Industry News Shapeways goes bankrupt

[Joe]

 

As of the start of this year Shapeways had posted poor revenues, followed by a 15% reduction in all staff and auctioning off hardware. This was followed by a bankruptcy filing in May, and as of the last few days it seems remaining staff have been sacked off without warning and the webstore is no longer accepting orders.

[Borbarad]

Honestly I'm not too surprised.

 

Ordered at Shapeways a few times - but that was already quite a while ago. I remember that shipping was expensive, and the individual pieces tend to be pricy as well depending on vendor. The quality at that time was also middling. 

 

For Tabletop you have small independent printers like Archies who have better resin, better prints and will deliver quicker at a lower price. Getting your own setup is also pretty affordable by now.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Borbarad said:

Honestly I'm not too surprised.

 

Ordered at Shapeways a few times - but that was already quite a while ago. I remember that shipping was expensive, and the individual pieces tend to be pricy as well depending on vendor. The quality at that time was also middling. 

 

For Tabletop you have small independent printers like Archies who have better resin, better prints and will deliver quicker at a lower price. Getting your own setup is also pretty affordable by now.

 

For me in the UK when I used them a few years back postage ended up being so stupidly expensive it was just not worth it.

[WAR]

Not surprised at all. 

[phandaal]

4 minutes ago, Brother Captain Arkley said:

 

For me in the UK when I used them a few years back postage ended up being so stupidly expensive it was just not worth it.

 

Yeah, when I checked them out the prices seemed way too high. Had better luck ordering from Etsy, or looking at Only-Games.

 

And it has to be a niche within a niche market, because printers are available for people who are considering bigger purchases.

[Marshal Rohr]

There was once a thread on dakka or warseer about shapeways being the future of the hobby 

[Bung]

1 hour ago, phandaal said:

 

Yeah, when I checked them out the prices seemed way too high. Had better luck ordering from Etsy, or looking at Only-Games.

 

And it has to be a niche within a niche market, because printers are available for people who are considering bigger purchases.

 

Resinprinters arent for everyone.

But everyone has a friend with a printer that can be bribed.

Edited July 2 by Bung

[Noserenda]

Yeah 3d prints are still a significant part of the future, but shapeways has been a evolutionary dead end for nearly its whole existence and as home printing becomes more and more viable the niche of people who know about its service, but couldn't find the same stuff cheaper from another company, friend or DIY just kept shrinking.

[No Foes Remain]

1 hour ago, Borbarad said:

Honestly I'm not too surprised.

 

Ordered at Shapeways a few times - but that was already quite a while ago. I remember that shipping was expensive, and the individual pieces tend to be pricy as well depending on vendor. The quality at that time was also middling. 

 

For Tabletop you have small independent printers like Archies who have better resin, better prints and will deliver quicker at a lower price. Getting your own setup is also pretty affordable by now.

100% agree with you. I used Pop's store a few times but couldn't really justify it much more as you said, bits were expensive as was shipping and so I've turned to Archie's Forge for what bitz I need.

[Naryn]

I mourn all the neat 3d sculpts that will never make it off of Shapeways, but there was a LOT of drek on there and even their highest-quality prints were grainy and mediocre. Pricing skyrocketed a few years back as well, taking fairly moderate-sized prints into the hundreds. I won't miss it, but I hope sites that host 3d models for printing see an influx of uploads as a result of this.

[The4thHorseman]

I don't get it. Its still up and everything is still there. Maybe it was temporary.

[KaosRaptor]

Glad I did an order of shoulder pad icons from PgtM for my Exorcists and Black Legion last year, so I'm stocked up for a while. Never ordered anything larger than that so I can't comment on Shapeways quality otherwise, but I never had any complaints about the icons.

 

 

[Evil Eye]

That's kind of a shame, but not too surprising. With the rise of home 3D printers (and also better printing services) it became a bit redundant, not to mention the cost was usually astronomical. The main loss is access to SLS printing for functional parts (not really relevant to our needs) but for this hobby it was kinda useless.

 

Still, unfortunate, especially for the other applications it had (I know a lot of toy customizers used it a lot).

[Noserenda]

2 hours ago, The4thHorseman said:

I don't get it. Its still up and everything is still there. Maybe it was temporary.

Yup, seems to be there for me too, at least Red Wardens store.

[Grotsmasha]

I considered using Shapeways several times, but always backed out at checkoiut when it added postage, it was ALWAYS way too much

[Bung]

For EU customers they printed in the Netherlands and Cross country shipping in the EU is a mess through different Postal companies.

I payed half the shipping cost from them in Germany than a workmate in France.

We life around 50 km apart.

 

[Nephaston]

Eh, I'll just pivot to archie or etsy. Just have to motivate some of the lads on Cults to partner up with people.

[MithrilForge]

 I always wanted to get those Crisis suit hands and the Add on Arms For the Stormsurge... But as Grot said... When it was in the Cart and it came to shipping... I always went Nope that's too much ...

 

 

 

[GreenScorpion]

Hero Forge uses Shapeways for the production and they have a message in their editor saying that physical miniature production is delayed so my guess is that at least the production side of Shapeways should be stopped or running very slowly, so either way not the best time to order either directly or through these customizers that use Shapeways for actual production. It was all extremely expensive anyway.

[Irongert]

I used to use shapeways every so often but they got really expensive and the quality didn't really improve much at all. It was the start of the 3D printed bits journey for me but I haven't ordered there in years. 

[Guest]

31 minutes ago, Irongert said:

I used to use shapeways every so often but they got really expensive and the quality didn't really improve much at all. It was the start of the 3D printed bits journey for me but I haven't ordered there in years. 

Thats how it started for me... But my start was more this...

 

3D Printing SUCKS!!! >>> Oh I can get bits >>> Shapeways  is great >>> Shapeways is cost prohibitive >>> Mate bought a Printer hehe >>> I bought a Printer.

[Wormwoods]

For context, I was recently shopping around for some printed BFG ships. A cruiser from Shapeways was around $100, before shipping. 

 

Naturally, I ended up paying $50 to a local nerd with a printer and got a 2,000 point fleet. 

[Doobles57]

1 hour ago, Irongert said:

I used to use shapeways every so often but they got really expensive and the quality didn't really improve much at all. It was the start of the 3D printed bits journey for me but I haven't ordered there in years. 

Ditto. A few years ago they were one of the few places I could get the bits I wanted and were kind of worth it even with the shipping to the UK. In recent years though the amount of people printing locally through Etsy etc and the range of available STLs means I've not even visited their site in probably 2 years. Access to prints has improved so much and they just didn't keep up with the way the industry moved.

[sbarnby71]

Did use them a lot a few years back but was always annoyed at the quality, price and shipping cost.  And I when I say quality, this was Shapeways quality as I mostly purchased Pop Goes the Monkey I know their stuff is good.

[Focslain]

I haven't ordered from Shapeways in years. Like many others the cost made me drift away. Glad to guy that does my knight heads got his own shop and the cost was over half as much as getting the same bit printed from Shapeways. 

 

Sad to see any business falter and hope those laid off can get back on their feet quickly. 

 

Now need to find the STL for those crisis suit hands.....