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Will 3D printing kill off Games Workshop? The answer is simple: no, not if Games Workshop is smart. And Games Workshop has proven themselves to be quite smart in the past. I think that, while the face of the wargaming scene may change radically over the next ten years, Games Workshop will continue to be a top dog in the industry.

Games Workshop’s Intellectual Property and 3D Printing

The first thing that needs to come up when talking about whether or not Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar are going to disappear when 3D printing fully comes into its own is: intellectual property. And especially: will Games Workshop enforce their intellectual property rights.

I think the answer to anyone who has been paying attention is that, yes, Games Workshop is going to fiercely protect their IP from recasters or 3D printers or 3rd party kit makers. This is absolutely nothing new. Games Workshop–as evidenced most recently by their IP changes regarding fan animations–is extremely protective of their intellectual property, and Games Workshop is not going let let 3D printing kill this off.

Yes, there are going to be knocks off and imitations. There always have been and there will continue to be so. The difference now, and in the near future as 3D printing gets better and better, is will 3D printing designers fully scan Games Workshop models and sell them as STL files.

If you thought that the IP Hammer came crashing down on fan animation, you’ll never believe the kind of fury that will be unleashed by Games Workshop’s lawyers when a 3D printer tries to sell a Space Marine Captain for $4 on MyMiniFactory. You will be amazed that so many cease and desist orders could possibly exist if 3D printers started doing that.

It just isn’t going to happen.

What About Games Workshop 3D Printed Proxies?

This gets into murkier territory, because this is a thing that exists now. 3D printers will create models called Space Troopers that look a LOT like Space Marine but with a few key differences, and market them as their own entity. Can Games Workshop do anything to stop this kind of 3D printing copyright infringement?

Well, let’s look at the infamous Games Workshop intellectual property document that was revamped earlier this year:

• counterfeit models – our products must not be reproduced and sold.
• imitation models – our products must not be imitated. Imitators produce models which copy heavily from Games Workshop’s artwork, books or products.
• recasting and 3D printing – our products must not be illegally re-cast or scanned, nor should digital designs of our products be illegally produced and distributed.

Now, granted, we’re looking at the future through the eyes of the present, so it’s hard to say how these things are going to change, but for now, Games Workshop will shut you down the closer and closer you get to their IP. And while you can DEFINITELY say “My army is going to be Space Troopers and your army is going to be Undead Skeleton Robots, and we’re going to play Warhammer 40k with the Space Marines and Necrons rules,” if you’re in a friendly game, you most certainly can’t get away with it in Games Workshop stores and tournaments.

(OF course, the argument here is “Well, how often do I really play in a Games Workshop store or a tournament?” And that’s fair. If you’re just playing with your buddy on their dining room table, then go at it–no IP police are going to come knocking down your door.

What is Games Workshop Really Selling, and Can It Be Replicated on a 3D Printer?

All of this raises the question of: What is Games Workshop? What does it mean to 3D Print Games Workshop?

For starters, let’s look at the Games Workshop business model, which you can read here on their investor relations page.

“We have a simple strategy at Games Workshop. We make the best fantasy miniatures in the world, to engage and inspire our customers, and to sell our products globally at a profit. We intend to do this forever.”

This is the first line, almost the entire first paragraph of the statement. Games Workshop, by their own admission, is a miniatures company. They make games and rules and books and dice and paint, but what they are, at their core, is a miniatures company.

This is where I see the chink in Games Workshop’s armor. Because there’s no doubt that 3D printing IS starting to scare Games Workshop, and there’s no doubt that ideas may have been floated–perhaps in passing, but surely floated–that they ought to look into the business of selling STLs of their miniatures.

This is a big deal. This is Games Workshop at its core. If we look at how much 3D printing has advanced in the last three years, and then look ten years in the future, there can be little doubt that 3D printing is going to be EVERYWHERE, doing EVERYTHING.

Can a company that “makes the best fantasy miniatures in the world” continue to exist in a world where…maybe they don’t?

Because that has always been Games Workshop’s hallmark: they make the best of the best. And that’s not just idle marketing: Games Workshop miniatures are head-and-shoulders above the rest. In detail and quality, a Games Workshop miniatures is better than anything you’re going to get from Cool Mini or Not, Mantic Games, Warlord Games, and absolutely anything on My Mini Factory.

But… will it be that way in the future? Will Games Workshop continue to be the best of the best?

Games Workshop and 3D Printing: They’ve Got to Sell More than Miniatures

If you’re in Games Workshop’s camp, then you have got to be banking A LOT on the periphery of Games Workshop products, by which I mean: Rules and the Black Library. Because 3D printers are not going to change rulesets, and they’re definitely not going to replace 200+ books of lore.

(Now, Games Workshop has been in the rules game for 35 years. You’ve got to think that they’ve got things worked out pretty well, right? Well, every time there’s a new edition, it’s because the rules have taken a turn for the worse–or they’re about to. What can definitively said about Games Workshop rules is that there are definitely A LOT of them. Are they the best? That’s debatable.)

But what Games Workshop does have is an enormous amount of lore that is highly beloved. I’d say it’s safe to say that there exists more lore, in pure volume, than in the Star Wars universe, the Star Trek universe, the Lord of the Rings universe, even behemoth books like The Wheel of Time. They just can’t hold a candle to The Horus Heresy series which has more than 50 books on a single, albeit very multi-faceted, event.

Let’s Get Real about Games Workshop and 3D Printing

I do not believe for a minute that Games Workshop is going to go down without a fight. The infrastructure may be in place for every home hobbyist to create their own resin miniatures, but I 100% foresee Games Workshop still selling boxes of plastic models for years and years.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Games Workshop may never catch the wave of 3D printing and they’ll be churning out plastic kits until either they, or the 3D printers, flinch.

What I can absolutely see is something that already exists and is only bound to expand: custom chapter badges, shoulder paulrdrons, iconography. This kind of stuff is expensive to get from Games Workshop for even the armies they supply (like the Blood Angels and the Dark Angels) but is virtually impossible to find for the Iron Hands, the Imperial Fists, and the White Scars. More importantly, with so many homebrew chapters, I see no reason why a sculptor shouldn’t be able to sculpt their own shoulder pauldron with custom imagery on it.

Yes, there may come a day when Games Workshop has to start selling STLs of their miniatures, and when that day comes I hope that it is successful, because for all of the problems with Games workshop as a company, there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of fans who want to continue to play Warhammer 40k and Age of Sigmar.

But what Games Workshop will continue to hold the rights to, and will continue to capitalize on, is the lore and the rules. Both rich and vibrant, both flawed and problematic. Games Workshop of the future–long future, in my opinion–is going to be a company where the very best sculptors work alongside the very best rules writers alongside the very best content creators. It may very well be that the much maligned Warhammer+ is one of the early ventures into looking for alternative income sources.

Conclusion: Will 3D Printing Kill Games Workshop?

No, 3D printing will not kill Games Workshop because Games Workshop is more than just a mini factory. Yes, we may see a radical shift in the nature of Games Workshop in the coming years (and by “coming years” I mean at least ten years out) but it will continue to be a game company that makes games, who employees the very best sculptors to realize the visions of the very best artists, who are themselves inspired by the very best writing.

Say what you will about Games Workshop, good or ill, and praise 3D printing as much as you like, I don’t see Games Workshop toppling because of this.