My Case Against Artificial Rarity

[Gomek]

4 hours ago, Johnny1360 said:

To me the three main reasons for collecting are personal satisfaction, bragging/coolness rights and monetary gain. I do it for the first two reasons, although I do like to believe it's all worth something. 

Now to me it would be pointless to collect if those reasons were easily achievable, so I understand why a bit of forced rarity is necessary. There is certainly a fine line between collectable and unobtainable which there are a fair share of sets and parts of the former and I actually have them listed as such on my wish list. I am okay with that though, others not so much.

I have to say, one of the interesting things that has come out of these discussions is really taking a step back and kind of looking at the nature of collecting. In some weird way I have to say for me personally the annoyance some of these ultra rare figures have caused me to me really appreciate my common and easily obtainable figures a lot more.

But also I will certainly concede to your point that (while I still don't support artificial rarity), there is a big difference between going a little out of my way (which I do regularly) and unobtainable (Which clearly I have an issue with).

Just now, LegoFjotten said:

The reason they only made 275 was due to the number of Bowler hats they had in stock at the time, not because of some bright idea.

Yes, I had heard that as well. But they can make 275 to give out and not call it a limited edition. People would still want it. Obviously I have zero issue with them giving out figures. Implying they will never make them again (which I feel they did) is more the issue.

[Borex]

I understand the hate against rare figures, but to keep a brand also alive for collectors/scalpers (who also buy lots of lego) rare figures are gasoline to their collections. For people who really want those chase figures but don't like to spend huge amounts, just buy knockoffs. There are pretty good knockoffs to be found.

[Littleworlds]

For myself I am happy that I don't step into the trap of wanting to collect every item of a series or so. I don't I ever had a full collection of anything; I rather pick and choose what I really like. Minifigs to me become often special by the way I customize them. That can include some completely stock one from a starter set. As soon it got personality, its special to me.

And for me that's what Lego is about. It's about making something on your own; make it yours by application of creativity. Avidly completionistic collectors may disagree 

So far this artificial rarity didn't really affect me. TLG still puts most Minifigs of a certain theme, licensed or not, within reach of normal customers. Which is good. And I definitely don't want to see this change.

[x105Black]

For me it's the choice of minifigures.  They have made some very desirable minifigures into rare chase figures and exclusives when they could have done a simple variant with a Comic Con print of some sort.

[Gomek]

25 minutes ago, Littleworlds said:

For myself I am happy that I don't step into the trap of wanting to collect every item of a series or so. I don't I ever had a full collection of anything; I rather pick and choose what I really like. Minifigs to me become often special by the way I customize them. That can include some completely stock one from a starter set. As soon it got personality, its special to me.

And for me that's what Lego is about. It's about making something on your own; make it yours by application of creativity. Avidly completionistic collectors may disagree 

So far this artificial rarity didn't really affect me. TLG still puts most Minifigs of a certain theme, licensed or not, within reach of normal customers. Which is good. And I definitely don't want to see this change.

I guess I sort of touched on this with the CW superheroes which don't do anything for me. They can do all the Star Wars Prequel, Brickheadz and CW Superhero exclusives they want and it won't affect me personally, but I still understand that these things have loyal followings that are getting cut out for not a whole lot of good reasons. (In fact if you are really into CW Superheroes you'd have to ask yourself why Lego seems to have a vendetta against that theme in particular.)

My answer to this has always been that if you feel the need to have a special figure for your event it should be exclusive to that event. Similar to how they do the store opening figures with a stamp on the back. These figures do go for money and are rare, but you can say with a reasonably straight face that they should mainly just appeal to people who were at that event and serve as a memento for those people. When you're doing a figure with mass market appeal then you're really creating something meant for a mass market and only giving to a privileged few.

For me Lego is still a toy that, to your point, should be interchanged, customized, built and played with. The idea of creating ridiculously priced small sets and minifigures runs completely contrary to this idea.

2 minutes ago, x105Black said:

For me it's the choice of minifigures.  They have made some very desirable minifigures into rare chase figures and exclusives when they could have done a simple variant with a Comic Con print of some sort.

funny, i was just writing the exact same thing

[x105Black]

I would much rather see them produce interesting little sets with no exclusive pieces but cool exclusive packaging and such to honor the occasion.

[Gomek]

Just now, x105Black said:

I would much rather see them produce interesting little sets with no exclusive pieces but cool exclusive packaging and such to honor the occasion.

agreed, which is sadly what it initially looked like they were going to do this year.

[BaneShake]

This is all a very good point. I'd like to point out how the comics-push that you mentioned, trying to sucker in collectors into spending more, was straight up a major cause of the comics crash in the mid-nineties.

[Vindicare]

Sounds like a bit of butthurt over missing out on something. Since you bright Willy Wonka into this, whenever I see whining about con exclusives, I think Veruca Salt & her wanting to have everything she saw in the factory. 

Rare items are nothing new. If something becomes collectible, there will always be a “holy grail.” Look at any & nearly all trading cards. Look at the more recent Pops! stuff. Collectibility always creates this. 

And lastly, you’re going to gripe about secondary prices, don’t shake a finger at TLG for not creating enough minifigs/sets, shake it at the people buying them at such inflated prices. If the con figs didn’t continue selling at the $100+ price tag, we would be seeing cheaper figs. 

Now, would I love to have Spider-Woman, The Phoenix, & The Collector instead showed up in regular sets? Absolutely. But I won’t moan & groan because they aren’t. 

[fordtruckin]

25 minutes ago, Vindicare said:

Sounds like a bit of butthurt over missing out on something

Its not about missing out. Its about it not being produced in sufficient quantities to give people an option to buy it. I missed out on a lot of cool sets in my dark ages. That kind of sucks but maybe I can find them reasonable at a garage sale, 2nd hand store, or online. I waited too long to buy the first Antman set and I missed out. I regretted not buying it when I had the chance. I made the decision not to buy it when I was holding it in my hands because I thought the shelf life would have been longer. It wasn't butthurt. I missed out and it was my fault. But when Lego makes something so incredibly rare intentionally and it is something very desirable to a large part of the Lego community then it is reasonable to be upset over a bad decision like that. A lot of Comic Con exclusive figures do not have a similar official figure available to buy at retail. 

Your assumption that people are "butthurt" shows that you don't really understand the point of the conversation.

[Vindicare]

10 hours ago, fordtruckin said:

Its not about missing out. Its about it not being produced in sufficient quantities to give people an option to buy it. I missed out on a lot of cool sets in my dark ages. That kind of sucks but maybe I can find them reasonable at a garage sale, 2nd hand store, or online. I waited too long to buy the first Antman set and I missed out. I regretted not buying it when I had the chance. I made the decision not to buy it when I was holding it in my hands because I thought the shelf life would have been longer. It wasn't butthurt. I missed out and it was my fault. But when Lego makes something so incredibly rare intentionally and it is something very desirable to a large part of the Lego community then it is reasonable to be upset over a bad decision like that. A lot of Comic Con exclusive figures do not have a similar official figure available to buy at retail. 

Your assumption that people are "butthurt" shows that you don't really understand the point of the conversation.

Oh no, I do get it. People are mad because they can’t readily buy everything they want from TLG, including con exclusive items. Exclusives are created to drive hype & get people to come to your shop(or booth). They are limited for just that reason. If TLG had 2,000 minifigs for SDCC it’s very likely people wouldn’t flock to their booth like they do with only 500 figs(I know with the online checking thing they have now that kinda makes my point moot, but it still stands). 

As I said, there are minifigs I want from SDCC, but I won’t pay those prices & I won’t shame TLG for doing this. Hell, I never got Velma because she was in a $120 set that I didn’t want, other than her. I won’t get mad at TLG for doing that, as it drives sales. I’ve seen plenty of people buy sets, then part them out. It sucks that one desirable fig is only available in one big ticket set, but I understand(I think) the motive. To sell sets more widely. It was the same with...blanking on her name from SW Rebels show...came with her Mando helmet in a big set. Would I love for TLG to release both of those minifigs in a cheap, $15 set? Absolutely. It would mean Velma isn’t $20+. 

[fordtruckin]

But you could bricklink Velma for a decent price at some point if you wanted to where as you cannot bricklink con exclusives without spending a ridiculous amount of money. 

[BlueberryWaffles]

11 hours ago, Vindicare said:

Rare items are nothing new. If something becomes collectible, there will always be a “holy grail.” Look at any & nearly all trading cards. Look at the more recent Pops! stuff. Collectibility always creates this. 

And lastly, you’re going to gripe about secondary prices, don’t shake a finger at TLG for not creating enough minifigs/sets, shake it at the people buying them at such inflated prices. If the con figs didn’t continue selling at the $100+ price tag, we would be seeing cheaper figs. 

But it doesn't need to be that rare. Most standard Lego sets are widely available, and even most of the exceptions (original Jurassic World sets, some Ideas sets, etc.) was because the demand was unexpected, and Lego made an effort to restock those sets. Lego sells well enough on its own, why do they need to give in to techniques used by other collectibles? 

You gave Pop figures as an example, but even those are for the most part more available to collectors.  Taking a very specific example, black suit Spider-Man. It's probably the most iconic variant of Spidey that there is, and highly wanted by many longtime Marvel fans. Funko released him as a Walgreens exclusive. Now admittedly, Walgreens exclusives are an absolute pain to look for. But at least they were widely distributed. A good amount of Funko collectors eventually could find him, and even then he wasn't that expensive online, averaging around $30. I just checked eBay, the Lego version is going for over $400. Funko's other store exclusives, most often at Target, Hot Topic, and Barnes and Noble, are much easier to find.

Even the way Funko does con exclusives is more collector friendly. Lots of their SDCC or NYCC exclusives get a limited release at Barnes and Noble, Hot Topic, and various websites. They're still rarer than the average product, and it still creates lots of hype around their booth, but much, much more accessible.

Another thing about Funko is that usually they use only variants as their exclusives. There are some exceptions (Stan Lee comes to mind) but for the most part there is at least a normal version of the character for common sale. Vixen, Black Lightning, Phoenix, Spider-Woman (yes, the Bridge Battle version is a different character), Arsenal, Deadpool Duck, Batzarro, Collector and Atom have never had that. Green Arrow, Bizarro and Green Lantern were exclusive for years. Bizarro still has never gotten a "normal" minifigure. Shazam hopefully will get a release next year, but that's still six years after the SDCC version.

What Lego could take out of Funko's book is offering these figures for a limited time online. Imagine the figures being GWPs during the Con. Even if the threshold was high, it would still provide access to many more fans and keep the hype up about SDCC. They would still be valuable, just not at the level they are now.

[Gomek]

15 hours ago, Vindicare said:

 

 

 

Edited July 14, 2018 by Gomek

[Gomek]

22 hours ago, Vindicare said:

 Since you bright Willy Wonka into this, whenever I see whining about con exclusives, I think Veruca Salt & her wanting to have everything she saw in the factory.

If you want to see true Veruca Salt try telling a comic-con goer they should wide release these figures. You'll won't believe the self-serving and self-entiled arguments. Of course you can call me "Everyone-entitled" but besides that not really being a thing, I'll take that as a compliment. 

22 hours ago, Vindicare said:

And lastly, you’re going to gripe about secondary prices, don’t shake a finger at TLG for not creating enough minifigs/sets, shake it at the people buying them at such inflated prices.

Actually prices are determined by supply and demand. No one single entity is dictating demand. There is however one single entity that controls supply (and also very much understands the demand). If Lego decides to release figures as polybags at Target all the price gouging stops. If a higher roller doesn't bid $315, it ends up going for $312.

22 hours ago, Vindicare said:

Now, would I love to have Spider-Woman, The Phoenix, & The Collector instead showed up in regular sets? Absolutely. But I won’t moan & groan because they aren’t. 

I'm not getting down on you for not complaining. I do however hope that you wouldn't take the opposite side and support it. I've been lucky enough to have had two store openings near me in the last 5 or 6 years. I got a couple "exclusives". In a way I guess I feel "Lucky" to have them, but if I knew these were super sought after items I would never oppose a wide release of said items. My enjoyment of these things is honestly not affected at all by trying to keep them out of others hands. But maybe that was one of the things that drew me to Lego in the first place. I was amassing a collection at a time when everyone said "Lego is just generic bricks, there is nothing 'collectable' about them". But that never really mattered to me, because I just loved to build.

And yeah, Spider-woman, Phoenix and the Collector all have mass market appeal and should have never been exclusive. That was a totally inconsiderate move. Am I going to die because Lego was inconsiderate? Of course not. But I really can't see any reason why fans would support this and not say "Hey this is really not a good thing"

Edited July 15, 2018 by Gomek

[Lucarex]

On 7/13/2018 at 10:27 AM, LegoFjotten said:

The reason they only made 275 was due to the number of Bowler hats they had in stock at the time, not because of some bright idea.

You actually believe that? Okaaay....

[Vindicare]

4 hours ago, BlueberryWaffles said:

But it doesn't need to be that rare. Most standard Lego sets are widely available, and even most of the exceptions (original Jurassic World sets, some Ideas sets, etc.) was because the demand was unexpected, and Lego made an effort to restock those sets. Lego sells well enough on its own, why do they need to give in to techniques used by other collectibles? 

You gave Pop figures as an example, but even those are for the most part more available to collectors.  Taking a very specific example, black suit Spider-Man. It's probably the most iconic variant of Spidey that there is, and highly wanted by many longtime Marvel fans. Funko released him as a Walgreens exclusive. Now admittedly, Walgreens exclusives are an absolute pain to look for. But at least they were widely distributed. A good amount of Funko collectors eventually could find him, and even then he wasn't that expensive online, averaging around $30. I just checked eBay, the Lego version is going for over $400. Funko's other store exclusives, most often at Target, Hot Topic, and Barnes and Noble, are much easier to find.

Even the way Funko does con exclusives is more collector friendly. Lots of their SDCC or NYCC exclusives get a limited release at Barnes and Noble, Hot Topic, and various websites. They're still rarer than the average product, and it still creates lots of hype around their booth, but much, much more accessible.

Another thing about Funko is that usually they use only variants as their exclusives. There are some exceptions (Stan Lee comes to mind) but for the most part there is at least a normal version of the character for common sale. Vixen, Black Lightning, Phoenix, Spider-Woman (yes, the Bridge Battle version is a different character), Arsenal, Deadpool Duck, Batzarro, Collector and Atom have never had that. Green Arrow, Bizarro and Green Lantern were exclusive for years. Bizarro still has never gotten a "normal" minifigure. Shazam hopefully will get a release next year, but that's still six years after the SDCC version.

What Lego could take out of Funko's book is offering these figures for a limited time online. Imagine the figures being GWPs during the Con. Even if the threshold was high, it would still provide access to many more fans and keep the hype up about SDCC. They would still be valuable, just not at the level they are now.

Funny you mentioned Walgreens, as that is exactly what I had in mind(and those Chase figures) when adding Funko in. I checked three Walgreens for General Grevious numerous times, nothing. Same with a few others. I rarely see exclusives here, despite their availability. 

A few years back..err maybe last year, I went to Barnes & Noble for their con exclusive releases, picked up a couple things. I imagine TLG doesn’t go this route for a reason. Maybe they just don’t want to dedicate that much production time to the figs? I don’t know. 

2 hours ago, Gomek said:

If you want to see true Veruca Salt try telling a comic-con goer they should wide release these figures. You'll won't believe the self-serving and self-entiled arguments. Of course you can call me "Everyone-entitled" but besides that not really being a thing, I'll take that as a compliment. 

Actually prices are determined by supply and demand. No one single entity is dictating demand. There is however one single entity that controls supply (and also very much understands the demand). If Lego decides to release figures as polybags at Target all the price gouging stops. If a higher roller doesn't bid $315, it ends up going for $312.

I'm not getting down on you for not complaining. I do however hope that you wouldn't take the opposite side and support it. I've been lucky enough to have had two store openings near me in the last 5 or 6 years. I got a couple "exclusives". In a way I guess I feel "Lucky" to have them, but if I knew these were super sought after items I would never oppose a wide release of said items. My enjoyment of these things is honestly not affected at all by trying to keep them out of others hands. But maybe that was one of the things that drew me to Lego in the first place. I was amassing a collection at a time when everyone said "Lego is just generic bricks, there is nothing 'collectable' about them". But that never really mattered to me, because I just loved to build.

And yeah, Spider-woman, Phoenix and the Collector all have mass market and should have never been exclusive. That was a totally inconsiderate move. Am I going to die because Lego was inconsiderate? Of course not. But I really can't see any reason why fans would support this and not say "Hey this is really not a good thing"

I can understand the gripes coming from con goers, they spend a lot of time & money getting to the con, sometimes in order to just get exclusive stuff. If I paid a bunch of money to get there, only to see it elsewhere would upset me someone too. Not because of monetary value, that doesn’t bother me, but the exclusiveness of it. 

Prices are mostly decided on the people who buy it. If there’s 10 figures on eBay for $100 & nobody buys any of them, we won’t continue to see them at that price. As to the practice of con exclusives, I tiptoe on the line. I can see both sides, it’s just the bad mouthing of the company that irks me. Is that really necessary? 

The grand opening set, I was finally lucky enough to get a store opening within a few hours of me after years of waiting. Just for experience’s sake of being there, it would upset me a bit to see these available everywhere. So I get the frustration of  collectors. I stood in lines for hours waiting. A lot of hours. And the slight bit of panic that arose when I feared I would miss out on the set. I couldn’t care less of sellers were upset though. 

To end this novel of a comment, part of me of course wishes they were more available, but I don’t have a problem with there being exclusives. Should TLG stop with the Tour exclusives? Or what about the Billund airport Architecture set only available there? I certainly don’t think so. 

[Gomek]

3 hours ago, Vindicare said:

I can see both sides, it’s just the bad mouthing of the company that irks me. Is that really necessary? 

The grand opening set, I was finally lucky enough to get a store opening within a few hours of me after years of waiting. Just for experience’s sake of being there, it would upset me a bit to see these available everywhere. So I get the frustration of  collectors. I stood in lines for hours waiting. A lot of hours. And the slight bit of panic that arose when I feared I would miss out on the set. I couldn’t care less of sellers were upset though. 

To end this novel of a comment, part of me of course wishes they were more available, but I don’t have a problem with there being exclusives. Should TLG stop with the Tour exclusives? Or what about the Billund airport Architecture set only available there? I certainly don’t think so. 

Ok, so I'm not sure if I'm really "bad mouthing" The Lego Group. But it also doesn't mean I have to support the things that I don't believe serve the community.

Like I said, I have a couple grand opening exclusives but yeah, I would also put those in a category of something that is really not designed for everyone. Do you really need a figure that says "FlatIron Grand Opening 2015" or whatever? probably not. I'd also say I don't need a version of Wolverine that says "SDCC 2018" on the back. But that's kind of where I draw a pretty thick line of exclusive figures that are meant to appeal to a select audience or commemorate an event, and those that are meant to have a mass market appeal. My argument isn't a blanket statement against exclusives per se, it's really against the artificial rarity of items designed for the mass market.

I've also heard the "Hey I spend a lot of money to go to this convention, I deserve to be be special" argument. There are a lot of people who spend a lot of money on Lego and who aren't claiming they need to be special. A lot more than a SDCC ticket. I took a family of four to Legoland and it wasn't cheap either. If they gave me a special Daredevil figure for it, I'd be thankful and grateful, but I'd never say "I deserve to be the only one who gets this figure" or "this Daredevil figure isn't meant for you because you weren't at LegoLand" or "this figure shouldn't be at Target because then I would feel less special". I don't know, maybe if they gave these things out at several events, and the SDCC goers that actually care about Lego got to miss out on a ton of other figures, and everyone got to miss out on 15 or 20 figures a year, then there might be a little more "Hey wait a minute, maybe we'd all be better off if these were just available as polybags".

[Johnny1360]

1 hour ago, Gomek said:

 it's really against the artificial rarity of items designed for the mass market.

This statement doesn't really make sense to me, sort of an oxymoron, example please. Please take no offense, I have just been trying to figure out your point exactly. 

You seem to be going back and forth on what is okay with you and what is not. It seems to me you have problems more with the secondary market people than TLG. Also you keep citing shady practices of other companies to create this artificial rarity thing not really LEGO. Sorry I am just not getting it. 

I do get that they have miscalculated the demand for some sets and minifigures, just not seeing the shady practice aspect of it, or why people should be making a big deal out of it. 

[Gomek]

First off, no offense at all taken. I'm always happy to have a civil discussion and always glad to hear other's take on it.

I'm not OK with figures which have mass appeal (i.e. anything based on a character from a TV show, movie) or wide general appeal (like Mr. Gold) being purposely produced at numbers far lower then their market demand.

I am OK with having variant figures with event logos and dates printed up for attendees of those events. Also sets that just have unique packaging (where collectors can piece together versions on their own if they want) seem pretty harmless.

I also don't blame the secondary market for anything really, because it's not a singular entity. Further more, if you put a figure on an ebay auction it will just go off for market value, and not anything the seller actually has control of. The only thing that truly affects the price is the number available, which in most cases is what I have an issue with. (And obviously we're talking about new sets and figures, not old figures that have naturally declined in availability)

There are also a lot of "monkey see, monkey do" marketers who maybe don't even understand the audience they are dealing with. Heck, I had one fellow AFOL tell me in the 90s that in talking to people at the Lego group that the people at there didn't understand at all why adults would be buying their product. I'm sure the comics industry went through the same things in the 60's. (Like "why are adults buying cartoon books?"). So I'd be slow to suggest that everything is done on purpose, or even that one group at Lego cares or approves of what the other group does.

Still, in no world does anyone at Lego think only 5,000 people globally will be interested in completing their collection of series 10 of the collectable minifigure line. So that situation I think was completely avoidable.

Side note: If you want to see a good example of how exclusives can negatively affect a toy brand, watch the Star Trek episode of Netflix's 'the Toys that Made Us'. Skip right ahead to the 31 minute mark where Playmates has the most successful Star Trek line ever. By the 35 minute mark it all falls on it's face (and hard).

We're all going to have widely differing opinions on how bad this is, most of which will probably pertain to how it affects our personal collections. My main point though is that however bad it is, artificial rarity is still not good, and not meant to benefit collectors.

[Aanchir]

I think in a lot of these cases it's a bit unrealistic to call the rarity of these figures "artificial". Comic-Con exclusive minifigures, for example, are designed for LEGO to give them away for free at specific events. It's a great marketing technique, but time on the production floor costs money and it makes sense that LEGO would rather dedicate most of their production time to products they're actually selling around the world, rather than to production of stuff they're giving away for free at specific events.

It's true that it can be frustrating when a Comic-Con exclusive figure is the only official version of a particular character you like. That said, nothing prevents LEGO from releasing a "normal" version of characters they've previously released as Comic-Con exclusives. Just look at Green Arrow — not only is the one in sets based on the same character as the one that was released as a Comic-Con exclusive, but even based on the same version of the character's costume! Chances are we would have already gotten a "normal" version of Phoenix in a set as well if not for the fact that there have only been three or so X-Men sets since the Super Heroes theme began. But even now, the chances of seeing characters like Phoenix or Bizarro or Spider-Woman or Shazam in sets are ultimately no different than they were before those characters were released as event exclusive minifigures.

As for Mr. Gold or the chrome gold C-3PO, they were basically sweepstakes prizes. It's asinine to think that something like that should be available to everyone; it defeats the whole purpose of creating those figures in the first place. It's no different from the solid gold, silver, and platinum Bionicle masks that have been released for various contests and sweepstakes. As a kid, do you know what I thought about these masks? I thought it was really amazingly cool that they existed, and that a few lucky people would get to own them! All this despite knowing that I would almost certainly never own one myself! I also never felt cheated by not being guaranteed a chance to own every Bionicle mask ever made. So it's downright baffling to me that actual adults feel cheated by the existence of similar limited prize items.

[Johnny1360]

2 hours ago, Aanchir said:

I think in a lot of these cases it's a bit unrealistic to call the rarity of these figures "artificial". Comic-Con exclusive minifigures, for example, are designed for LEGO to give them away for free at specific events. It's a great marketing technique, but time on the production floor costs money and it makes sense that LEGO would rather dedicate most of their production time to products they're actually selling around the world, rather than to production of stuff they're giving away for free at specific events.

As for Mr. Gold or the chrome gold C-3PO, they were basically sweepstakes prizes. It's asinine to think that something like that should be available to everyone; it defeats the whole purpose of creating those figures in the first place. It's no different from the solid gold, silver, and platinum Bionicle masks that have been released for various contests and sweepstakes. As a kid, do you know what I thought about these masks? I thought it was really amazingly cool that they existed, and that a few lucky people would get to own them! All this despite knowing that I would almost certainly never own one myself! I also never felt cheated by not being guaranteed a chance to own every Bionicle mask ever made. So it's downright baffling to me that actual adults feel cheated by the existence of similar limited prize items.

This pretty well sums up the way I see it as well. 

[RyanMe]

3 hours ago, Aanchir said:

It's a great marketing technique, but time on the production floor costs money and it makes sense that LEGO would rather dedicate most of their production time to products they're actually selling around the world, rather than to production of stuff they're giving away for free at specific events

If that is the case, why not make 100,000 of them take 5000 and put a special print on the back (SDCC 2018 or something to that effect), put them in exclusive packaging and gave them away. Then 3 months later put the other 95,000 in a polybag and sell them. That way not nearly as much extra time on the marketing floor. Granted there are not many SDCC exclusive that I wish I could have. 

[Robianco]

The notion of collecting is interesting. In having a collection it's then down to the collector to decide what makes a collection 'complete'.

Apparently the tipping point of a collection is two. If someone owns one of something they may never feel the compulsion to buy another one... but once they have a second then the floodgates invariably open to a third, fourth, fifth etc.

How this relates to Lego figures is something that happened to me... I started with one Lego set and from that had Rebel pilots... I then wanted some other pilots and one each of the main heroes of the rebellion. Well over the years that's seriously gone out of the window... down to the point of having 35 Stormtroopers all with custom printed arms, never mind originally aiming for less than 35 individual figures full stop.

I then got into Batman figures and eventually tracked down all of the regular releases... and that then led me to SDCC figures. I managed to pick up Batman ZEA as a genuine figure... but I picked up a pad printed custom (on genuine Lego parts) of the earlier Batman SDCC figure for £20. It was perfect. I then picked up Atom and Arsenal as original figures (Usually straight after SDCC is the cheapest time to get them)... but I got pad printed customs of Bizarro, Shazam, Green Lantern, Black Suit Superman and actually got a really good bootleg of Green Arrow. Total cost of all of those was around £100 (maybe a bit more). There are options and alternatives when it comes to SDCC figures and I can understand the frustration when a particular character, especially a fan favourite, is made but seems out of reach.

I collect Hot Toys figures now and they release several SDCC exclusives... They released several this year to be picked up at the event... but they've now opened that up to be able to pre-order and have them shipped from Sideshow in the US. They use the event to release a special edition figure, maybe an alternate figure of a character, but they're available for a very limited time externally. They released Luke Skywalker in Stormtrooper disguise one year and then four years later the Han Solo Stormtrooper disguise got a normal release. The frustration for people will be those late to the game that want the Luke to complete things... but it certainly available on the secondary market.

There's a nervousness with AFOL's now when it comes to SDCC time to see whether it'll be a new character or an alternative version when it comes to those figures. It probably should be like that. As Ryan has said print a special SDCC logo on the back of the figure or make it exclusive packaging.

If Lego did an SDCC exclusive of a Star Wars figure I really wanted I'd be tempted by the after market depending on the price but if it got silly I'd but a custom or a bootleg as long as the quality was comparable (And they invariably are).

Edited July 15, 2018 by Robianco

[dgherko]

I agree 100 percent with this topic post.  Having gone to one San Diego event, I had no idea how the exclusive sets worked at the event and I did not know to race to the lego booth to buy one of the limited (by day) exclusives.  The small Bag End set with minifig Bilbo would have been nice to have. But I am not spending all that money to do nothing but troll the halls after running to the booth.  I wanted to enjoy the event and take it all in - silly me.

 

I have built a yellow castle from spare parts so I am not opposed to building like that.  I now claim I have a yellow castle just with reprinted stickers.

 

 I jdon't have any access at all to knock offs so that aspect is not a big deal to me.  But I do miss castle Lego needs to fix that.