The Circles of Figure Hell: Avarice/Abusive Pricing

11:00 AM on 07.20.2010   |   Pedro Cortes

Welcome back to the horrifying descent into Figure Hell!

We've gone through three circles, but we still got a ways to go. We've nailed bad design, tacky figures and limited editions, but our latest challenge puts all the others to shame! The overpricing of statues, both PVC and vinyl, is something that has been a constant thorn in the side of collectors since the advent of the hobby. Many think it's an inevitability, but is it really? Follow me after the jump to dissect the wizened form of Avarice.

Collecting figures and toys is an expensive hobby, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Even if you are ultimately discerning and only purchase vinyl from certain artists or statues from certain shows, it's going to cost you quite a bit. The average PVC statue retails over $50, and on Tomopop I've seen custom vinyls go from $80 to $800. I can't think of many other hobbies that have such huge barriers to entry.

I started out collecting trading figures and worked my way up to scaled statues, but in that time, I've seen quite a change in the scene. For one thing statues and figures have become so much easier to get. Not to pull out the old "Back in MY day..." line, but I used to have trouble finding stuff up for decent prices. Yeah, I had my local anime shop, but they had a helluva mark up on their statues, putting them way out of the range of a high school/college kid's weekly salary. I remember having to wait weeks at a time to buy various Onegai Teacher blind boxes to eventually get the chase Mizuho, and even then that was only possible because they were on clearance. About a year after I started collecting is when I found sites like Anime Castle and Play-Asia that had entire sets for sale at a discount, saving me at least $20 for every set.

Of course, that was only the beginning. Once I bought my first scaled figures (a wedding dress Mizuho and what was found later to be a bootleg Ichigo from Bleach), there was no going back. The difference in detail and quality with these wondrous bits of PVC were dramatic to say the least. Instead of barely sculpted faces and average paint jobs, I got some figs that had some actual work put into them. Hell, even the bootleg Ichigo looked great, only revealing its insidious nature after being taken apart during my move. Again, my local anime shop had a couple of larger figures that I could sink my (broke) teeth into, but I quickly outgrew them and moved online to the aforementioned sites. These sites provided me with these figs at a decent discount ... until I started buying even higher end figures. After spending about $85 on my Alteliar Sai Yuki Nagato, I found the same figure on Hobby Link Japan for at least $15 less. At that point, I understood that I didn't do enough research and that this hobby doesn't have to be ridiculously expensive.

That is, until I discovered the higher end companies. Good Smile, Alter, Eye Up/Uplark, Max Factory and Megahouse have superior quality in terms of sculpts and paint jobs, but you pay a bit extra for that quality. Paying a little more for the quality is alright, but sometimes the buyer ends up paying upwards of $20 or more for this quality. I can't tell you how killer that is for average person. You're already investing a TON of money on this hobby and now the best figures out there are being driven further out of your financial range just because these companies can? Ugh.

Even worse is the after-market on these things. eBay is nice if you're desperate and absolutely flush with cash. Colette Bennett pops in here, saying that "I think Good Smile pricing is fair for the quality, same with Alter. What kills me is after market pricing -- I am most certainly NOT paying $150 for a figure that released at $60, and it's this type of gouging that drives me nuts. It makes it impossible to add certain pieces to your collection unless you want to be raped for them, and while I may be a slave to PVC, I won't go that far."

Brian Szabelski has the same beef. "Take, for example, the white version of Kaiyodo's Cammy figure. I'm not buying it because I'm not into the whole tan look of the figure, but some of the prices are ridiculous.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Street-Fighter-ZERO-3-CAPCOM-1-6-Figure-Cammy-White-/170444952552?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27af4f93e8

This figure retailed for $70 when it released with three other almost identical versions. Yes, it's from a few years back and not always easy to find, but $558?!?!?!?! You have GOT to be kidding me. There's a custom garage kit version I've seen that sells for less than that. Thank goodness the blue and pink ones are a little easier to find (though you do have sort through a lot of knockoffs and I'm in the process of doing that), but that's just egregious. And of course, we can all talk about the BRS aftermarket, too, as well as for other figures. The problem isn't just with vinyl, but other than not buy these overpriced figures and hope no one else is desperate enough to fall for some of these traps, there's not much we can do. "

It's kind of hard to argue against the aftermarket. While it is ridiculously expensive, people aren't saying no with their pockets. From what I was told prices at Anime Expo were ridiculous, with the original Black Rock Shooter going for well over $150 and people were actually paying that much for it. It's a long fall from the time of our youth when you could go to a toy store for a figure and not have to worry about ridiculous mark ups. Andres Cerrato: "For a lot of people, prices have gotten ridiculous with action figures. I'm sure a lot of us remember running to Toys R Us or KB Toys and getting a 6" Marvel Legends figure for $7.99, Joes for $4.99, etc. etc. Today, we're looking at $8 for 3.75" Marvel Universe figures with inferior sculpts and articulation when compared to what most people were used to at that price point. 6" figures now go for $13 in the case of the Iron Man line, $15 for DCUC and MotU by Mattel. Although the price of oil is double what it was in 2003, you can't help but feel like you're being taken advantage of with those prices."

This is also applicable for resin statues. In fact, I'd hazard to say that exorbitant pricing is the norm in with high end model kits. Chris Seto comments on one murderously priced kit: "All I can say is Volks 1/4 scale Resin kits. Yeah, I expect them to be more expensive than the usual sizes but c'mon!! KOS-MOS was just painful in terms of pricing and none of the other 1/4 scale kits have come close to her price! (Didn't stop me from getting one though.)"

He also chimes in on the PVC scene. "Alter have been lowering their prices recently compared to before but from what I have heard, their build quality has taken a little dip to balance things out. like the pegs on the accessories breaking more easily. It's getting harder to find that balance between a fair price and solid workmanship while pushing things along with new gimmicks and more dynamic poses." Striking that balance between price and quality is always difficult, but I do have to say that Alter's prices tend to be quite high, so if it's just a tad bit cheaper then I don't mind. I don't tend to buy Alter figures, so I can't comment on any sort of drops of quality.

That's it for this segment. Good luck out there and keep those wallets safe!