f13.net

Focused on WoW, but no reason this service couldn't roll out for other RPGs and MMORPGs

FingerPrints (http://www.figureprints.com/)- The service
Article about it (http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/12/ed_fries_gets_back_into_business_with_one-of-a-kind_world_of_warcraft_3-d_character_model_printing.html)

Short form: Order your WoW character as a sculpt for $99.95. Get it a month later.


My opinion: they should have launched this a month ago in time for Christmas, rather than in time for when everyone's going to pass out from their credit card bills.

Edit: speling

The ability kind of been around for a while.

http://ogle.eyebeamresearch.org/

Probably quite cheaper than hundred bucks too, though one would have to look up costs of getting 3d print done.

What's more interesting is who owns the fingerprints company.

Do some of those for my CoX toons and I'm there.

You want me to sculpt your CoX?

No. He wants someone else to do it for him.

As Furiously said, this service and the partnership are what is more important. Getting some sort of full-color dot-matrix style rapid prototype of a CAD model has been around almost as long as stereo lithography. Having your exact WoW character built with one though is a different order of magnitude. Most of how that relationship was built probably had very little to do wtih technology.

3-D printers aren't cheap to operate.  We have a few in the department.  Take other overhead into account (depending upon quality), and it's really not a bad deal.

YOURSELF should be in ' '.

Guess i just don't see why it's such a big deal -- the ability to have your character sculpted if one wanted to been there for a while like you say, just like ability to get hand-drawn custom portrait of it or whatever. So now a guy who no longer makes money selling others' games decides there might be money in selling others' game characters, and Blizzard apparently agrees to the point where they stick their fingers in the pie. It's ok, the idea just doesn't give me hardon despite a honest try.  :hello_thar:

If they were bobble heads though..

I just don't see the appeal of having a figurine let alone spending $100.00 USD on something that will sit on your shelf.  I can name many other things I'd like to do with 100 bucks.

Great idea for a stocking stuffer or something if it was like 25 bucks.  Just too expensive for me.

Eh, there's a big market for desk ornaments imo.

At a bazillion players, they only need a tiny slice of them to run at capacity and make decent money.  One sculpt a day puts them at $30,000 a month.  That's if they only have one printer.  They'll quickly be able to afford as many as their 'artists' can produce the final file to print for.

100x30 is $3,000 not $30,000.

Hehe.  5PM is closing time.

Yea, I'm not the market either for this stuff. But people are buying the generic non-personalized sculpted stuff already. This gives them something even more to blow cash on. The price is a bit different, but you're already talking about something that isn't an impulse buy anyway, so price is less an issue.

You also shouldn't discount the ease of this service. MP3s and MP3 players existed before the iPod. But it was iTunes (and the associative business model) that actually changed things, business-wise.

Why use a 3-D printer? Hell, it's not like WoW is going to have a whole helluva lot of different looking characters.  :awesome_for_real:

I think that's what makes this so funny to me. There's nothing really defining your character from the next except for your name. Hurrah for the idiots who decide to do this.

Hopefully, when they are on their deathbed, and they look over at the nightstand and see their WoW dolly, they don't experience too much last minute regret.

Zing!

You guys are so amusing sometimes.  None of you have kitchy, stupid shit hanging around your computer desks, do you.

Not that cost me $100 I don't.

This is the kind of thing I'd never get for myself, but I'd think nothing of dropping US$100 on something like this for my wife...

I have some Persona 3 figures behind me. And a Big Sis Prinny. All combines less than $100 and there's no way the WoW figures are anywhere near as awesome as the Akihabara P3 statues. Mostly though, no. I do have a PS3 and 360 on my desk. Is that kitsch? ^_^

Them being on the desk is kitschy :-) How has your computer not gone and kicked their newb asses off that desk and back into the living room where they belong?!

The actual sculptors are pretty decent but the coloring looks like total shit. I would rather they just sent me it un-colored and I'd paint it myself (though thats just me). I wonder how true to the armory it would have to be. my gear was pretty mis-mashed between t6 and t5 when I quit. All in all I can see this making some money for whoever.

Are there standard issue WCII peons in WoW? I wonder if they'd make one of them. And just put 'peon' on the pedestal. I'd find that more fun than turning my avatar into a fagatar.

Oh god I slay me.

You blew $600 on a console's potential, and how many hundreds monthly on games, and now you act like $100 is a big deal to some other geek.

This is LOLWOWHATE at it's finest, and it's incredibly amusing.   Could they do it cheaper? Sure.  Then it's not as geeky, though.

I found myself thinking the same thing.  They won't do this for CoX characters, because CoX characters might require more than like half a dozen different paint schemes.

I don't know what technology FingerPrints is using. But I have worked with machines that print with the same basic resolution, in both dot size/density and color, as a good inkjet printer. It's a powder/resin type operation that builds from the bottom up, and can include some undercuts. CoX, SWG, WoW, CoD4, TF2, all of that would be handled fine.

Oh, it's very much still as geeky at $20. I'm not saying $100 is a lot either, as I just said I'd buy a WCII peon. I just... maybe I'm underestimating the market for an avatar who will have different armor in a month.

Has nothing to do with hate.  I play WOW.  100 bucks is not a lot of cash to me, but it's the principle of the thing.  It's a stupid figurine for god sakes!

And you can't compare the console purchase.  You can actually do something with a PS3.  I mean it holds down papers, you can use it as a space heater and it also plays blue ray discs!

You can eat cake with a PS3 also.

The Wii doesn't like cake.

Neither do these WoW figures.

Math is hard.  :sad_red_panda:

Okay, so it's still nice for a small operation, just not OMFG Moneyhats!!! nice.

Man, you guys are right.

If they mass produced some 3" WC2 Peons or each of the different TF2 chars, I would def. buy one for $29.99.

ZOMG! Someone said something bad about an asinine ancillary WoW product, must defend the greatest game evar from teh haet!  :ye_gods:

Shouldn't you be raiding something?

I really like that Elmo hanging himself avatar.  When I read WOW+Raiding and saw that avatar at the same time it all rang true.  Especially when I have a scheduled raid tonight.  I'm gonna go cry in the corner now in shame.

If you want one of these figures and need a new laptop why not kill two birds with one 4500$ stone


http://kotaku.com/gaming/wow_themed-xps/dell-unveils-wow+themed-xps-laptops-329489.php


I eagerly await Thrall on a wheeties box.  :grin:

Hologram of nelf/draenei dancing on the cover of that thing?  If not, fail.

You need a $4500 laptop to run WOW?

Two Kotobukiya P3 statues (Mitsuru ran me $40, and you can apparently get a few others on RosenQueen (http://rosenqueen.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=15)) will come in just under $100. Now, Kotobukiya Mitsuru >>> these kinda crappy looking ones, but the point stands, $100 isn't a whole lot, especially considering it's a (relatively) custom job.

I have a good amount of figures on my desk. Some I bought online. Some I got for free. Some I got at a convention, and 1 I got when overseas.

They're just mementos and such...not for everyone, but whatever.


Also, Schild...can you PM me the P3 stuff you have?

I have the kotobukiya Aegis and Mitsuru. I have hero and Sanada on preorder.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119742129566522283.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119742129566522283.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace)

No one has mentioned it's Fries...I thought he was the Microsoft gaming guy?

That was the first thing that got my attention, from the business development side. But I didn't want to drop names  :-)

"This gentleman in Boston wishes to have his character to have BIGGER breasts.  Please redo before shipping.  Thanks.  Management"

http://www.fabjectory.com/ (http://www.fabjectory.com/) does the print a doll thing for Second Life avatars, among other things.  and it is priced in the vicinity of $100