Amazon 2023 Black Series 6" Carbonized Ned-B and Purge Trooper

[Dave]

Yakface posted a new Amazon exclusive NED-B and Purge Trooper 2-pack of carbonized figures for $75 (which is more than these figures went for individually).

The comments are pretty negative about this.  Ranging from these figures not even interacting, to the price, to the endless repaints.  The comments mention someone on the Hasbro SW team getting the boot last month too.  Not sure who that was, but beyond Chris I think they need some new blood on that team.

[Nicklab]

There are numerous people on the Star Wars team at Hasbro who do not take part in the livestreams.  As for who might have been laid off?  I don't know.  But I did see something about the spouse of one of the SW team having been let go in the mass layoffs.

As for the Carbonized 2-pack?  Hasbro keeps making it easier for collectors to walk away from The Black Series with bull**** releases like this.

[Dave]

As for the Carbonized 2-pack?  Hasbro keeps making it easier for collectors to walk away from The Black Series with bull**** releases like this.

I wonder how the math works out for all the collectors like me that recently walked away from most of The Black Series.  Once the tipping point was reached I went from pretty much every 6" figure to only really interesting new ones (mostly from the OT).

Hasbro could have invested in new sculpts and (retail could have) obtained $1000 a year from me from this line, but now I'll probably only spend $200 a year on this line.  Maybe we're the vast minority of their SW revenue and they don't care about our loyalty to the line so it doesn't matter to them, but at some point you would think it would start adding up if their hardcore is dropping them.

On the flip side I've taken some of my cash from cancelled Hasbro pre-orders and bought some vintage items to add to the collection.

[P-Siddy]

Agree with everything you said, Dave.  I've walked away from The Black Series, only picking up a few OT figures I like.  I've packed up all of figures from the other trilogies as well.  And with the way things are going in TVC, I'm pretty much scaling back there because I don't care about every clone repaint/character in the Star Wars world and there are only so many Fetts and Mandalorians I want.

[GrandMoffNick]

There are plenty of very cool Black Series figures. The idea that the annoying carbonized, holiday, etc ones make it not worth buying the other new figures is not shared by all of us. I'm done with carbonized, etc but will buy most of the basic line ones as most of them are new figures, characters, outfits.

Do I wish they'd give us Hammerhead and so on and so on? Yep. But don't buy they aren't just to be asses. It's never that simple.

[Nicklab]

There’s been a combination of things that have contributed to me cutting back substantially on the Black Series.  The price increase was a big factor for me.  The repaints / retools are less of a thing for TBS, but the trooper trend towards repaints is notable.  As for the holiday/gimmick figures?  Enough already.  I get that Disney owns Star Wars now, and they make a big deal about the holidays.  But this sort of thing diminishes the mystique of some items and characters.