In this edition of 3D printed board games we have a selection of games you could buy, or you could just 3D print them.
Plus a Mini Tutorial for How to Make Quarter Page Rules Booklets.
This video was actually going to be much longer. There were 2 other games that I intended to include, recorded, and ultimately decided not to include in the edit. So if in some future “3D Printed Board Games” video you see me wearing the same tie as in these videos, you’ll know those were recorded for this video but used in another.
One thing this format didn’t leave me room for was an exploration of “why”. Why would someone who own’s a 3D printer, who apparently has (or had at one point) hundreds to thousands of dollars and still need to buy filament, why would someone in that situation want to undercut a game publisher with a project like this? Why recreate something you can just buy?
I think projects like this expose that many 3D printer owners are not the wealthiest elite. Heck, most are just scraping by. Most 3D printer owners I’ve met are salt of the Earth sorts of folks who see value in 3D printing to solve their problems. Many have sacrificed to get their first 3D printer, and it’s always enriched their lives when they do. Some are kids who recognize that owning a 3D printer is endless Christmas, and will tell their parents that they don’t want a thing for Christmas or their birthday for a whole year. And once they have the 3D printer, it’s easier to justify a little filament and printing time than just buying a board game. It might even be cheaper in filament (though I didn’t calculate the cost of that in this video. Maybe I should have.
There’s also the creativity involved in making a project like this. Like the artistic masters of old, many people’s first modeling projects start out as “I’ll bet I could just 3D print that.” And from doing projects like this they gain skills and style that maybe one day they’ll use on their own projects. Or maybe they’ll just ride the coat tales of more successful designers their whole life. But at least they’ll have a copy of that game they always wanted.
On thing I’m sure of is that no one doing this has malintent. At least I hope not. I don’t see anyone making a copy of a game thinking “This’ll drive them out of business.” That’s not the idea. But for a 3D printer owner is sometimes cheaper and easier to print it than to go through the purchase process. But a lot of companies that sell these game don’t see it that way, which is a shame. If, instead of seeing 3D printer owners as enemies they saw them as partners, then imagine what they could do. Sell everything but the 3D printable parts. The cards and rules and maybe a box, that 3D printer owners could then fill up. No shipping from overseas factories. No expensive tooling. Just incredibly cheap games that they work with 3D printer owners to make for themselves.
But, then again, if it costs $10 to sell 2 hive tokens, then maybe there’s no hope of this ever happening.
