Interesting counter-points DoctorPadawan
You make a very strong argument and I definitely agree with you on a lot of it, I was just trying to put out a second opinion and place
a little more blame on the retailers.
I still think that hasbro has to bend to the will of the big retailers to an extent (maybe I was mistaken when I said that the retailers can dictate the case assortments directly) because the big-guys want to see a variety of figures filling the pegs, especially the good guys.
If the glut of Obi-Wans and Anakins is not cleared up by kids soon, and with Hasbro insisting on shipping even more of those same figures for the next few months, the collectors who drive this line aren't going to be able to find anything new whatsoever due to the pegs that retail will consider full, and retail will complain to Hasbro that sales are down. Then Hasbro will scale back their plans for next year, and it's very possible that retailers (particularly WM, who has this kind of pull) could stop supporting the line.
I agree with you completely here, and that's really the same logic that I use when I say that stores like wal-mart and Target have pull on what figures hasbro ships. These big stores want a lot of the hero figures because they are easier to mass-market and because a lot of their customers are non-collectors. I've seen countless mothers/kids picking up the figures at my local Target stores and they always go for the Obi-Wans, Chewies, Yodas, etc etc. (side note: Once I saw a grandfather and his granddaughter picking out some figures. The granddaughter really wanted a Chewbacca figure so I helped her look for it, but came up bone dry. I offered her a #23 Blue Senate Guard that I had picked up but she didn't like him. She ended up getting a Spinning Yoda and a Jedi-Kick Obi-Wan...poor girl.
) Anyway, back on topic, if somebody that is unfamiliar with Star Wars is in a toy aisle and they're going to buy a figure for their son/daughter/grandson/granddaughter/etc/etc they are more likely to pick up a well-known character than a Senator Bail Organa "Republic Senator!" figure (unless they're a Jimmy Smitts fan
).
I stopped collecting figures during the green card days so I was unaware of hasbro shipping entire cases of 1 figure, but I don't see how retailers would like something like that. Also, those figures are now $2 each on eBay so maybe hasbro will tend more towards the corrective case assortments than solid-packs (#23 royal guard being packed with current assortments as opposed to cases of #23). Don't get me wrong, I would be a
big fan of solid-case assortments of various clones, but I just can't see the logic of it from a retail standpoint. I think, from a manager's point of view, it would be much better to see a wide assortment of figures than a wall of clones (man, that would be awesome
) .
The EE Clone four packs are going to come back and bite us all in our collective hindquarters. Are they cool? Undoubtedly so. Are they overpriced? Again, undoubtedly. Hasbro listens to us when it benefits them and at no other time. Their attitude toward collectors is one of disgust and disrespect, and if anyone doubts that, I'm sure JediMAC can dig up the Q&A the JD staff did with them at ComicCon last fall that pretty much had the Hasbro reps calling collectors idiots in so many words.
First, I would definitely love to read that Q&A; I could definitely see that happening. As for the EE Clones, $10/figure after shipping is a lot, definitely, but I like the precedent that has now been established. Now, hasbro can fill collector's voids by making relatively small production runs of figures that cater almost exclusively to collectors. I don't see these selling that well on the mass-market because at a $35 price point, I can't see casual consumers picking many of these up; they would almost go exclusively to collectors (and spoiled kids ... and spoiled collectors
) . If the price point was lower, which would be possible given a higher mass-market production run, then they would fly off of the shelves. I think that's part of the reason for the upcoming Evolutions Sets.
Hasbro is a big company, so the bottom line will always be
$$$, and if hasbro sees a way to exploit a collector-niche market, they will do so.
I think I've side-tracked my self a bit...
Where does it end? All these little exclusives are a way for Hasbro to gauge just how much we are willing to pay for Star Wars stuff, and the more we pay, the more they are encouraged to raise the prices. It's a slippery slope, and one that could very well cause me to quit collecting the 4" line before too long. I can handle 13 dollars for a Clone Trooper maybe once a year; but if they start doing ALL the figures like that, I'm out.
Yes, the Target Clones flying off of the shelves (and costing $25 on eBay) is very scary, because now hasbro and Target realize that they can charge that much and still sell out completely. Hasbro is just raking it in right now because we are, for all intents and purposes, a "captive audience." (I bought some sort of gooey candy just because it had a Darth Vader head on it the other day
). If it came down to it though, like you, I would drop out of collecting (again) if the prices went too high or if the quality went too low. Will other people drop out as well? Sure. Will a lot of people stick around and continue to buy? Of course. With no more films (apparently), hasbro will have to cater to us more and more in the following years.
I think a lot of the problems that people are having right now with finding figures is that
so many people are buying them. People that wouldn't normally buy figures are picking them up because of the hype and that further reduces the amount of figures for us to find at retail. I personally haven't had a problem finding any figure so far, but I understand how frustrating it can be to search and search and not find the figures that you want.
OK, I seem to be way off of my original point and have started rambling. Basically, yes, hasbro messes up a lot and should really pay closer attention to the needs of collectors (if you cater to the early adopters, you don't have to worry about anything), but I think that the retail stores add to the frustration just as much. It just seems that neither hasbro nor the big retail chains learn from their mistakes.
I hope that my points achieve some semblance of coherence, and, DoctorPadawan, clearly none of this is directed as an attack at you. I really enjoy these types of conversations and I'm glad that we can have one without everybody resorting to calls of "scalper!" "hoarder!" and "idiot".
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