Baldur's Gate 3 received a line of pre-painted miniatures recently, and they've all got faces only a Mindflayer could love. Produced by mini makers Wizkids in partnership with Wizards of the Coast (I'd like to note that, obviously, Larian didn't have much to do with these abominations since Hasbro now owns the rights to those characters) a wave of disappointment swept through customers because—well, just take a look.
In what I can only describe as reckoning for ol' Wizkids, the mini-making company is now offering full refunds, as per an announcement on its website:
"We missed the mark on this goal with the D&D Icons of the Realms: Baldur’s Gate 3 Character Boxed Set. If you purchased this set through our online stores, we will be offering a full refund to those who are unsatisfied with their set. To begin a request, please contact customerservice@wizkids.com."
If you happened to buy a box from a retailer, Wizkids says you can "return it at your point of purchase for a full refund"—the company also says it'll be providing replacements if you put in a request for one, though I doubt it'll be flooded by those.
"Please accept our sincerest apologies for the frustration and disappointment these quality issues caused our customers," the apology concludes. "We, too, feel the same as the final product did not meet our expectations or that of our Wizards of the Coast partner. Our teams are working to find the best solutions to resolve this for all involved and to work with you, our customers, to fix this.
"We appreciate your patience as we focus on getting back to those affected and helping them with their refunds in a timely manner. "
Ask most familiar with the TTRPG space, though, and you'll find this is less of a shock embarrassment and more of a containment breach—most pre-painted miniatures aren't particularly quality, especially not for the price-point Wizkids was offering them at.
Painting small figures with accurate details is a time-consuming and costly task, so a pre-painted mini is either very expensive or, well, melty-faced. At $50 a box with 7 miniatures inside (around $7.10 a figure), these things were never going to look great. However, that means precious little to someone buying a product—especially if they were brought into the hobby by Baldur's Gate 3, and aren't familiar with the rep pre-painted minis have.
While Wizkids shares plenty of the blame, especially for some egregiously misleading promotional material that circulated beforehand, I also think it's a misstep by Wizards of the Coast, and yet another fundamental misunderstanding of the IP it has on its hands. Yes, people will want miniatures of the Baldur's Gate 3 cast—but they'd obviously want them as collector's items that celebrate and represent the characters well, not something that looks like a botched True Polymorph.
There's totally a market for cheap and muddily-faced pre-painted minis for folks who just want some starting bits for a game, and don't mind a few misplaced facial features—because hey, you'll be staring at them over a mountain of snacks anyway. But the Baldur's Gate 3 cast are near and dear to people's hearts, and if you're gonna make an official line of minis with them, I'd maybe not go for the company whose products have been 'affordable, but smeary-faced' for some time.
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