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Originally Posted by Kovenor
Yep im done with sideshows prints too. Ill keep the ones i got but not getting anymore. Id imagine sideshow is losing a lot of buisness because of this... would be smarter for them to just suck it up and get real signatures or at least lower the price. But i dont care. More money that i can use for other companies.
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I gotta say, I find the fact that Sideshow hasn't done a reversal on the signature issue quite mind boggling. The way I see it, Sideshow really had 4 options once the whole signature sh*t hit the fan.
#1 - Changing from machine automated signatures to real signatures. This would have been the optimal choice as it would have made collectors happy and it would have allowed Sideshow to continue on as if nothing had happened at all. Once the whole refund/credit issue was sorted out, it would have all been forgotten and chalked up as a corrected mistake. If anything, this could have actually helped Sideshow's overall image as it would have shown that they were willing to listen to their fans and willing to make changes based on what collectors wanted.
Just look at the MASSIVE turnaround Phil Spencer initiated with the Xbox One. When he came on board as head of Xbox, Xbox's popularity was sinking like a lead brick in water. Phil's entire plan on turning that around centered on listening to the fans and giving them what they wanted. They even set up a website whose sole purpose was for fans to voice their opinion on everything regarding Xbox One. It was actually that website that made Phil decide to attempt backwards compatibility and anyone who watched the Xbox press conference at this years E3 knows just how popular that turned out to be with fans. To say Phil's plan was successful would be a massive understatement. Xbox One's turnaround has been nothing short of incredible.
Not to mention, we really don't know what the ceiling was in regards to Sideshow's edition sizes. The only thing we know is even edition sizes of 750 were selling out quickly. Its possible Sideshow could have gotten as high as 900-1000 before they reached the market cap for these prints. We'll never know just how popular this print line could have become.
Of course, this choice would have required some addition steps by Sideshow with each print release and would have required they spend a few thousand dollars on proper portfolios and shipping cases for shipping the prints to the artist to be signed.
#2 - They could have lowered the price, gotten rid of the fake signature and simply sold the prints without any signature whatsoever. They still would have been limited editions, just without a signature. Personally, I would vastly prefer this over a fake signature.
#3 - They could have lowered the price and gone with an open edition model, one that was either unsigned or one that had a machine automated signature. It really wouldn't have mattered with an open edition line as a large percentage of open editions aren't signed. Over the years, its possible they could have made more money with open editions than they did with limited editions. Thats the one good thing about open editions. The company can continue to sell them for as long as they want and considering most of the prints sold in the comic print market are open editions, this would have been a perfectly legitimate option to make.
#4 - Continue to produce prints exactly as they have been (using machine automated signatures) and simply adjust/lower the edition sizes to compensate for the collectors who would no longer be buying these prints due to having no interest in limited edition prints with fake signatures.
At this point, I think its pretty clear that they chose to go with #4. Gotham Sirens and Scarlet Witch both have edition sizes of 300, a substantial drop from the edition sizes we had been seeing. I guarantee both of those prints would have had edition sizes of at least 500-600 if they had been released before this whole signature issue went public. Both Powergirl and Vampirella had ES's of 600. No way do they release Gotham Sirens with an ES of 300 before this happened. Not a chance.
Clearly Sideshow has chosen to just continue producing prints as they have been and just lower the edition sizes which means Sideshow is content to make less money over having to deal with the additional steps and investments required to get real signatures. IMO, its just not the optimal choice as your ultimately making less money and losing print customers and making many print collectors unhappy.
That being said, given the profit margin on digital prints, Sideshow is still making a killing so its not necessarily a bad choice, its just not the choice I would have made if I was in charge of their print line and its certainly not a choice that I agree with or personally understand, from both a business and collector standpoint. Given the price they are selling these prints at and given that Sideshow appears to be going with edition sizes of roughly 300 now....well, I estimate Sideshow is still making $20,000+ per print release. If they produce 20-30 prints a year, your still talking $400,000 to $600,000 per year in profit. Thats a decent sum of money, but if Sideshow changed direction and went with signed prints, they could double those figures. Is not wanting to ship your prints out to get signed really worth losing that kind of money?
