Re: RE: In praise of Cottage Industry

> Once again, I feel my point has been missed so I will drop the 
> subject. Maybe at some other time I will be able to articulate 
> my point better but it is obviously not today. 
> 
> I came to the GZG fold because of Jon's great products and his
> professionalism. He has always treated my questions himself and 
> done so quickly. If my posts seemed to put him or his company 
> down then I failed completely.
> 
> Daniel
> 

No you haven't failed Daniel. I think most people like the cottage
industry
side of things because they can feel part of a community and feel they
have a voice within it. GW would never dreamed of mailing out a draft of
a new system to be play tested, nor would they ever think to ask
players what figures they would like to see produced next.

But the real truth of the matter is that you don't have to get rid of
the cottage
industry feel when you become a larger more successful company.

If you take a look at Wizards of the Coast as a prime example. They have
just 
produced the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons RPG.
At first I was worried about what a large successful company was going
to do
to ruin this RPG (hang up's from GW days).

To my utter surprise the game includes practically every change to the
system that
I and fellow players had been badgering TSR for.
We have also been able to ask for rule clarifications and get answers
from the 
development team themselves.
And very uncharacteristically for a large company they have allowed 3rd
parties to 
use the games system to produce supplements and other source material
independently
of WotC.

I do believe miniatures companies should be increasing their profiles.
If website
development and maintenance is a problem then why not promote products
better within existing websites. 'The Miniatures Page' is a prime
example. Or in
exactly the the same way as Daniel has offered, give details or even
samples to
3rd parties and get them to promote the miniatures.
I always try to name the figure manufacturers in any pictures I put on
the web, 
we don't have to lose the cottage industry feel just because we raise
it's profile.

As for the original point of lack of pictures, all I can say is thank
god we have a 
miniatures show coming up this April. A chance once again to buy
figures!

----------------------
Jeremey Claridge
jeremy.claridge@kcl.ac.uk
http://freespace.virgin.net/jeremey.claridge/