The Business: It's Getting Easier For Indies To Do Toys & Collections

Cole & Anspach's Galaxy's Edge has expanded into tabletop gaming. Miniatures are now coming, and a tabletop RPG is in playtest. I mention this because of two things that need to be kept in mind going forward: that 3D Printing technology is getting mature and user-friendly at an astonishing rate, and that there are manufacturers that don't hate you out there to partner with in making things out of your IP. Below are a couple of videos; one is about the former, the other is an unboxing of the later.

It is my opinion that the former is a good pathway to the latter, depending on the specifics of your property. For Brian Niemeier, myself, and a few others (including Jon del Arroz) this is a fantastic route to pursue once there is sufficient demand- and for 3D, that can be very low, if you merely provide the files and let buyers print their own.

The independent toy and collectible manufacturers are, to be honest, going to be well out of reach for most of us for quite some time. We'll get a better sense of what it takes to make that viable if GE makes a deal to produce GE toys and figures like that mecha samurai (that costs over $200, by the way; premium toys take premium prices), but if we think of that as a stand-in for breaking into a wider audience then it works as a good goalpost to aim towards.

Again, assuming you have a property meriting this sort of thing.