Gauntlet101010 wrote:You can't wrap your head around it because you refuse to see it from other people's point of view.
Your point about it being a crown jewel is valid. However, for many others, they will never, ever, spend that much on a TF. Be it because they have other obligations or simply can't justify that much for a toy. For these people Fort Max is a TF they will never, EVER, own. EVER. So, for these people, this is an acceptible compromise.
The logic makes absolute sense if you look at it from another's perspective.
As for my feelings about inferior quality: I would not be the first to get a KO Fort Max. I would wait for some other, braver, souls and hear what a few of them have to say. If the cost per suck ratio isn't so bad then, yes, I'd be happy with it accepting any flaws it may have. After all, I would have bought the thing fully aware of what I was getting.
And Hasbro will never release Fort Max. I hear it failed the drop test back in the RID days. Takara might one day, but never Hasbro.
Frankly, I can wrap my head around everything but the utter acceptance of the price of this KO. That is all. I can perfectly understand someone wanting to spend 1,000 bucks on the crown jewel piece of a collection. I can understand someone with lesser means to aquire the crown jewel to be thrilled with the chance to buy a decent substitute. Hell, I'd happily buy it myself if it wasn't $300. I don't have to try to look at it from someone else's perspective. I consider myself to be a collector. I already see their perspective.
Again, my problem is not the fact that people want to buy KO's or the fact that people want to buy a Fort Max KO. My problem is that this particular case is an obvious and blatant case of price gouging at an extreme level and people are thrilled about it. This is where I am confused. People are happy about being ripped off. I have no intention of defending Hasbro or Tak/Tomy and I'm not argueing legits vs. KO's. I'm simply saying that this KO is rediculously over-priced, for the sole purpose of the distributor lining his pockets with gold and I'm confused and shocked about the few amount of people who see it and aren't aggravated about it. That is all.
I don't see an issue with people wanting to spend a lot of money on rare pieces of a collection. $300 for a legit TF, I don't have a problem with at all. $1000 on a legit Fort Max, good for those who can do it. I would be slightly jealous. But for people to be so thrilled at any obvious ploy by the distributor of this to make a ton of money at our expense only encourages more of the same behavior in the future.
I suppose the reaction that I expected was that there would be excitement from the masses in the fact that the product was being made but disappointment that the price point was a little inflated. It confused me and still does that so many were just thrilled with the price of this KO. Quite frankly, if the quality ends up good I'd buy it if was about half the price.
At the end of the day, I have no problem with the existence of KO's and I have no problem with people wanting to buy them. I do not own any myself currently however, I'm not opposed to it and I have been exploring it. I also don't mind paying for quality. I don't have to pay for a brand name. If the quality is good then a KO is just as good as the original provided you aren't trying to pass off the KO as an original to somebody else. But I also don't want to pay alot of money for crap either. Its a slippery slope with KO's. I think its a bad sign when a KO is starting at a very high price when it isn't even made yet and nobody can attest to its quality. Instead of being thrilled about it, I would be more nervous about getting burned and I would've thought that more people would've been too.