to production, and would love to see some additions to the Aussies, and even some Modern JSDF created.

Because Kickstarter takes 5% off the top. To this add another 3-5% for the individual transactions for the payments.

So you're saying an established company isn't smart enough to factor in a 10% overhead cost into what they are producing, even though to stay in business they already have to figure out how to handle different types of overhead from suppliers, manufacturers, distributers, shippers, etc?

It seems more likely that the additional overhead would turn customers off a project rather than force established businesses to take a loss. Small, start-up businesses that aren't used to working with partners like that might have that problem, though.

I'm not exactly sure how you read that into what I said.

Nowhere near that, in fact.

What I said was why even bother paying somebody else to do what they could do themselves?

All Kickstarter is giving them is a hub for the activity. Companies have already proven they can pull it off without Kickstarter.

Eureka could just as easily run it in-house but along the same model as the current crowdfunding craze.

I backed a number of 15mm figures that had >600 committed for many years and nothing ever came of it. Meh.

I sure hope their 28mm Swiss are not gone, but rather will see a chance at Crowdfunding.

If they do it inhouse, it will be similar to their 100/300-club. Just that there is a time-limit and you have to pay the moment the threshold is reached, not on arrival.

Fine with me.

I'm not exactly sure how you read that into what I said.

Nowhere near that, in fact.

What I said was why even bother paying somebody else to do what they could do themselves?

That question is certainly implied in what you said. However, in what you actually said, you went ahead and answered it for them:

Speaking from experience, a company will lose a lot of useful money in using Kickstarter.

So you're second guessing Eureka's decision (which they articulate clearly on their website) because of your personal experience without knowledge of their business model.

I still think Eureka, a company with a long history, is in the best position to make their own decision about whether or not they will or will not lose money by changing the thing that they have been doing and monitoring for many years and do something else.

You seem to feel I am attacking Eureka and that you have to defend them or something.

I will leave you to those feelings.

I said what I said in the spirit of conversation and discussion nit as some sort of condemnation of Eureka skills and abilities. Quite the contrary. In fact, it was my belief in them as a company and their long history that brought up the possibility that they might not need Kickstarter to engage in crowdfunding.

That is all,

-Eli

I think that Eureka could pull off crowdfunding their own product, let's say they needed $1 USDk for a small project, they could raise that $1 USDk on their own site reaching their smaller but more dedicated audience. Or they could raise $2 USDk-$3k on Kickstarter, reaching not only their small dedicated audience, but hundreds of thousands of other gamers in the process. When I ran mine, a surprising number of my backers came from kickstarter itself and not places where I advertised, just under half actually. That's huge.

This is why my comments were done in the spirit of discussion and really as a question.

My experience with Kickstarter would not have indicated that Kickstarter was a major factor in acquiring funding other than having a place to plant my project. Glenn's experience would show otherwise.

If Kickstarter works for folks, then they should use it. It has worked out okay for me.

I do feel that eventually, once the concept catches on (there are still plenty of folks not sold on it) crowdfunding will move away from a few small "auction house" type setups. If it doesn't then at least we're likely to see competition for Kickstarter at some point.

-Eli

Wow. That's the end of an era for sure! An era when customers were given the chance to influence the design of every minute detail on figures from the get-go, and to direct the actual development of their ranges, based on their vision and not that of the manufacturer.*

So far I haven't seen those options, for influencing figure concepts and design specifications, being offered by anyone on kickstarter.

Yeah, I'm also curious about how they'll plan future ranges now. I'm also curious how many ranges will be left half done because of the focus on new feedback promotions.

Dan
* The closest thing to that now is to sculpt the figures yourself, and hope that some manufacturer will produce them within your lifetime.

We have often had input from customers during the design process, on both poses and equipment details.

Perhaps I will have to do more of that.

My first kickstarter allowed backers to have a complete figure done to their specs. I had three people take me up on it and one had a custom figure done. I had to leave it behind as it slowed the whole KS to a halt as I now have all the models created beforehand so we can deliver on time. It was a great process and was a lot of fun for everyone involved.