Do you still remember the 1st time you collect something, or interested in something, where, back then it's something belong to "you", and a small group of friends sharing the same interest, be it playing video games, playing music, collecting figures etc, something not everyone is doing?
I still remember back in the days, things weren't so expensive, shops import stuffs and sell, they don't try to buy out all stock and manipulate the market, manufacturers try to maximize their production output to avoid shortage.
People buy stuffs they want and wait if they aren't sure. Occasionally one can get good deals because sellers merely want to let go their stuffs and aren't greedy about it. Stuffs that were released were still easy to find. It was a healthy situation where one buy & sell without much pressure.
Today, it's either pre-order or risk having to pay 2-3times the price. I'm not sure what changed all this. Evilbay? Or just because things like this happens when more people start to gain certain interest and hop on to the bang wagon because it's the cool thing to do nowadays? Many of the starts collecting Air Jordans, Hot Toys, video games because it's becoming popular, some have little knowledge about the stuffs they are getting into, they are just happy if they get it irregardless of the quality of the product they get. So soon companies figure out no matter what they produce people will still buy it, the serious buyers may not buy it but it doesn't matter coz the pop culture folks will surely do. So what we get now is Poorer Quality, Higher Priced products. And guess what, people still buy them. But no doubt the design of stuffs has improved along the way. But gone are the days where you can buy an action figure for $5. Now you have to pay $30 for the same class of figure.
I notice this happens to almost anything. Video games, Music, Movies, Cartoons, Cars in the end things gets watered down to suit the mediocores & focus on financial gains, we can say it's a double edge sword, where it brings popularity to certain stuffs, it takes away even more. And it takes time for the popularity to fade off, only then will companies rethink about it and start to go back to their original root, be innovative, produce better products in order to regain popularity. And when they start gaining popularity again things go down hill once again. It's like a loop.
I still remember back in the days, things weren't so expensive, shops import stuffs and sell, they don't try to buy out all stock and manipulate the market, manufacturers try to maximize their production output to avoid shortage.
People buy stuffs they want and wait if they aren't sure. Occasionally one can get good deals because sellers merely want to let go their stuffs and aren't greedy about it. Stuffs that were released were still easy to find. It was a healthy situation where one buy & sell without much pressure.
Today, it's either pre-order or risk having to pay 2-3times the price. I'm not sure what changed all this. Evilbay? Or just because things like this happens when more people start to gain certain interest and hop on to the bang wagon because it's the cool thing to do nowadays? Many of the starts collecting Air Jordans, Hot Toys, video games because it's becoming popular, some have little knowledge about the stuffs they are getting into, they are just happy if they get it irregardless of the quality of the product they get. So soon companies figure out no matter what they produce people will still buy it, the serious buyers may not buy it but it doesn't matter coz the pop culture folks will surely do. So what we get now is Poorer Quality, Higher Priced products. And guess what, people still buy them. But no doubt the design of stuffs has improved along the way. But gone are the days where you can buy an action figure for $5. Now you have to pay $30 for the same class of figure.
I notice this happens to almost anything. Video games, Music, Movies, Cartoons, Cars in the end things gets watered down to suit the mediocores & focus on financial gains, we can say it's a double edge sword, where it brings popularity to certain stuffs, it takes away even more. And it takes time for the popularity to fade off, only then will companies rethink about it and start to go back to their original root, be innovative, produce better products in order to regain popularity. And when they start gaining popularity again things go down hill once again. It's like a loop.
