Board games, especially war games, often rely on the sale of physical items such as books and miniatures. At the same time, there is a long tradition of making your own toys to play with at home, and with the rise of cheap 3D printers, this has become the subject of much heated debate. Howtogeek.com portal speakwhy 3D printers are controversial in the board game world
Until 3D printers became widespread, the average person did not have the tools to create detailed plastic models. For example, the injection molding method used to produce Warhammer miniatures can cost millions of dollars. And every time you need to make a new mold for the next figure, you need to recoup the cost of thousands of dollars.
Of course, this is not a big deal when a company can sell millions of figurines and make a profit from them, but 3D printers have completely changed the situation. Now anyone who can afford a printer can simply download files from the Internet (or create their own) and print any number of figures. Yes, their quality may not be as high as the genuine product but it is close enough to the genuine product. And with proper painting, defects can go unnoticed.
The problem lies in copyright. It's illegal to print copies of licensed characters, but what about original miniatures based on existing franchises? If they are not for sale, then the print is no different from a fan resource – it is just very voluminous, unlike the image on paper.
Following this logic, would you be able to supplement your army with figures printed at home if you played with friends? In the case of Warhammer, franchise owner Games Workshop has softened its stance on in-house printing, even at official tournaments. As long as the player develops the miniature design himself and can prove this fact, there will be no complaints against him. But printing commercial designs from third-party authors is strictly prohibited.
It's fair to say that wargaming and tabletop miniatures aren't the cheapest of hobbies. People amass collections worth thousands of dollars and spend many free hours on them; Such enthusiasts may not be very happy that someone can print the same collection on a printer for just a few cents. At the same time, technology is lowering the barrier to entry in the hobby for those with smaller budgets, and chances are they will also be motivated to spend some money on official miniatures.
So far, it doesn't look like figure manufacturers are going after people printing their own miniatures. Some, like Games Workshop, even let you use them in official tournaments. But there is no way to do this without copyright protection: sometimes unofficial miniatures are of such high quality that an uninitiated buyer cannot distinguish them from the “true” ones. It is likely that in the future, franchise owners will even begin to attract especially talented sculptors and buy their designs or share profits with them – the industry has many ways to solve this problem.
