King Darkness
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Probably is, I didnt go to con so I dont know for sure.
We want The X-file to reopen!
- Thread starter Swedish Lars
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Probably is, I didnt go to con so I dont know for sure.
King Darkness
Super Freak
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King Darkness
Super Freak
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Kabukiman
Greatest Person Ever
Since the Lone Gunmen died near the end of the series, and the movie (as is rumored) takes place sometime in the middle of the series, there is every possibility that the Lone Gunman will be in the movie.
The Lone Gunmen = Overrated.
Seeing those awesome sculpt pics is almost enough to make me cry.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
the Lone Gunmen may have been minor characters in the show but their appeal is huge among the people that buy action figures (nerds).
Look at the Skinner & Krycek figures. They easily sold through their production run and now fetch INSANE prices on eBay on the rare occasion one of the few people that has them is willing to sell them.
That proves that in reality the demand is there for a larger production run than what Skinner and Krycek had. Double their runs and put all three Gunmen in a box set at double or triple the price and I think Sideshow could get a respectable profit margin.
I've said it before and I'll say it again:
the Lone Gunmen may have been minor characters in the show but their appeal is huge among the people that buy action figures (nerds).
Look at the Skinner & Krycek figures. They easily sold through their production run and now fetch INSANE prices on eBay on the rare occasion one of the few people that has them is willing to sell them.
That proves that in reality the demand is there for a larger production run than what Skinner and Krycek had. Double their runs and put all three Gunmen in a box set at double or triple the price and I think Sideshow could get a respectable profit margin.
abstractharmony
Super Freak
Bonehead15
Super Freak
The reason Skinner and Krycek sold out was due to their low edition sizes. That's also why they are worth so much on the secondary market. The reason the edition sizes were so small was due to the absolute lack on interest in the figures. Even with the super low editions, both figures took forever to sell out.
Krycek was supposed to have an exclusive and standard version of the figure released but preorders were so low that Sideshow had to cancel the standard version before the exclusive even sold on their site. Skinner was released only because Sideshow had already already invested too much money in developing the figure to cancel it. At an edition size of 500, Sideshow is barely making any money at all on the figure. That's almost the "break even point" for them.
Those Lone Gunmen Sculpts look great, sad SS will not produce them. I hate to see a line canceled or stopped with no annoucement because it isn't selling well, it seems there is some interests. Yes its not Star Wars, it seems Star Wars put I lot of other lines off the shelves. Make 500 Lonegunmen raise the price, they'll sell. Or at least sell the heads to us. We now have a Hobbit body for Frohike.
If that was the case then the figures that exist wouldn't be worth any more than their original retail.
That's not the case, they fetch significantly higher prices than most other figures as recent as they are. That is because the demand has absolutely overwhelmed the supply.
If the people that are willing to pay $200 or $300 for Krycek and Skinner could get them for $45 they would but they can't and paying those ridiculous prices is their only option because of that supply-and-demand situation.
Yes, and if only 500 people wanted these figures they wouldn't inevitably fetch high prices on eBay every time they're put up for sale.
Look, I'm not saying there's a massive demand for "X-Files" figures but there is certainly demand for more than 500. There's absolutely no way you can deny that. For whatever reason their popularity didn't take off until after they were already sold out but it has taken off in a big way.
Personally, I think Sideshow has made some iffy choices in this line. I'm a huge "Millennium" fan and I'm sometimes shocked that we were lucky enough to get a Frank Black action figure 5 years after the show had been off the air. That said, he was a pretty poor choice for the fourth figure in the line and I think producing a relatively obscure character like Black sorta slowed interest in the line. Doing Doggett (who a lot of people view as like a mascot of the show's most-hated era) so soon was also a weird choice.
Furthermore, it seems like the whole future of the line was based on how well Skinner did, and as much as I love the character and the figure I have to admit that it's a boring-looking figure. As someone who's seen every episode of "The X-Files" and knows everything about Skinner (and all the rest of the characters) that doesn't bother me but it's the kind of figure that only appeals to die-hard fans and more than any other figure in the line he doesn't really "work" as a single figure.
I can see someone who's never bought any of the other figures buying any single one of those figures as an impulse buy or whatever. They all had their different appeal. Mulder & Scully are no-brainers, Krycek is probably the most visually-striking of the series, I think a lot of people bought the Doggett figures with T-1000 customs in mind, CSM is very recognizable and iconic, Frank Black has the "Millennium" fans, etc. but do you think anyone is going to just want Skinner?
As I said before, the Lone Gunmen are nerdy characters that appeal to nerds and let's be perfectly honest, action figure collecting is very nerdy too. Were the characters popular enough to keep their own show afloat? No, but if you're an "X-Files" fan and you collect action figures you love them.
Of the three Langley is really the only visually-striking one, Frohike is unusual looking but at the same time normal-looking and Byers is just a bearded guy in a suit but that's why I've always said that this is definitely a case where doing a 3-pack would be the way to go. As a team they're very recognizable and iconic and I can easily see them being popular among collectors like us and people who have never bought any of the other figures. I can easily see these figures on the office desks of many geeky tech guys too.
I don't know how Sideshow should drum up the interest necessary to get these produced because it's not a company where you see much promotion and publicity and I understand that a retailer is just gonna look at the numbers of how previous figures did but the popularity of Krycek and Skinner prove that there's more demand for "X-Files" figures than Sideshow thought last time around, and even though the Gunmen most likely won't be included in the new movie that will still boost overall interest in all things "X-Files". You have to keep in mind the fact that the show has been off the air the entire time Sideshow was making the figures.
I'd be up for Legacy figures since the originals came before my days of high end collecting, I have Mulder but I haven't found any good deals for Scully and it would be a simple solution.
Jamal
Super Freak
Me and my wife are half way through Season 9 on DVD at the moment, i bought season 1 to 9 on dVD for 300 dollars brand new. Anyone agree when i say Monica Reyes is SMOKING HOT???
X files in my opinion is probably one of the best series ever made
X files in my opinion is probably one of the best series ever made
Bonehead15
Super Freak
If the demand is really there then why didn't they sell when they first were announced? Answer, cause there WAS no demand. Krychek had an open edition size and couldn't hardly sell 500 units.
People only want these cause they are scarce. Any kind of collectible is like that. The less of them made, makes the appeal of owning it even more. In fact, I'd say a good portion of these figures aren't even in X-Files fans collections.
Like I said, Sideshow isn't the kind of company casual buyers are aware of.
It's the kind of thing where you practically have to seek it out. I preordered every "X-Files" figure Sideshow made as soon as they were put up for preorder but I'm active throughout the online action figure collecting community. I'm sure there were several "X-Files" fans who never even knew these figures existed until it was too late. You also have to take into account the fact that the Krycek and Skinner figures were never available in stores. If you weren't following the line on sites like this and the official Sideshow site you could very easily not know they existed at all for a long time. There's a difference between the kinds of exclusives that the line initially had (which essentially rewarded people for buying figures directly from Sideshow that they could get elsewhere) and making them altogether unavailable outside of the site.
I know retailer orders on Skinner and Krycek were low but once again I think that could be attributed to the aforementioned iffy choices of doing Frank Black and John Doggett (which understandably didn't sell well. Once again: obscure canceled sister show/main character from hated era). There's a difference between a retailer saying "that Frank Black figure didn't sell so I'm not going to order any more" and a fan deciding whether or not to buy a figure in-person. In a perfect world Skinner and Krycek would have been on store shelves and Doggett and Black would have been the online-only exclusives.
As for your reasoning re: scalpers, it's fundamentally flawed. That kind of prospective "I'm gonna put my kid through college with this" mentality doesn't exist unless there's ultimately somebody willing to fork over the cash in the end and that happens time and time again on the rare occasion that Skinner and Krycek pop up on eBay. If the demand wasn't there the prices wouldn't be so high. That's really all there is to it.
It's also foolish to suggest that 500 is the precise number of people who wanted these figures. That's a pretty arbitrary number. Maybe it was only 477 people that wanted the figures (it wasn't, they sold out) and maybe it was only 510 but the fact of the matter is this: Sideshow tried 500 and currently there aren't enough of those two figures to go around. Is that surprising considering that they were initially slow sellers? Yes, but the situation has obviously changed.
The way I see it, if Sideshow could get hook their promotional wagon to some of the stuff associated with the new "X-Files" movie they would undoubtedly sell at least 750 "Lone Gunmen" sets. They might need to do new Mulder & Scully figures (this was the reasoning behind the "Home" and "Autopsy" figures, people are reluctant to buy the supporting characters if the main characters aren't currently available to them easily) but even if the movie tanks "The X-Files" will still be at its most visible position the entire time Sideshow has had the license. It's not "Star Wars" and it's not "Lord of the Rings" but there's still a demand for "X-Files" merchandise and I think it's a matter of promoting it better and timing it to coincide with something like the new movie.
Swedish Lars
Just a little freaky
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Swedish Lars
Just a little freaky
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GuruAskew!
You are the reason why I started this thread! I totally agree with you in everything! I'm sure we will get lots of X-files figures because of you!! Keep up the good work!
And one more thing. Why is there a timelimit for figures to sell out? The point is that they do sell out even if it takes a month or even a year, right?
Now post some pictures of Mulder & Scully, everybody!
You are the reason why I started this thread! I totally agree with you in everything! I'm sure we will get lots of X-files figures because of you!! Keep up the good work!
And one more thing. Why is there a timelimit for figures to sell out? The point is that they do sell out even if it takes a month or even a year, right?
Now post some pictures of Mulder & Scully, everybody!
LordAzrael
Origins Kurgan Crusader
The problem with Krycek was the poor choice of exclusive. I have every x-files figure but held off on the exclusive because I just wanted regular eyes. That and it took them forever to deliver it. It wasn't an open edition size either - back then it was quite common to not disclose the edition size for some time. Its only since star wars that we know edition size relatively soon after pre-order. The other problem with Krycek is that he was a SSC exclusive only - so no overseas buyers could get them from local suppliers but that was only disclosed after they announced it was sold out - so there were alot of non-US buyers hanging out for it that got screwed.
Skinner on the other hand sold out pretty quickly.
