Vortex
Super Freak
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2010
- Messages
- 3,040
- Reaction score
- 732
Man, I hope not. Raising prices has the potential to hurt the 1/6 hobby. I've seen it happen over the years with collectible lines like Simpsons, Star Trek, and to a certain extent, everything Gentle Giant produces (remember busts numbered in the 10,000s? The numbers are now down to 2,000 or less). The figure prices raise, too many variations out there to collect, too much merchandise available in one year, etc. are all bad things, IMO. Even Star Wars has taken a hit in the small figure world, it seems (the "vintage" collection - at $8.99 a pop - is hanging on the shelves everywhere). If Hot Toys could keep the quality up but the prices down, I think it would mean longevity for these lines. There's always an exception like the DX series and all the extra (and sometimes big) stuff they come with, but I'm talking "regular" figures here. The $150 mark is already pushing it for many collectors. The more people are priced out of the hobby, the less product companies will sell. So... if they can't sell their minimums, production has to scale back, extra or un-sold merchandise has to be liquidated, and eventually, things die because of lack of support from collectors. It's happened so many times in the collectible toy world - companies get overzealous on pricing because their product is hot, but the fire burns out quicker than expected when they alter the structure that gave them success in the first place.
I said something similar a few pages back although it probably belonged in the "Will HT ever lose their value thread". Back when these things were $150 a lot of collectors including Michael Crawford had a hard time justifying that price point on most of the figures being released. I personally feel that NOW, the figure's justify that price but HT goes and up's the prices again. Not sure how long I will be able to keep up.