"KS Ogre Miniatures Set 2" Topic

Just went live: link

Set 1 will be available through Warehouse 23 while supplies last. SJG has been doing much better through Kickstarter than retail, so there's no guarantee when or if more will be made when stocks run out.

I've got plenty of Set 1's from the first KS due to arrive here tomorrow!

My first set just arrived! Off to back wave 2.

And note in the Comments direct from SJG: this set will not be going to retail (beyond the Retailer pledge), there will be some leftovers for Warehouse 23. KS is just the sales model that is working for Ogre currently.

I got my first set's this morning as well!

I got mine last week. 2 sets of Wave 1. I'm debating on Set 2….

I've got the Many Minis + GitD from Wave 1 coming — so 7 sets. Don't judge me, it was a bargain ^,^

Many Minis option in Wave 2 is currently at 4 sets. Which is rather sufficient, and doubling would make it 8. Maybe we'll see a Black set added in eventually with Stretch Goals, the campaign is still young.

Since non US customers are not wanted on the KS, I will NEVER BUY THE MODELS OR THE GAME – EVER. Very bad show and apalling customer relations.

Guthroth – You expected anything better from SJG ? Their model has always seemed to be that they do what is convenient and profitable for them, customers come 2nd.

From the Kickstarter FAQ

I'm an international fan; how can I get Ogre Miniatures Set 2?

We mentioned we'd be offering preorders for our international fans via Warehouse 23, and those are now live! You can preorder the "Player" reward level, and the "Many Minis" reward level. You can find these links in the International Shipping section.

This method of preordering allows us to charge the most accurate shipping possible, as it's not an estimate, and you'll know the amount prior to the sets actually shipping.

Can't buy through the KS though. No problem, their choice. My money, my choice made.

Currently up to 5 sets with Grey. Black is still a likely bet for #6.

And Wave 1 did indeed arrive today!

Looking forward to picking up a couple sets of set 1 via retail. Set 2 not so much… it all feels sort of auxillary to the OGRE concept.

Also, yes, GildasFacit is all too correct…

Annnnnnnd…. 'OGRE miniatures' second edition anyone? I am skeptical, but the 'lite' version in the miniatures set 1 ought to be good fun! (?)… no hexes for me….

Their model has always seemed to be that they do what is convenient and profitable for them, customers come 2nd.

Every business that exists does so to make a profit, which requires that the sales (and sale price) be high enough to cover the costs of production, distribution, and other associated costs. So, yes, this means that any business that wants to succeed and stay in business will work to do what is "convenient" (efficient and low cost) and therefore profitable. So your point makes zero sense. No business exists to provide anyone with whatever that person wants in whatever manner that person wants at whatever cost that person wants.

As for Ogre/GEV miniatures, these are clearly a niche market product with a low level of profitability that does not warrant the high costs of production and warehousing and shipping for long term sales, especially compared to the mega-successful (and high profit margin) Munchkin card game. But, via Kickstarter, Steve Jackson has found a way to keep his first ever wargame (and first love) not only in print but available in new ways to the game's loyal following. Good grief, can you imagine Hasbro or GW doing anything of the sort? (Seen any reprints of Heroscape? Man o' War? Heroquest? Do you expect to?) But SJG has gone out of its way to find a path to meet a consistent though obviously comparatively low level of demand, not because they expect to make a mint, but because they actually do want fans to have and enjoy this product.

I'm sorry that this game is not available to overseas fans at the Kickstarter value level, but the act of getting a product into foreign markets is not trivial. You can clearly still buy the sets internationally. No, not at the price you want to pay, but that's the breaks. SJG gets to make a profit on their international sales, same as anybody else. So complaints otherwise are neither logical or economically sensible, and sound more like sour grapes than actual reasonable consideration of the situation. Sure, you can spend your money somewhere else. But don't think you're doing it because SJG has done anything wrong, because they haven't. You're doing it because you're grousing about price without any knowledge of costs involved.

For the record, I am not associated with Steve Jackson Games or anyone involved with this or any of their products, nor do I know Steve Jackson, nor have I ever even met him. I just don't think they deserve to be attacked when they are doing nothing wrong, and especially when the attack is so clearly misguided.

Parzival – 'convenient' and 'efficient & low cost' are not synonyms in any dictionary I have. So don't put incorrect words in my mouth.

Going by the number of supporters of the last Kickstarter I don't think you can class Ogre as a niche market in wargaming terms.

How do you know what profits SJG expect to make ? They don't say they are not serving the international market via the Kickstarter because it is unprofitable but because it is small. Maybe if you read the stuff we're complaining about properly then you would understand the complaint better.

I made no attack, I criticised them. Is this forum now so far to the right that even criticism of a business model I don't think much of is banned ?

Get down off your high horse and accept that other people have just as much right to rant about what they don't like as you do.

I do believe it is a niche market based on both KS sales and local retail sales around here at least. The established fanbase shows up en masse for KS. The product gathers dust on the shelves at the local stores.

*Sigh*

For a business, yes, "convenient" would indeed most likely be "efficient and low cost," as anything inconvenient by definition requires extra work (labor) or extra expense (cost of materials, resources, etc.). (That doesn't mean that certain inconvenient things aren't the right thing to do, but I lump that under the actual costs of the business, not true inconvenience.) I was, of course, not offering a synonym but an example of effect. Nice little rhetorical strike, of course, but the argument loses points for being poor logic.

"In the wargaming market." Perhaps, but in the board game and card game market (which is their bread-and-butter), it's still peanuts.

"Not because it is unprofitable but because it is small." If the overseas market is small, then the expense to serve it will be higher and the profit margin lower, potentially making it unprofitable under the Kickstarter model (which still assumes a profit, not a loss). They will still sell an overseas purchaser the product and ship it, but the purchaser has to cover that added expense. Obviously, SJG has figured what the likely profit margin will be on the US Kickstarter purchases even with the significant discount and still believe it remains high enough to warrant what they're offering. But the expense to fill the much smaller foreign market doesn't meet that standard. So to serve the overseas market, they have to charge the retail price and the standard shipping, just as to serve the US non-Kickstarter market they also have to charge the retail price and standard shipping. So the statement is the same, no matter what order you put it in; the market is too small to be profitable under the Kickstarter offer.

Clearly, I read your statement and understood it fully. I just also understand that your argument was faulty, and demonstrated so.

Okay, don't call it an attack. Call it a criticism. Pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to. Still doesn't change the inherent errors in it, and the fact that your criticism implies that a company is behaving in an unethical or unfair manner, which they are not.

And yes, you have the right to rant. But that does not mean that your rant is protected from being examined and criticized itself and having errors exposed.

But we got the point: You don't like that you can't gain the Kickstarter discount (essentially, take advantage of a sale) because the discount isn't offered to overseas customers. Okay, but how unusual is that? Do you expect to get a sale and an even more significant savings on shipping costs from a hobby shop located in another city because they offer a sale to people who walk into the store? Are they being unfair? Of course not. And the situation is really no different.

So yes, you may not like it that you can't get the sale price, but that's not really SJG's fault. It's just the economics of the situation.

Finally, there's no need to take umbrage at my examination of your point. I. Have no ill will towards you, just a better understanding of the economic realities involved.

I remember the days of having to pay 50% or more in potage to get models from UK companies deliverd to my US address. It sucked.

My sympathies are with international Ogre fans who are being priced out of the minis due to the costs of shipping.

There are a number of things I would like to see being done differently with the Ogre minis, but I am not SJG.

Parzival

You seem determined to misread and misinterpret what was said – even alter the meaning of words to make your 'logic' work. A career in politics awaits ?

My criticism was referring as much to past dealings with SGJ (' .. has always seemed to be …' – past tense) as with the current event.

'A better understanding of the economic realities …' – with your, self-admitted, lack of knowledge of the company; how is that possible ?

I don't have any interest in the Kickstarter at all – where did I say that I did ? You make faulty assumptions based on what you think someone has said or means and you wonder why they get annoyed at your pompous rant.

You are on a message board discussing a Kickstarter campaign. You were responding to another complaint that the Kickstarter campaign was not open to overseas backers (though why it automatically should be, I can't fathom). You then specifically linked that complaint to your own, thereby intentionally implying that the Kickstarter exclusion was an example of your complaint of "doing what was convenient and profitable for them and placing the customer second." You never offered any other example of such actions, so therefore the only example we can go with is the one being discussed in this thread and therefore being addressed by you, which is the Kickstarter campaign. Which you then specifically mentioned in response to me above: "not because it is unprofitable but be cause it [the overseas market] is too small." That is a direct statement about the Kickstarter campaign being the source of your complaint. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You are attempting to change the parameters of the discussion and alter your response in an attempt to make your statements valid when they are demonstrated not to be so.

Yes, I said that I do not know Steve Jackson or SJG. But I don't need to to understand the economic realities of a Kickstarter campaign, or the costs of making plastic miniatures, or of packaging and distributing the same to an overseas market, much less one that is a niche market. But if you think that the market in Europe for plastic Ogre miniatures is a profitable one, why then, you could always contact SJG directly and arrange to purchase sets and pay for the shipping and then sell these to European customers yourself. Since you aren't doing that, that tells me that *you* actually know the costs v profit element of European sales of Ogre isn't favorable on the profits side. Which is hardly surprising, as Ogre is an American wargame with an America-centered theme sold primarily in the American wargaming market, which game had its heyday in the 1980s-1990s. Today its market is largely nostalgia purchases by men ages 40+, who have the discretionary income to lay out significant money for a memory of their youth. But its market is not the current (and crucial) 12-25 year old group, or even the 26-40 year old group, who have likely never heard of Ogre to begin with, and are drawn to far more detailed "heroic gothic" figure styles in larger scales. Which isn't to say the game wouldn't sell overseas, but that it wouldn't be a huge seller, and that the enormous cost to ship the bulky product to Europe (a single set is the size of a shoebox) doesn't offer a profit potential, or drives the resulting retail costs of the product too high versus established European competing products. In short, it's a market loser in Europe (and especially the UK, with its much smaller population), while only an extremely thin market winner in America. I don't have to know Steve Jackson or SJG or any of their actual costs, etc., etc., to understand that all of the above is true. I just have to understand the basics of economics and the realities of the wargaming market, which is quite simply that the money isn't there. There would be no profit in the Kickstarter arrangement to sell to the UK, therefore the Kickstarter arrangement cannot include the UK, QED. It's not nefarious, it's just reality.

But for the sake of argument, let's be detailed. Let's assume that someone might be willing to back the new set at a higher level if you or someone else is interested in some of the added spoils and will make it worth the backer's while. The $75 USD backer level is 150 minis, including a set in reverse colors and a set all in green. And let's assume a backer would gladly sell off one or maybe both of those extra sets and ship them overseas. Assuming that MS2 is the same size box as MS1, that's a package of dimensions roughly 300mm X 160mm X 80mm weighing less than 0.5 kg. The shipping cost to the UK for such a package, via USPS, is $46. USD Obviously, the backer would want to make back their backer cost of $75 USD, at a minimum. So the cost to a UK individual would be $131 USD (or higher). Something tells me that's too high. And something tells me SJG knows it's too high as well.

(By the way, I don't know if such pre-planned selling is even allowed under Kickstarter terms, and obviously I personally will not jeopardize my ability to fund the set if such actions are prohibited. So the above is hypothetical only, offered for the sake of the discussion.)

Lastly, in all of this I have not insulted you. Yet you cannot seem to refrain from insulting me. But perhaps that is because you don't understand my effort to offer concrete and explicit points in this discussion. That's not being pompous, that's being clear and proving my point.

Again, no ill will exists on my part.

If the option existed along with the usual KS rules about postage being charged after the KS ends that would be fine.

Simply cutting out non-US customers is crass rudeness.

I loved the game when I was young and would have gone for it, but the 1930's isolationist mentality has soured me for a very long time.

"Simply cutting out non-US customers is crass rudeness."

Well, you and I have different opinions of what constitutes "crass rudeness," but if that's how you feel about it, that's how you feel about it.

"1930's isolationist mentality"

To anyone unable to join thr KS due to your location…

I wanted one set, I'm likely getting five. So I'll have four spare. If you'd like one set for $15 USD plus shipping e-mail me: the dot epic dot gamer at gmail.

SJG is offering international pre-orders at the Kickstarter price through the Kickstarter link. I gather the shipping will be the standard cost to ship overseas, as one should expect. I don't know of the unlocked extras will go to the pre-orders, but you're still getting a boat-load of minis at a great discount price.

And they just added a bigger bucket o' minis level which is 3 X Many Minis pledge with 3 X all the stretch goals for $200 USD:
link