1/6 INART (Queen Studio) - The Dark Knight - Joker Collectible Figure

So that's why TOPO is offering it!!! Now I get it!

FizzledCustoms said:

I don't mind minor exclusive accessories, coins, or cards that are unessential to the figure. Like the mouse included for Paul. That's a cool accessory, but not essential. BUT the Strider cloak being exclusive?! That is a key look for Aragorn throughout his journey. Especially with their Facebook post making it seem like it was included for everyone!

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They did not make it seem like it was included for everyone. And more importantly, this product is only officially licensed in China, which means only people in China are able to obtain this via either through a random authorized retailer or direct from their store, to which they made the cloak exclusive to – an incentivized bonus if you’d purchase from them. But it’s not people in China didn’t have an option to be able to get it.

HyperDrive said:

They did not make it seem like it was included for everyone. And more importantly, this product is only officially licensed in China, which means only people in China are able to obtain this via either through a random authorized retailer or direct from their store, to which they made the cloak exclusive to – an incentivized bonus if you’d purchase from them. But it’s not people in China didn’t have an option to be able to get it.

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I disagree. Here are two Facebook post from their official page. Both make it seem like the cloak is included with purchase. One mentions exclusive accessories with the cloak listed next, but that seems like it’s in addition.

I like InArts products, they are very good. I’m just disappointed in their business practices. And I think that’s fair. I hope they can improve distribution because if they don’t have product going out unfortunately they won’t have revenue coming in. That’s bad for the industry and for collectors.

The best thing InArt has done is brought a little competition to the market, that’s good for everything.

But if they keep pissing off collectors why would I keep buying from them?

FizzledCustoms said:

I disagree. Here are two Facebook post from their official page. Both make it seem like the cloak is included with purchase. One mentions exclusive accessories with the cloak listed next, but that seems like it’s in addition.

I like InArts products, they are very good. I’m just disappointed in their business practices. And I think that’s fair. I hope they can improve distribution because if they don’t have product going out unfortunately they won’t have revenue coming in. That’s bad for the industry and for collectors.

The best thing InArt has done is brought a little competition to the market, that’s good for everything.

But if they keep pissing off collectors why would I keep buying from them?

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they explicitly said: self supporting channel, which means themselves. Note, how the other optimizations do not have that same remark.

And again, you dodged it but this product is only licensed in China and it’s only incentivizing buyers to buy from their store vs other authorized retailers out there.

We’ll agree to disagree. If you can’t handle them, don’t buy from them.

HyperDrive said:

they explicitly said: self supporting channel, which means themselves. Note, how the other optimizations do not have that same remark.

And again, you dodged it but this product is only licensed in China and it’s only incentivizing buyers to buy from their store vs other authorized retailers out there.

We’ll agree to disagree. If you can’t handle them, don’t buy from them.

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Agree with this sentiment.

Were not even supposed to be able to buy these products but folks like Kit provide this as a priviledge for collectors in non-licensed-markets.

In other words, don't be entitled

TheBatman said:

Agree with this sentiment.

Were not even supposed to be able to buy these products but folks like Kit provide this as a priviledge for collectors in non-licensed-markets.

In other words, don't be entitled

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THANK YOU. So many people don't realize that a lot of their products aren't supposed to be sold to the US.

Locking an important accessory as a retailer exclusive bonus, which wasn’t advertised as such, is wildly dumb. Saying “we should be lucky to even buy this stuff” is an insane cope and only emboldens companies to pull more annoying ****. OneSixthKit has existed for years - being able to buy 1/6 stuff worldwide has been the norm for a long time now.

Joker’s detonator was a good example of an accessory that’s fine to lock as a special bonus - I doubt anyone genuinely would’ve use it if it had been packed in the box, and only do so because it’s “special”. I don’t remember seeing anyone permanently display their Joker 2.0’s with the Sideshow exclusive detonator.

The discussion of exclusives aside, saying that an item isn't intended outside of China shouldn't qualify outside buyers to have a say or whatever doesn't add up at all. Inart clearly wants global reach. They're definitely happy their products are making their way to collectors overseas. If this is such a strict only certain region product, why do inart themselves are recruiting influencers and sending them products when they're outside of China? They should probably region lock their own videos as well.

I guess jazzinc should stop soliciting Catwoman feedback from here since that's been blocked for sale outside China as well.

Bleah said:

The discussion of exclusives aside, saying that an item isn't intended outside of China shouldn't qualify outside buyers to have a say or whatever doesn't add up at all. Inart clearly wants global reach. They're definitely happy their products are making their way to collectors overseas. If this is such a strict only certain region product, why do inart themselves are recruiting influencers and sending them products when they're outside of China? They should probably region lock their own videos as well.

I guess jazzinc should stop soliciting Catwoman feedback from here since that's been blocked for sale outside China as well.

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They only use the word “Influencer” because that’s what the US streamers on YouTube dubbed themselves. ideally, they should be called “VIPs” just like the VIPs they have in China. Justin is in Australia and all LOTR is now licensed in that region. Either way, doesn't YouTube transcend global boundaries due to its global outreach? While it’s an American online video platform, it is accessible worldwide and just because Jedha for example lives in the US, it doesn’t mean he won’t have worldwide subscribers/viewers….? Same applies to JazzInc. In the end, if one lives outside the respective licensed region, they’ll find ways to obtain it, and technically, the ones we pay to make the purchase directly to Jazz or any authorized retailer is allowed to even if the product is making its way to the end user who lives outside the licensed region.

Let’s face the facts here – this whole debacle with the cloak wouldn’t be a thing if OneSixthKit (the most reknowned overseas collectible retailer) procured Aragorn sets with the cloaks. The narrative would then change to and I’m being a little facetious here: “Sorry your retailer didn’t get the cloak for you. Sucks to suck.”

HyperDrive said:

For the last time, but this release is only licensed in China region and the cloak was exclusive to INART Direct. An exclusive item which was only added in April ‘23 AFTER the initial announcement/solicitation in Jan ‘23. It was explicitly stated/advertised as such. More importantly, people in China were STILL able to get the cloak if they so chose – all they had to do was pay INART Direct and not their favorite local Toys”R”Us down the street.

Just because OneSixthKit exists and is able to outsource products worldwide, it still doesn’t make them an official avenue/authorized retailer.

Idk if some of you guys understand and I say that respectfully. Do I need to dumb it down?

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It feels like you’re defending InArt beyond measure. I 100% understand how exclusives work, I’m not an *****. I also understand these are not licensed outside of China. But InArt clearly is by passing that intentionally with the grey market. I’m all for that! It actually keeps the cost more reasonable. If they sold these through Sideshow and had full license they’d be higher in price than they already are.

I’ve been collecting for years and have imported figures throughout that entire time. SHF has a Star Wars license in 1:12 scale and I’ve never had an issue getting exclusives or limited releases. Nor have I been confused about what the exclusive is. Revoltech just did this with Agent Venom and an exclusive head sculpt. Different scale and price point, but InArt should be even better than them considering the quality and price point.

People are upset because they didn’t make it clear how that exclusive works. Please post something that made it clear how to get the exclusive item. It shouldn’t be hard to clearly state in their post the black cloak is exclusive. They didn’t do that.

As I’ve stated before I think their product is awesome. I’m all for the competition and having options. But they want feedback according to them.

You post all the time about inaccuracies InArt has or can improve. I.E. their Superman, and I agree with you. I’m stating how their marketing needs to be different, and their improvement in communication.

HyperDrive said:

They only use the word “Influencer” because that’s what the US streamers on YouTube dubbed themselves. ideally, they should be called “VIPs” just like the VIPs they have in China. Justin is in Australia and all LOTR is now licensed in that region. Either way, doesn't YouTube transcend global boundaries due to its global outreach? While it’s an American online video platform, it is accessible worldwide and just because Jedha for example lives in the US, it doesn’t mean he won’t have global subscribers/viewers….? Same applies to JazzInc. In the end, if one lives outside the respective licensed region, they’ll find ways to obtain it, and technically, the one who’s making the purchase directly to Jazz or whoever or any authorized retailer is allowed to even if the product is making its way to the end user who lives outside the licensed region.

Let’s face the facts here – this whole debacle with the cloak wouldn’t be a thing if OneSixthKit (the most reknowned overseas collectible retailer) procured Aragorn sets with the cloaks. The narrative would then change to and I’m being a little facetious here: “Sorry your retailer didn’t get the cloak for you. Sucks to suck.”

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They are influencers though regardless where the term originated. They have enough global reach/ worldwide subscribers which is a criteria Inart wanted before they even consider sending products for review. They want the world to see, want, and buy their products. Be influenced by these videos. Anyway, if Inart was so strict about this, they should have only sent region locked products to streamers based in China. Yes, YT is global but videos can be region locked. Bandai does this to their videos with products that are only licensed inside Japan.

Yes, people will continue to find ways to obtain a product but inart knows these retailers sell outside the intended region. They can easily restrict their numbers or enforce "a not for sale outside China policy" or they lose their buying ability from them. From what we know, OSK buys directly from Inart and is an authorized dealer. In a sense, Inart expects shipments to OSK be sold inside China only (not really because they want it to reach everybody else). You can't blame OSK for having allocations without cloaks. This should have been clearly communicated by Inart themselves.

Bleah said:

They are influencers though regardless where the term originated. They have enough global reach/ worldwide subscribers which is a criteria Inart wanted before they even consider sending products for review. They want the world to see, want, and buy their products. Be influenced by these videos. Anyway, if Inart was so strict about this, they should have only sent region locked products to streamers based in China. Yes, YT is global but videos can be region locked. Bandai does this to their videos with products that are only licensed inside Japan.

Yes, people will continue to find ways to obtain a product but inart knows these retailers sell outside the intended region. They can easily restrict their numbers or enforce "a not for sale outside policy" or they lose their buying ability from them. From what we know, OSK buys directly from Inart and is an authorized dealer. In a sense, Inart expects shipments to OSK be sold inside China only (not really because they want it to reach everybody else). You can't blame OSK for having allocations without cloaks. This should have been clearly communicated by Inart themselves.

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OSK said they were part of a “Dealer Batch” and I assume there must be some form of “Exclusions Apply” case going on here, which imo, is fair game. INART is aware OSK is a store – whether they distribute within China or worldwide doesn’t matter, so why would we expect them to honor him as just a singular customer? I’m not blaming OSK for not having allocations without cloaks.

Imo, it was pretty apparent the cloak was going to be exclusive to their store from the get go, an item that wasn’t even included in the initial PO to begin with.

HyperDrive said:

OSK said they were part of a “Dealer Batch” and I assume there must be some form of “Exclusions Apply” case going on here, which imo, is fair game. INART is aware OSK is a store – whether they distribute within China or worldwide doesn’t matter, so why would we expect them to honor him as just a singular customer? I’m not blaming OSK for not having allocations without cloaks.

Imo, it was pretty apparent the cloak was going to be exclusive to their store from the get go, an item that wasn’t even included in the initial PO to begin with.

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I'm not really here to argue the merits of the exclusive bonus but I think it wasn't communicated properly by Inart. Even OSK didn't expect the cloak not to be included. I stand by that.

My intention as originally stated was to contest the idea of buyers outside China not having a say for supposed inart region locked products. This is especially true for them because their intent is clear for global reach.

“For the last time, but this release is only licensed in China region and the cloak was exclusive to INART Direct.“

So why did oversea influencers that are clearly located outside of that licensed region and didn’t order direct receive the cloak? This stupid cloak should’ve been included from the beginning. It’s essential. It’s how they introduced the character.

Bleah said:

They are influencers though regardless where the term originated. They have enough global reach/ worldwide subscribers which is a criteria Inart wanted before they even consider sending products for review. They want the world to see, want, and buy their products. Be influenced by these videos. Anyway, if Inart was so strict about this, they should have only sent region locked products to streamers based in China. Yes, YT is global but videos can be region locked. Bandai does this to their videos with products that are only licensed inside Japan.

Yes, people will continue to find ways to obtain a product but inart knows these retailers sell outside the intended region. They can easily restrict their numbers or enforce "a not for sale outside China policy" or they lose their buying ability from them. From what we know, OSK buys directly from Inart and is an authorized dealer. In a sense, Inart expects shipments to OSK be sold inside China only (not really because they want it to reach everybody else). You can't blame OSK for having allocations without cloaks. This should have been clearly communicated by Inart t

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roan said:

“For the last time, but this release is only licensed in China region and the cloak was exclusive to INART Direct.“

So why did oversea influencers that are clearly located outside of that licensed region and didn’t order direct receive the cloak? This stupid cloak should’ve been included from the beginning. It’s essential. It’s how they introduced the character.

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roan said:

So why did oversea influencers that are clearly located outside of that licensed region and didn’t order direct receive the cloak?

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That's on inart again creating the confusion.

Last thing to say about this, from my understanding, inart considers a VIP somebody that has bought a lot of their products which consists of the queen studios statues. Which of these influencers have done so?

Bleah said:

I'm not really here to argue the merits of the exclusive bonus but I think it wasn't communicated properly by Inart. Even OSK didn't expect the cloak not to be included. I stand by that.

My intention as originally stated was to contest the idea of buyers outside China not having a say for supposed inart region locked products. This is especially true for them because their intent is clear for global reach.

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Where does Kit outright mention that?

I’ll stand by it was properly communicated. What was up in the air at that point was: Where are these third party stores going to get the product from - from an authorized retailer out there or INART direct (exclusions may or may not apply aside)? For example, a known collector on Facebook/YouTube got the cloak, but they have an exclusive hookup in China who got it for them.

Back to your original point, I do think there is a grey area here, but bottom line, I do think there is a sense of entitlement on display here and really, I guess I’m just grateful the collective community has a chance at all to be able to obtain these products via third party avenues like OSK, etc.

The YouTubers have a worldwide platform and the big ones like Justin’s Collection, Jedha Patrol and DeanKnight are big time 1/6 channels, so I don’t know why we hold them to the same standard as the rest of us peasants/commoners.

HyperDrive said:

Where does Kit outright mention that?

I’ll stand by it was properly communicated. What was up in the air at that point was: Where are these third party stores going to get the product from - from an authorized retailer out there or INART direct (exclusions may or may not apply aside)? For example, a known collector on Facebook/YouTube got the cloak, but they have an exclusive hookup in China who got it for them.

Back to your original point, I do think there is a grey area here, but bottom line, I do think there is a sense of entitlement on display here and really, I guess I’m just grateful the collective community has a chance at all to be able to obtain these products via third party avenues like OSK, etc.

The YouTubers have a worldwide platform and the big ones like Justin’s Collection, Jedha Patrol and DeanKnight are big time 1/6 channels, so I don’t know why we hold them to the same standard as the rest of us peasants/commoners.

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No horse in this race, but I think Kit going out of his way to check with Inart regarding the cloak not being included as well as checking with customers that received an Aragorn from him shows that he was under the same impression as the majority of people: the cloak would be included as an optimization for the figure. TBH you could always just ask him on here to clarify too.

Biggest issue with Inart's post if the formatting. The first point is- Official self-supporting channel special accessories- with the cloak listed right underneath. If they had listed the optimizations and then separated that phrase and mention of the cloak, it might have not caused this backlash. We can say that people should learn to read (it's clear in hindsight), but the fact that this confusion was en masse shows that some of the blame has to be on Inart.

i_amjam said:

No horse in this race, but I think Kit going out of his way to check with Inart regarding the cloak not being included as well as checking with customers that received an Aragorn from him shows that he was under the same impression as the majority of people: the cloak would be included as an optimization for the figure. TBH you could always just ask him on here to clarify too.

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I just dm’ed him on FB and he told me that INART confirmed it’s not included. But IMO, just because he asked for confirmation doesn’t mean he was unsure. I asked him to clarify and shed more light on the matter, but that’s all I got. I guess some of y’all can keep speculating?

i_amjam said:

Biggest issue with Inart's post if the formatting. The first point is- Official self-supporting channel special accessories- with the cloak listed right underneath. If they had listed the optimizations and then separated that phrase and mention of the cloak, it might have not caused this backlash. We can say that people should learn to read (it's clear in hindsight), but the fact that this confusion was en masse shows that some of the blame has to be on Inart.

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I don’t think anyone or myself has ever said they have amazing English or translation skills. They should definitely work on their wording to cover their butts. Imo, more people should also learn how to read between the lines.

HyperDrive said:

I just dm’ed him on FB and he told me that INART confirmed it’s not included. But IMO, just because he asked for confirmation doesn’t mean he was unsure. I asked him to clarify and shed more light on the matter, but that’s all I got. I guess some of y’all can keep speculating?

I don’t think anyone or myself has ever said they have amazing English or translation skills. They should definitely work on their wording to cover their butts. Imo, more people should also learn how to read between the lines.

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I know lmao I said in my earlier post that he reached out to confirm with them whether or not it was included. That's not speculation. Respectfully, you can infer details. Not everything needs to be stated in black in white terms in order to prove a point.