I know this has been asked many, many, many times. To date I have never heard or have seen a answer from anyone in CCP.
Why do we not have ship models to purchase?? With virtually hundreds of ships to choose from and what would seem like a HUGE CASH COW for CCP Games, why can we not buy beautiful ship models, like this one? Why do we ( EVE Online Customers ) have to see ships come alive through others 3D printers and not from CCP? I thought CCP did a excellent job in making the Rifter for the 10 year anniversary set. Why did CCP stop there?
@CCP_Convict would you care to take a crack at this question?
In my opinion they really dropped the ball by not releasing the Rifter in the first wave of “official” ship models - I feel the Rifter is just so iconic of EVE, I would buy that, I’m not interested in any of the released ones so far.
How did you find out about this? I don’t recall any CCP announcement, but I can miss things like anybody.
As to the larger question, CCP Convict may not have been at CCP when they tried to sell premium cast and painted battleship sculptures, over the course of years. Larger than the Mixed Dimensions effort, I think they were in the $150 range. (Seen in the background set of the old o7 show on YT) You could say that a high price was the problem, but that’s where they started. Their inventory of pre-made spaceships occupied a storeroom at CCP HQ, taking up space. Toward the end of that stock, I think their biggest use was as giveaways for promotional events.
Jestertrek / Ripard Teg says it best, check out his remarks and follow the links back up to the ship model picture they are talking about here.
They announced the cooperation and showed models at EVE Vegas, on stream. These ships arenot hollow and are printed with pigments they said. So have certain weight to them and are really like from a game.
1:00:00 mark
Then this news piece was released, last week:
As far as 3d printing goes, these are really the best I have seen when it comes to efficiency of production and technologically, maybe not the looks, because they are not painted so are not glossy. Kisaki had to print big and used one color filament, had to cut and glue each piece, then paint separately. Of course Kisaki are hobbyists, can do anything for themselves, print as big as they want, but models are not industrially made for selling, they sell them but in 200$ range, not including shipping. Kisaki looks more impressive by being big and the detail is deepened, also painting makes them more glossy.
Pretty sure it doesn’t matter in the least as it will stop any sane person from clicking the complete button on the order page.
And yes, it’s an absurd price. $120 for a dinky toy scale model? They better be making them from gold. As well, the cost is upfront, they cost next to nothing to produce. It’s only low volume because no one is going to pay twice the item cost for shipping.
I probable could link you some filament prices from google but what is the point?
In Vegas stream they where telling that models are printed only when order is placed. There is no stock of premade models. That’s why production costs are so absurd. Only good thing in this project is assumption that only few people will buy them.
