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FigurePrints now immortalizing your Minecraft world with real-world replicas
Ed Fries is a former VP of publishing at Microsoft, Ouya advisor and the creator of Halo 2600 – he's got quite the resume. He also founded FigurePrints, a company known for making real-life recreations of your in-game content, like statues modeled after World of Warcraft avatars. Now FigurePrints is recreating Minecraft worlds.If you're interested, you'll first want to install FigurePrints' world exporter, compatible with Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows XP. Once you've installed the exporter, you can select a portion of your MineCraft PC world and upload it to FigurePrints where its artists will re-create your lovingly-crafted game world into a physical model. Then you only need to place your order and wait impatiently for the box to hit your doorstep. As for price, FingerPrints says "replicas of Minecraft worlds significantly vary in cost," based on the size of the area recreated.
Print Warcraft opens its doors
The newest in Blizzard's ever-expanding line of customizable merchandise, Print Warcraft just opened its doors to the public. Like FigurePrints, the site allows you to create merchandise based on your in-game characters, this time art like posters and prints. While we've been having a bit difficulty accessing the site, likely due to launch-day growing pains, we know that the service allows a ton of customization options. Start by selecting your character, realm, and print size. Then choose from a number of templates, borders, backgrounds, character poses, pets, and more! The prices range from $17.99 for a 12x18 print to $29.99 USD for a 40x27 poster. If you're actually able to place an order, please let us know how it comes out when you get it in the mail! If the price is right and so is the quality, it might be a decent Winter Veil gift to deck somebody's walls with. Or yours.
FigurePets: A Croc, an Egg and a Willy?
Back in June I brought you the news that FigurePrints were bringing out a new range in their 3D printed collectable WoW models named FigurePets. The original line up featured a limited run of three non-combat pets: The Clockwork Rocket Bot, Stinker the Skunk, and Speedy the Turtle -- who was by far my favorite!For the readers out there who were fortunate enough to get their hands on a set of the original FigurePets then you can attest to how awesome they really are -- these little guys rock! I've got mine standing in formation around my Kungen FigurePrint letting everyone who comes near my computer know that I am a WoW player (or should that be "playa?" It does sound far more "gangsta" that way). So it gives me great pleasure to inform you that FigurePets are back with a brand new limited series of three new non-combat pets. The line up this time is as follows:
FigurePrints LLC in the Vancouver Sun
Just this morning, the Vancouver Sun published an interesting article about FigurePrints LLC, which is a name WoW players know quite well, though probably not the little details of the company. FigurePrints LLC, which is based in Washington, has its production center in the heart of Vancouver. A production center with with only 11 employees, up from its original one, with its eyes set on moving up in the world to a mind blowing 25 employees.FigurePrints works around the clock, producing somewhere between 1,200 and 1,400 figurines in a month. That almost sounds like a lot (they produce over 40 figures per day), but when you consider they need to draw these names from a lottery of over 25,000 potential customers? They really have their hands full, but they're clearly not going to run out of customers anytime soon, especially since their contract with Blizzard is an exclusive one. FigurePrints is also looking into opening a plant in Europe to expand the market to our overseas friends, and they've been approached by other gaming companies as well. They seem to be in a very good place right now.Personally, I'm curious to see where the company will actually go from this point forward in terms of what they print, and who they print for. I'm sure most of the popularity of this company is due to their arrangement with Blizzard, so will that relationship continue even beyond World of Warcraft? Will FigurePrints LLC be right there with Blizzard when some other MMO rolls around, like Galaxy of Starcraft (or whatever)? Or will they stand just fine on their own when WoW is gone, moving on to other companies and games?Edit: To try and clarify, it's a Washington-based office with a Vancouver, Canada-based production plant. Not Vancouver, Washington.
WoW Insider interviews Ed Fries on avatar figurines
Although nothing will ever top our surprise Spore figurine (in our hearts, at least), former VP of games publishing at Microsoft Ed Fries (one of the original Xbox guys, remember?) is hoping to provide a similar service for World of Warcraft players by making a 3D replica of their avatars. Our MMO-obsessed siblings (not them, the other ones) at WoW Insider interviewed Fries about his new venture, entitled FigurePrints, and the process of turning the virtual into reality. (Fries, as it turns out, was inspired by those Spore figurines from E3 2006.)You can demo the program for yourself. The operation is currently in its early phases, so drawings are being held during certain time periods to have your character molded. The cost is $100 plus about $15 for shipping, and even at that price, we have no doubt the service is trying to keep up with high demand.
