What's new
  • Welcome to the Heroscapers 2.0 site! We've still got some dust to clear and adjustments to make, including launching a new front page, but we hope you enjoy the improvements to the site. Please post your feedback and any issues you encounter in this thread.

Wave X - Custom Competition Discussion

Euryon

Euryon

Master Custom Creator
Ok, after a particle inspiration hit me in fuzzysadists thread next door, the idea of a "Best of Heroscapers Customs" set to sell on eBay (or whatever) materialised.

This thread is simply for discussion on whether it is 1) ethical, 2) practical and 3) interesting.

First, the ethics of the situation are in question as the proposal includes selling customs on eBay for cash. The cash raised could either a) go to charity, b) be the custom designers prize, or c) go to Heroscapers.com. We ought to discuss what sorts of figures are we allowed to re-sell as customs (D&D, MK, Warhammer, etc).

Secondly, the practicality. The idea would be to hold an in-house custom competition to find 5(?) "sellable" customs, that could be packaged, rudimentally, and sold on eBay (or whatever), and the proceeds given to whom/whatever. Would it be possible to centralize the figures and cards, and then actually sell them.

Third, the interest of the idea. Well, that comes down to you, the reader. Would you be interested in entering such a competition (when some concrete rules/guidelines were in place), would you be interested in judging, spectating or contributing in some other way? Please discuss here so I can gauge if this idea is worth pushing forwards.


Some initial ideas I have:

Hold an in-house custom competition. The top 5 are then sold by a single salesperson on eBay (maybe HouseMouse?) with equal reserves. The custom that sells for the highest wins. We'd have to make allowances for not buying your own customs, though! The winner then wins "something" (to be determined).

Or;

We hold an in-house custom competition and produce "Wave X - Heroes of the Web", a lá "Orms Return" - 5 customs that are voted as being potential Halls/Barracks quality, and then sold to the public, perhaps enmasse. Maybe we could convince some of the terrain builders (Robaula etc) to chuck in some custom scenery to spruce up the deal.



Any other ideas and discussion welcome. The above is *just* an idea. I am not particularly claiming ownership or a massive desire to run the thing, though if things *do* go ahead, we could start a project of it.
 
Sounds like a great (if time consuming!) idea, Euryon. Only worry I would have would be if such a thing would be attracting the wrong sort of attention from Hasbro - I know not the details of the closure of the previous Heroscape fan site, but didnt it involve Hasbro frowning upon something being sold openly with out their permission?
Having said that, there are TONS of unofficial customs and stuff on Ebay all the time....

Sounds fun, worthwhile, and interesting, from my point of view though. :)
 
Fair point, Rob. Maybe one of the Admins/Mods in the know can enlighten us as to any possible problems this might cause for the sight?
If it does, I ain't losing anything by having this idea shot down ;)
 
Cool; so theoretically, if the custom includes that little disclaimer, we should be ok?

I shall PM Truth for his "official" views; if he can give the idea his blessing, then we know we're good.

Thanks for the research, Nether.
 
Wasn't this sort of thing done once before, as a charity thing for hurricane victims? IIRC there was some disagreement over whether the auction sold for as much as it could have with maximum presentation effort, but I don't think there were any other problems with it.
A while back I'd idly tried to cajole Truth to do faux expansions on Ebay with his lovely customs, but he hasn't thought it worth the bother... if there's a contest, I think I'm voting one of his customs in instead of one of mine, because I know most of his are better in terms of sellability. ;)
 
If for whatever reason you cant sell them on ebay, you guys could always make a bunch of figures and cards that work together and put them into one "custom" wave so everone can see them. they could also be used in trades and such. I think that would be pretty cool. :p
 
I've got no problem here. So long as participants know in advance that they are making customs for the purpose of selling on ebay and what the profit of those sales will go towards then it all seems on the up and up.
 
I have no problems selling stuff on ebay, but the only problem I see is A) what do you charge? I've sold single customs on there for 50+ bucks.(note, not for a while, and I've never sold anything I've posted here, I've always kept my ebay and forum stuff separate. Adds to the "never before seen" jazz I added to my listings) You're going to have to do it buyitnow for whatever someone agrees on. Different figures cost different things, and the profit is going to be different from figure to figure. I'm not really sure about the logistics of this. Who would sell it? Would a new ebay account be made?

I like the idea, it just seems to have a ton of room for headaches.
 
As JJ said there are definitely logistics problems here. Each custom will sell for different prices and in some cases a well made custom might not even sell as well. One example would be the many, many ridiculously overpowered customs which sell for egregious amounts of money. In fact you might just find that any well made and well balanced customs will end up being sold to other Heroscapers here! :p

As for the idea itself I'm somewhat uncomfortable with it. I would have to refrain from participating in any contest or factory. I don't make my customs to be sold and I have no intention of changing that, unless I find I am unable to find a job and completely out of money when I graduate but then I'd probably go beg my parents to take me back in anyway :p

Although I will not be participating in the idea I can suggest a few things to keep in mind:

What figures will you use. Ideally you would want to find a cheap source of figures: either custom made or easy to get. Traditional "contest winners" such as Rackham figures or DnD rares are unfeasible. Rackham figures can run upwards of $50 and require shipment from France andpainting! Definitely make sure you do not try to start a factory based on expensive figures...

Will the figures be balanced to Barracks and Halls standards? As I mentioned above in many cases overpowered customs on Ebay sell better than balanced ones. It may be more profitable to make more powerful customs.

Will it have legal ramifications for Heroscapers. I know Truth has already OK'd the idea but I personally feel it would be better to put some distance between Heroscapers and any custom factory. Just my 2 cents there though.

If you make a contest what will be the prize and how do you ensure the prize does not cost more than the auction? It is hard to determine what you will make on Ebay. The recent War Elephant on Ebay which had a really neat custom figure and an awesome card ("borrowed" from Reaper) only sold for $12, barely enough to pay for an expansion pack. Actually if the card were not stolen from Reaper and if I had an Ebay account I probably would have bid on that darned Elephant!

Meanwhile I've seen overpowered customs with overused powers and dorky dirt-cheap DnD minis sell for over $50!

Is it worth it given the time and effort? Keep in mind your proposal is a community custom effort combined with its own Barracks/Halls revision process. On top of that someone has to obtain/make the figures you intend to sell. The item must then be sold and the money divied up. I do not think it will be a tremendous amount of work overall but it does seem like it could take a lot away from the individualized customs scene here if many people become involved. Personally I will be very sad if 3-4 of the top custom designers release one custom at a time between the lot of them so they can "perfect" the card and then sell it on Ebay.

There are other things to consider but I'm tired now and have a lot more work to do. Plus there are a few other posts I needed to make in other threads. I may post here again tomorrow.



which sold for only $12
 
Ok, I'll try and address some of the questions posed:

What do we charge?
Well this depends on how we sell the items. If they are one by one, we set a reserve equal to the expenditure, and allow a price war to begin (we hope). If we sell as a "Wave", then, I don't know, this would have to be heavily discussed. As a starting point, I'll suggest a reserve equal to the total expenditure (lets assume $20 for now), and hope a price war breaks out.

Who would sell it?
Something that needs to be discussed. What I can say for "fairness", is that it would be a long-standing trusted member of this site, someone who hasn't entered the competition, and someone willing to do so. If this takes off, we can start asking for volunteers, or approaching people who fit the criteria.

Would a new eBay account need to be made?
I shouldn't think so.

The problem of over-powered customs selling better than balanced customs.
This depends on whether we go for "saleability" or quality. If possible, I suggest going for both. As the idea is to produce 4 or 5 good quality customs, we could make something similar to "Orm's Return"; high powered heroes. As experienced custom makers here, i'm sure we could produce a set of 150+ point figures that are powerful, and therefore marketable, but not imbalanced. It's something to aim for, at least.

Being uncomfortable with the idea.
That is, of course, your perogative. As yet the proceeds may go to charity, the upkeep of this site, towards a prize from housemouse... I can understand people seeing ethical problems with custom sales; but this would be as legitimate a custom sale as there could be. However, it is optional, so it's completely up to each individual.

What figures will be used?
This all depends. I would be willing to part with any figure I currently own, from well painted Warhammer figures to Mage Knight. I'm expecting stipulations to be entrants must provide their own figure and send it to the centralized eBay account holder for sale, if they "win".

Out of interest - why is this referred to as a factory? It's a one-off competition, not a production line...

Will the figures be balanced to Barracks/Halls standards?
I would hope they would be of that calibre. This is something that needs more in-depth discussion following a concencus of approval. Halls/Barracks judges quality, and I don't believe quality and power are mutually exclusive. Jotun is powerful, Charos is powerful, Braxas is powerful - and they're all fairly balanced.

What are the legal ramifications?
I'm not sure what's referred to by "custom factory"; but I think it's an unfair name for this project. It implies mass-production and low-expenditure/high-income. This is meant to be a 1-off competition. Nought more. Legal ramifications - Truth has ok'd it. Hasbro want a disclaimer on all customs. Custom selling is legal on eBay. We need not advertise it as a Heroscapers product, nor put any link to heroscapers.com in the sale (unless Truth wanted it), all we would do is use heroscapers.com webspace to discuss and hold the competition. I think the legal issues with that are minimal...

If you make a contest what will be the prize and how do you ensure the prize does not cost more than the auction?
The prize will need to be discussed. Such insurance cannot be given other than placing a reserve on the item(s) that matches the expenditure of shipping goods to the centralized eBay account. If figures don't sell, then that's tough. The eBayer who put the items up would be able to keep the items as collateral against paying for listing the items. This is a low-risk occurence though, IMO.

Is it worth it given the time and effort?
Maybe, maybe not. The way I see it, the absolute worst case scenario see's a competition produce at least 4 or 5 top quality new customs which fail to sell on eBay, leaving 4 or 5 scapers out of pocket by 5 bucks, and a single scaper out of pocket by $10, but bonus 4 or 5 custom figures. Those are risks entrants would have to take, I suppose. On the flipside, you gain prestige, honour, and potentially money/heroscape goods.

The problem of a brain-drain/skills shortage.
We have had several custom competitions before. The one I entered, sure, I devoted a lot of my custom time to my entry, but I still churned out other customs. Every entrant would be allowed to enter of their own free will; if they chose to continue producing regular customs, thats up to them, if they wish to spend 24 hours a day on the competition custom, that, too, is their democratic right.
 
Some things that those interested in this idea can start discussing. Please answer the following questions:

1) Are you interested in entering a competition of this type?

2) Are you interested in supporting the competition in some other guise? (Judging, selling, helping tweak entrants, etc)

3) Where should the proceeds go? (Upkeep of site, charity, towards a prize for the winner(s), a combination?)

4) How many winners should there be? (4 or 5 as a ballpark figure)

5) Should the winners be sold individually or as a custom-wave?

6) If a wave, should it have a theme? (ie, desert theme, utgar theme, pirate theme, etc)

7) What sort of delimiters should be given to the competition? (ie, all entrants should be Large Unique Heroes, all entrants should be Beasts, etc)

8) What should the wave be called? ("Heroes of the Web" or something?)

Please post any other questions or queries you have that are relevant to this discussion, I will try to answer as best I can.
 
Hey Euryon:

To answer your question about my reference to a factory it was in response to your comment about the potential to sell customs "en masse" and it made me think of a HS workshop, complete with little gnomes (Heroscapers) chugging away diligently making quality customs! :p

Also some of my concerns about time expenditure and the potential drain on the customs community were more in reference to the possibility of a long-term factory project and would not really apply to a single contest. As I said I misinterpreted what you meant by en masse.

Finally I meant no insult when I referred to the possibility of an en masse production of customs as a factory. Notice that I mentioned the possibility of some of our "top custom designers" being involved in the project. For me a factory does not necessarily equal cheap or hastily made items. Many factory products are of high quality; heck I'm sure a lot of the official Heroscape material is factory made! I referred to factory as a picture of efficiency and because of the gnomish workshop I referred to earlier :p
 
Fair enough; but I meant "in a box of 5" as opposed to 5 singles, by enmasse. No harm done, and raised some fair and valid questions anyhow. There was a hint of that "box of 5" being sold several times (ie, we get 10 copies of each custom, and sell 10 "box of 5"'s. But thats not really important or intended at the mo.

But yeah, I've no intention of a factory like project (whether low or high quality) - just a one-off thingamajig.
 
Euryon said:
Some things that those interested in this idea can start discussing. Please answer the following questions.
Click to expand...

The questions and my answers follow:

1) Are you interested in entering a competition of this type?

Not really.

2) Are you interested in supporting the competition in some other guise? (Judging, selling, helping tweak entrants, etc)

I'll give customs feedback to the best of my ability like I always do as long as I have time. I'll also continue to offer my 2 cents on the logistics if I think it will help.

3) Where should the proceeds go? (Upkeep of site, charity, towards a prize for the winner(s), a combination?)

Maybe a combination. At the moment I'd say it should go to the site and a small (or big if the customs sell for a lot) prize for the winner. If some major disaster happens in the near future I might vote for charity instead though.

4) How many winners should there be? (4 or 5 as a ballpark figure)

Depends on how much money is made. Personally I think the contest might work well if you had a graded prize system. So for example we might decide we will spend 1/2 of the proceeds on the prize. In that case:

If we make $50 then one winner will receive a free large expansion (worth a little more than $20 or half of the proceeds).

If we make $100 then one winner will receive a free large expansion and small expansion, and 2 second placers will receive a free small expansion: 20 + 10 per small expansion = $50.

If we make $500 then one winner will receive 3 free large expansions and a small expansion, 2 second placers will receive a 2 large expansions, and 3 third placers will receive 1 large expansion for a total of 10 large expansions and a small expansion which would equal close to 250.

At some point, if the contest makes enough money, everyone involved would get a prize. Also if an intermediate amount is raised, ie 550, then only 250 would be spent on prizes (as originally planned) and the extra 50 would automatically go to Heroscapers or the charity. Alternately you could determine the prizes after the fact but that would probably give less incentive to people overall.

5) Should the winners be sold individually or as a custom-wave?

If the customs are good enough they'll likely make more individually. I've seen and heard of individuals which went for like 70 by themselves. The sets usually only go for around a hundred at most that I know of, but are usually sold for much less.

6) If a wave, should it have a theme? (ie, desert theme, utgar theme, pirate theme, etc)

Yes.

7) What sort of delimiters should be given to the competition? (ie, all entrants should be Large Unique Heroes, all entrants should be Beasts, etc)

Unless selling the customs as a wave I'd just let people design whatever they want. It should be a new custom though. Also the figure should be one that comes pre-painted and is easy to get (unless the custom designer is willing to provide the figure).

8) What should the wave be called? ("Heroes of the Web" or something?)

Depends on the theme of the wave.

Euryon said:
Please post any other questions or queries you have that are relevant to this discussion, I will try to answer as best I can.
Click to expand...

This may be getting a little silly but a lot of the Ebay sellers do not display the final card online. Instead they will post a low resolution picture with a watermark such as "SAMPLE COPY ONLY" on the card. It would be a lot of work but you may ask people to only submit low resolution versions of the cards with a watermark so people will have to buy the custom to get the "good" version of the cards. I'm not sure how much it would affect sales but the Ebay sellers seem to think it helps. I personally think its kind of dumb cause half the time I cannot read the card which would make me NOT want to buy it if I were a potential buyer.

Oh I don't have an Ebay account BTW. I do randomly peruse the Ebay Heroscape auctions sometimes. Helps me to be informed when stuff like this contest comes up :p
 
Just to be clear my stamp of approval was to say that you could run the contest on the forums so long as all parties involved knew exactlly what they were getting involved in. That is not a heroscapers.com stamp of approval and backing on the contest itself. So no I do not want heroscapers.com mentioned in the auction sales. heroscapers.com neither endorses or condemns the sale of custom units by thier creators.
 
Yes I echo what Truth just stated. We are a community and do not endorse anything, other than our core principles of community. Our site is not to be used to enhance sales, or to increase credibility. In that I don't think we want to be the recipient of any generated funds.
 
All I can do to guarentee all involved parties know what they're getting in to is to make a clear and succinct manifest towhit they must agree to be eligible.

I can understand why the pseudo-corporation (hence, The Corporation) may choose not to endorse such a contest. I accept The Corporation does not wish to receive funds or any other benefit from the contest.
I, as a member and representative of The Community, appreciate the lend-lease of the webspace to host the contest, as an optional perogative of The Corporation, that may be withdrawn at any time, with no concession to explanation deemed necessary.

The intention of the contest is not to cause fiscal profit any individual, communal or corporate body.

It is not to glorify or enhance the marketing or advertisment of any private or public product.

The intention of the contest is to produce and market an undecided amount of "custom figures" that may be sold, with any profit going towards charity and/or the creators of the custom in guise of Heroscape products, as is the theme of this community.


Essentially; it's all good, I was under no illusions, all "official" questions are answered, so lets revert to communiqué.
 
truth said:
Just to be clear my stamp of approval was to say that you could run the contest on the forums so long as all parties involved knew exactlly what they were getting involved in. That is not a heroscapers.com stamp of approval and backing on the contest itself. So no I do not want heroscapers.com mentioned in the auction sales. heroscapers.com neither endorses or condemns the sale of custom units by thier creators.
Click to expand...

Cool thanks for the clarification. I was a little concerned with the legal ramifications of this idea and was surprised by your initial response (and a little worried). I feel more better and more assured now that my friendly Heroscape site will not suffer any potential legal ramifications. I know Hasbro is ok (for now) with the Ebay customs but I'm not sure their ability to overlook such sales would extend to a fan-based website since it did not back on .NET =\

Also I had a quick side question: has there been any communication with Hasbro about the possibility of making or allowing Scapers to be the Official Heroscape Fan Site? I know it kind of is in an unstated way but it would be really cool if we could get a proper seal of approval from Hasbro. Maybe a link from their main site too.
 
Some random thoughts....

1) I didnt mean to cause such an uproar with my previous thread.

2) If we do this, I dont think selling individual customs on ebay should be how we decide a 'winner'... I think vote here on the site the usual way, then package the set up, sell them once on ebay, split the winning amount in half or somesuch... half to charity, half for prize money.

3) Lets face it, no matter how legal things get, no ones going to want to fight a legal battle about "those guys trying to give money to X for charity".

4) I'd make the ground rules something like... each figure must be commonly available, and cost per miniature under 'x' amount. Keep it such that anyone here could easily whip up a set of "Wave X" at very little cost.

5) I like the idea of a theme, that will make it more in line with a 'set' of figures. Might want to start with a 'pick the theme' contest/vote thread.

In the end... we don't even have to sell this on ebay. Just doing up an official "Wave X" might be worth the effort to make the customs in the first place. "Bragging Rights" has LONG been a great prize among professionals :)

There are plenty of us that I'm sure wouldnt mind adding "Wave X - 2006 Custom Winner" to thier signature.

Fuzzy
 
1) Are you interested in entering a competition of this type?

No. I earn my living off of intellectual property and I feel that selling customs on ebay is at the edge of, if not over, the line of legality.

2) Are you interested in supporting the competition in some other guise? (Judging, selling, helping tweak entrants, etc)

I might comment on the the creations with an eye to clarity and mechanics.

3) Where should the proceeds go? (Upkeep of site, charity, towards a prize for the winner(s), a combination?)

Charity

4) How many winners should there be? (4 or 5 as a ballpark figure)

I would do 5 big heroes

5) Should the winners be sold individually or as a custom-wave?

Sold together

6) If a wave, should it have a theme? (ie, desert theme, utgar theme, pirate theme, etc)

The big waves don't have a theme

7) What sort of delimiters should be given to the competition? (ie, all entrants should be Large Unique Heroes, all entrants should be Beasts, etc)

Unique heroes - large or 2 space base

8) What should the wave be called? ("Heroes of the Web" or something?)

Decent into Litigation.............. ;)
 
After seeing some of the customs on this site scalped, I'm going to have to wonder what will keep scalpers from ripping off these guys?
 
Ok, the initial responses are pretty much anti, or distinctly non-pro. That's cool, 'tis better to know at the start. Don't know till you ask. Confine this thread to the flames whence it was birthed with sophistry and false idols!
 
no love lost.

Don't take it hard Euryon, I think most of us, yes even lurkers, just don't want to start a fuss with hasbro. I was on .net, then got busy and didn't check in. When i finnaly have time, my heroscape site is gone! A week or two later I found .com, and in a month or so it seems to self destruct. at that point I just went on hiatus, disgusted by the seemingly looped fate of doom. I am just now starting to become active here because it looks like the site is here to last. While I love seeing everyones work here, I am not keen on loosing another site.

I say something simmilar could be managed with out an e-bay angle. the contest could still be held but the reward would be the tag added to your sig line. Just add a step to the voted winners where they produce a walkthrough on how they did the conversion / creation. this site has an amazing number of talented people, and the resulting figs would really be a work of art.

I like the ideal, but I don't want to find a new heroscape home.
 
I ain't taking it hard. Like I said, rather recognise the disquiet now, rather than after putting any work in. As for a regular non-eBay orientated wave; that'd be great, and should anyone wish to host such a contest, more power to 'em.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top