The Circles of Figure Hell: Gluttony/Limited Editions

3:00 PM on 05.30.2010   |   Pedro Cortes

Welcome back, fellow travelers. I'm glad to see that you haven't wandered off and are staying close, for as we descend farther into Figure Hell we increase the danger and sheer annoyance we face. As of now, we've pushed through the perils of bad design and the horrors of tacky figures, but now we face an ugly sin indeed.

Gluttony, the urge to devour all that is around you. If you're a figure owner, this expresses itself as Limited Edition figures. While this may seem like a matter of fact in any collectible world, that doesn't mean it isn't as vile as an other vice. Follow me after the jump to see why.

Simply put, there is a finite amount of figures available out on the market. Unless a figure becomes a runaway success (like the Hatsune Miku Nendoroid, which has popped up numerous times on Hobby Search after its initial sellout) there will usually be only one or two runs made. This naturally means that there will be a choking point sometime down the line where everything becomes difficult to find.

That isn't what I'm talking about here. That is the natural progression of time limiting a market. I'm talking about the forceful limiting of an item to artificially boost the price of a small run of figures. This is either by doing incredibly small print runs or unevenly producing a particular figure.

That's not to say that limited runs in the figure world is always evil. When dealing with garage kits, you're looking at small groups trying to produce a niche product to an even smaller contingent of buyers. Chris Seto says: "The limited numbers aren't because the makers are trying to artificially drum up interest or hike up prices. They're limited because they're damn expensive to produce and they don't have any kind of company backing! It's just a bunch of guys trying to share what they've made on a limited budget (and catch the eye of the big companies while they're at it.)" I would agree with him that in the world of resin kits that limited runs and editions aren't an issue considering that's just how that industry works.

Andres Cerrato is also used to limited runs of collectibles, considering his prior hobby: "When I was a little kid, I collected sports cards. Ultimately I watched as that industry got destroyed by the sheer amount of limited editions, which made it impossible to get everything in that set. We're talking things produced in the MILLIONS but only 5 of a certain card? I didn't think I'd see anything as ridiculous until I really got into collecting toys, seeing the limited runs of several pieces and fearing what happened to sports cards in the U.S. would ultimately happen to the toy market. 

Not all industries aim for such a niche audience. Most other categories of PVCs and designer vinyls aim for a wide audience, and making such small runs hurts the industry as a whole. Take the debacle with Mattel and Masters of the Universe. Even though I'm not a fan of MotU, I can appreciate the love that the sculptors have put into making these toys just like the originals released in the 80s and improving them as well. That doesn't excuse them for their questionable decisions with the MotU releases, including their abysmal initial production runs.

Tyr112, a fellow Tomopoper and a long time friend of mine, has fallen victim to Mattel's crappy website numerous times, having missed the last several releases because they are sold out in literal minutes. You may also remember a faux review and an excellent editorial written by Jason Millward back in March where he took Mattel to task for their mishandling of MotU. Jason said, "The Masters of the Universe Classics line is one which I would love to own every character. Instead, I am so fed up and frustrated that i can't stand the thought of them. I'd like to think that by voting with my dollars that I'm making some kind of difference, but this is obviously not the case. They sell every last figure that they produce. I'm teaching them no lesson at all." Even though these figures will get an eventual re-release, Mattel is the only legit site that stocks the figures, so, like Jason said, there is no way to use your power as a consumer to tell them they're doing it wrong. Your choices are to suck it up or stop collecting the figures, both of which are crappy choices.

As bad as Mattel may be, the real evil comes in the designer vinyl world. I will say upfront that I don't collect vinyl and am not a big fan of it. However, there are quite a few members of the Tomopop staff that are vinyl collectors and have a quite the legitimate beef with how that industry is run. What I do know is that there are VERY low runs of some nice looking pieces that most people can't get a hold of. Stephen Donaldson chimes in:

"Kidrobot and their ridiculously small numbered Dunnys is insane. The chases in Dunny Series 2009 just went wayyyyyy too far; 200 of the Travis Cain Dunny in the WORLD split amongst 4 designs!? And then the limited to 100 Jeremyville Dunny they put up on their site that no one got because of their botched cart system. The latest had to have been the Mono O-No Sushi, which Rivet could not have botched the release of any more than they did. They kept a stock of about 75 out of 200 for their in store purchases, went on blogs where around 5-10 people had missed out (they did this on like 3 blogs so a total of like 30 people max) and wouldn't offer those figures they had to people that wanted them and instead taunted them. They still have the figure in stock in store to this day and the release was about 2 months ago now. Limited colorways for the sake of limited colorways is also fairly annoying and I wish it would stop unless it truly is something worth having a la the Blue and Lava Terror and Magnus figures which were both runs of about 100 and were fairly attainable."

To give you a better idea, Stephen broke down the Dunny numbers. "A typical run of a Dunny Series is around 200,000 pieces, so only 200 out of those 200,000 were the Travis Cain, with the lowest number being 15 of the one with the saw in its head, so 15/200,000 were that one design, which is insane" That's just nuts. That's how you piss off the people that want your product, not make people go and buy your stuff.

Leah Bayer also finds this nuts, saying, "A great example of why vinyl is insane for being so limited is the recent release of a PVC figure, swimsuit Yagyu Jubei. Yagyu was limited to 1500 piece, which for PVC is an insanely small run. For vinyl, 1500 is a very large run. This is mostly because very few vinyl figures are given a run of over 200 — and by limiting the releases, they are limiting the market. People are well aware of how hard it is to buy these things, so while they may pick up the occasional blind box, they will never go all in and start collecting for real. PVC sells so well because it is readily available, and very few releases are limited. If you want a PVC figure, chances are you can get it. Even for a figure as rare as Yagyu, a few US stores had preorders up. Vinyl is a whole other story — if you want a limited release, chances are you can't get it. By labeling themselves as a "limited collectible" market, vinyl is actually a self-fulfilling prophecy. There is no way they can expand their market if they continue to limit the runs of their figures to such drastic effect."

Colette Bennett is also quite annoyed with the vinyl world. "Vinyl runs got so limited that I personally just kind of gave up on them. I know some people who love challenge and the thrill of the chase probably are all over it, but for me it's like a reason to go crazy to get something just to say "Hey, look at my ultra rare toy! Wow! I'm so cool!" Uh, no, actually you're not. You just got a rare toy. It's annoying, esp when people do a run of 5 pieces or some bullshit like that. How can you expect people to be able to collect your work, real fans, when you limit it so much? I hate hate hate when artists do a million colorways of a figure, but that's just my personal preference."

Brian Szabelski agrees with the overall sentiment, saying "It's one thing for a vinyl run to a limited edition simply because they're being hand-made by an artist or small company that doesn't have the production capacity to crank out thousands of pieces. But more and more, it becomes easier for even the bigger companies to justify charging higher prices for figures simply by producing fewer of them than to meet anticipated demand.

It's actually somewhat beneficial for a company to do that, too, because it keeps the "buzz" that is actually demand strong for a bit, even if in the end it pisses off some potential buyers. It also closes out a ton of potential customers who might have been interested in buying what you've got if they could only find it. There's always a good balance to strike, but sometimes, I wonder if the vinyl companies are really even close to finding that good balance."

Brian brings up a great point. As much as people hate limited figs, it can be leveraged properly to keep people buying. It becomes a problem when companies repeat it ad nauseum for all their releases time after time.

Japanese PVC isn't exactly a blushing bride here. They're just as guilty of this sin as any of the other industries listed. There have been quite a few excellent statues and accessories that are exclusive to events, magazines or websites that wouldn't be possible to get without a proxy service like Tokyo Hunter. Although they don't think about westerners when they come up with their marketing plans, it doesn't make it any less annoying when something like Kotobukiya's Taiga gets put up for preorder and we can't just go and order it from Hobby Search or Hobby Link Japan. Andres also finds this annoying, saying, "The one type of limited I cannot stand are the mail-order or Asia-exclusive Bandai products. Tamashii Nation is just absurd with the amount of figures they put into the market and don't make available for other retailers. I understand why they do that (again, supply/demand and shelf-warming), but at least make them available in some fashion to the Internet. They know the figures are being bought overseas, so just Admiral Perry the thing and open the gates. I know I can get the items through proxies, but when you're paying upwards of $35 for an OPTIONAL $7 SWORD, you have to wonder why they allow for it."

On the opposite side of the ocean, Chis Hansbrough weighs on exclusives, Sideshow Collectibles in particular. "Only thing I don't like about being a statue collector is the exclusives. Whether it's Bowen Designs or Sideshow they have weird exclusive deals. The Sideshow exclusives usually only have small and minor tweaks that make them far better figures that the market released ones (Ms. Marvel is a great example. Usually it's a much better facial sculpt or something simple. Those really are the only Sideshow things I'd ever want because for the most part Sideshow does a terrible job with faces. Almost every figure they have put out has made me want to avoid it. Then I see the website exclusives and, BAM, they look so much better. Bowen Designs is different. Bowen has a subscription model. You pay $25 and you get a year of access to exclusive statues that are ... well ... freaking spectacular when they actually are sold through there and they sell out fast so even if you are a member ... unless you pay close attention it's going to be hard as hell to get and they are also a hell of a lot more expensive. We're talking like $100+ more than a regular figure. They also do website exclusive runs that you can only get from the Bowen sit,e which are improved versions of stuff coming out. Like the Bowen Exclusive Ant Man has 3 statues on it that makes it look like he's growing or shrinking if you take a show from the right angle. Some cool stuff and all of it is really hard to get. I really don't bother anymore and just stick with the regular versions, which are just as awesome and aren't a hassle for me to get."

That's it for this week's adventure. We've pushed through three circles already, but we still got a ways to go. Next week, we push on to Avarice and abusive pricing!