Amazon announced today that it has added popular video game characters to its 3-D printing storefront. More than 30 customizable characters are available from Infinity Blade, Primal Carnage and Smite.
Each figure can be customized with various suits of armor, weapons, poses and bases from within a popup window on Amazon’s site.
Some characters’ poses have a slider to customize the exact point of a character’s signature move that gets printed. Each creation is then printed by Sandboxr in their sandstone 3-D printing material. It will take 3 to 4 weeks for the figure to arrive at the customer’s door.
There are about 12,500 Primal Carnage options, more than 30,000 custom choices for Smite figures, and a whopping 12 million Infinity Blade possibilities.
Each figure is created with actual game elements from the developers, so scale and poses are just like what customers would see on the screen. However, limits in 3-D printing means that the figures aren’t quite as sharp as their on-screen counterparts. The sandstone material, which provides both the shape and color of the figures, isn’t as precise as an injection-molded plastic figurine.
Customers can customize and purchase the new figurines today, with Amazon Marketplace Director Steve Johnson saying that they are “eager to offer customers the freedom to be designers and create one-of-a-kind items.”
Prices start at $29.99 for the small size, while large 3-D prints range in price from $49.99 to $89.99.
These aren’t the first 3-D printed options from Amazon. Last year, the company introduced customizable 3-D printed bobble heads. It has also patented a concept for delivery trucks equipped with 3-D printers to make products on the way to the delivery site.
And this isn’t the first time that Seattle area companies have experimented with 3-D printing of video game characters. Seattle startup You Kick Ass, which recently scored an investment from Mark Cuban on Shark Tank, allows people to create 3-D printed action figures with their likeness on top of a superhero body.
Meanwhile, Figure Prints, started by former Microsoft gaming chief Ed Fries, allows individuals to re-create 3-D models of their favorite World of Warcraft characters or Minecraft creations.
