Anyone else frustrated by the waiting?

[Darth Madden]

Long waits can be good sometimes. They have saved me money. I have canceled a LOT of things because during the long wait either something else came out that I want more or I just lost interest in the item. Of course I have cut back so much lately that I'm not really ordering anything right now.

[Guilty]

So yes and no, I understand where you're coming from, but there's always a number of factors to consider.

Taking some examples from things I've observed in the hobby:

1) Companies sharing a license announcement that might be some time off.

Of course, the big goal of this is to drum up hype and interest from the consumer. It's exciting when that one license you might have been waiting a while for is finally being made by XYZ. Now you may not see anything for some time, which is understandable since development takes a good amount of time.

There seems to be what I would call the "Collector's Phases" when it comes to licenses. Starting with the beginning of the phase, if you don't make announcements, people get antsy asking:

Phase 1

"Where is X license? How come you don't do Y license? Why do you keep making so much of Z license?"

So imagine the company makes the negotiations for a new demanded license, the sign off happens, followed by the announcement.



Everyone is hyped, excited, speculation follows. Then the next phase happens:

Phase 2

"Why is X license taking so long? Where are the updates? Why didn't you just announce it later if it wasn't ready?"



Okay that's a bit of a pinch right? So fast forward a bit...the company finally gets the products up for pre-order.

Everyone is happy, placing their orders, throwing countless sums of money at the company, all good right? Nah.




Phase 3

"When is X shipping? Why do you keep putting up so many pre-orders? When is Y going to be available pre-order? You're putting up too much stuff. I want to pre-order Z now it's been so long!"




Basically the phases repeat in a cycle on different licenses.

What I mean is, I know it's human nature to get excited about things, I totally get it. Waiting is just the nature of the beast that is collectibles.

Announcements and hype are two big factors that keep current collectors interested and new collectors coming in. That's how I became interested with certain companies, even knowing that the finished piece was still far off.

Coming from the video game scene, I see the two being very similar in some ways. A game developer will announce some cool title that gathers interest, but there may only be a short CGI trailer of the game at the time. The actual gameplay details might be a long ways off (looking at you Kojima and Death Stranding).



I don't know if there's anything that could be done to reduce the wait time. You could make the announcements once the prototypes are near completion, but you risk sacrificing interest from other collectors. There's so much coming out in this hobby that I can see the logic with making these announcements ahead of time.

Sure, sometimes there's not much communication, though that could be owed to the licensor as well.

[Old Snake]

Oh yeah, announcing licenses and squatting them is more annoying than delays on preordered statues. That's Hot Toys, and Prime1 to some degree.

[D-Rocket]

Originally Posted by Nugchompa

The only thing that has really annoyed me recently is when Prime 1 changed the portrait for 1/2 scale Wonder Woman, but didn't give us a decent picture. Why not? Some people have ordered and deserve to see the full change.

Yes was annoying to me as well. The likeness wasn't there initially and they changed it finally, but it was with very little info. Also for all the Prime 1 love and I like a lot of their stuff too, how could they possibly send out those Superman 1/2 scales with the "S" so much lower than it should have been. It looks amazing overall, but that's small things that shouldn't be happening on a 2K piece. It was the deciding factor in me not purchasing it.

[Gyro Zeppeli]

Originally Posted by Dave Mac

Another point on the wait is that with so much competition and new companies coming through, no licence is set firm and something better may come along but your funds are tied into a first look product.
Frazetta licence is a good example of how different companies can offer seemingly bigger and better things after there has been an initial release by one company claiming exclusivity. Some PO''s are still valid but only for low edition sizes which I think some companies are aiming for.

Totally. One company might announce a license and then have something for preorder, but by the time that product ships, another company announced the license and released a much better looking product for preorder. This is why I lost all interest in PCS SF line for the most part once P1 announced they have the rights as well.

And like you said, the Frazetta line is an excellent example. ARH had it and so it seemed like it was a unique product you could only really get through them, but not long after so many different companies announced grabbing the license.

[Level52]

Just wanted to chime in for fun, with a little bit of a different perspective.
Waiting does suck, it also sucks for the company. But preorders are very necessary, especially for statues. The idea we think makes sense is to set the edition size based on pre orders. It's far too expensive to have the product made without a buyer in line, or to try and stock inventory, the statue boxes are huge. So it makes sense to sell the product to people on a pre order basis so you know the product is sold. The deposit then goes to fund that Production. That is why they are non refundable, because the factory won't refund you at all, so the company is now making a statue they have to try to sell to someone else, and stock that inventory, costing them money. I think 1-2 year wait times are crazy. And that is why we believe in low run production because our factory can deliver in 3-6 months. So at least the wait is reduced. The only people to lose using this method are the ones who want to wait, as there won't be any extra product produced to order later.
This thread is full of valuable info, you guys have valid concerns and complaints. The statue industry needs to step back a bit and go back to what's important, quality collectibles, exclusive and rare content, and low prices, mixed with faster ship dates.

[Marcel54]

Originally Posted by Level52

Just wanted to chime in for fun, with a little bit of a different perspective.
Waiting does suck, it also sucks for the company. But preorders are very necessary, especially for statues. The idea we think makes sense is to set the edition size based on pre orders. It's far too expensive to have the product made without a buyer in line, or to try and stock inventory, the statue boxes are huge. So it makes sense to sell the product to people on a pre order basis so you know the product is sold. The deposit then goes to fund that Production. That is why they are non refundable, because the factory won't refund you at all, so the company is now making a statue they have to try to sell to someone else, and stock that inventory, costing them money. I think 1-2 year wait times are crazy. And that is why we believe in low run production because our factory can deliver in 3-6 months. So at least the wait is reduced. The only people to lose using this method are the ones who want to wait, as there won't be any extra product produced to order later.
This thread is full of valuable info, you guys have valid concerns and complaints. The statue industry needs to step back a bit and go back to what's important, quality collectibles, exclusive and rare content, and low prices, mixed with faster ship dates.

Hear hear.

[craigcliff1]

Jerry from PCS wrote that not enough production companies around anymore. Once one closes no new comes along to replace, so you get delays and increases.

[haljordan99]

The waiting is definitely killing my interest in the hobby. It's hard to stay excited about something when you have to wait over a year to finally get it. It could be a decade before they actually get to all the comic book characters I like.

I honestly just roll my eyes when I see a Prime 1 tease these days. I feel like they tease something every week, but they don't actually put it up to be ordered for a long time (if at all).

[Gyro Zeppeli]

Thank you very much for your post Level 52. I think that reducing the turnaround time is the key and if lowering the ES helps with that, then maybe this industry should go back to how it once was in that regard. 3 - 6 months is a very reasonable window, especially compared to the one to three years that seems to be becoming more common. Does anyone have the math on how long it took for SS Batman PF to come out? I remember that one being absolutely insane.