(Sorry Counterpunch, he's still yours to hunt, but I wanna take a few pot-shots at him too.)
hello. My name is Flashwave. And I have a confession. I don't have an income. Not yet capable of getting one.Yes I went to Botcon. I went and shared it with my dad, who helped with airfare and hotel. But souviner and such was saved for over teh year. I'm not a rich fan either.
Well it seems as with most things in this world driven by money and demand,
Yep, that's sorta how our economy works. duh!
that a simple fan who is not rich and extremely wealthy will have to pass on the Botcon exclusives.
Did you know that Ten Bucks a week from one botcn to the next is 520 bucks? Flight and hotel aside, We didn't spend that the entire weekend in Providence.
I am new to the whole system, and this is my first disappointment as a fan. I can't believe how expensive Botcon Merchandise is.
I'll give you that, since you aren't familliar wit Botcon prices. But it's hardly a dissapointment. You claim they could makeke these figures for less, but I don't think your taking into account the need to change molds.
For the price of just one of that set I could buy 4 older Transformers toys in MISB on ebay
By old, do you mean a year ago? cause anytihng later than RIDthat gets pricey. But could you get something this cool?
and be satisfied knowing their price would rise in years to come. But as for the Botcon stuff, they just look like repaints and slight remolds to me.
But so are a lot of Exclusive figures, even in other conventions. Be glad Hasbro even wants to offer these exclusives. Nothing says they have to.
If I really wanted I could buy an older one of some of the figures in loose on ebay and have a professional repaint them for less money then what I could if I bought the Botcon merchandise.
You could, but then it isn't the Botcon stuff and loses it's magic.
It's completely depressing to see what selective Capitalism versus mass consumerism can do when delegated to the transformers Brand.
Wait, wha? You make it sound like Archer and the Hasbro people are pirates, greedy little something-or-others, that they aren't.
Sorry guys, But I have to pass...But because those are just not a priority on my list.
So pass, we don't need this manual on how you hate this topic
Now if you'd have said these two things in the beginning, we wouldn't be here now.
IMO, anyone who pays that much for those repaints simply because of where they came from and such, are fools.
We don't Being from Botcon is a novelty, but these are nicce figures. The thought that hasbro actually tried to make something we wanted at all.
Supporting such an expensive and unrealistic exclusive Toyline such as that really makes me angry about collecting.
Then quit collecting. As I and several have just said, we're supporting it, because these are nice figures, that we wanted to own.
Between the expensive and over rated Botcon exclusives, the Elusive "sign over your college fund" Lucky Draw exclusives, the Scalpers who jack up the prices on ebay, bad ebay sellers who after payment recieved, never send the merchandise, greedy little comic shops, consignment hunters, and Mall dealer tables, this franchise has alot of greed and "issues" which make it very hard for a fan with little to no money to keep up, let alone stay interested without getting extremely frustrated!!
Botcon expensive, possibly. Not over rated. You don't Have to get the lucky draws. Not even in this country. Sure people jack up prices, it happens. We aren't gonna inselt them here. ANd those people that don't send items are esy to be found. If you take 5 minutes to read up on their record, you'll know whether or not to buy from them. I've not seen a comic shop sell much of anything, gredy or otherwise. Mine sold somer nice qual G1s for decent prices. Never met a dealer table in a mall, so I don't know what you mean. This franchise is NOT greedy. The fandom may be, but not the franchise. NAd FYI, I have an allowance, to spend on more than TFs. I'm having no problem keeping up. If you are, buy a golf cart.
SO either join the club and get the set at roughly $150.00 USD or be a non member and pay roughly $180.00 USD? What a freaking expensive set for 2 plastic toys who would have retailed for at the most $25.00 in stores!
Your contradicting yourself. If these figs sold in stores, one person would get them, or they would be sold en masse and we have no reason for them to be exclusives.
Defending them by saying they need this amount of money to continue to bring exclusives to the Botcon is simply not true,

let me see YOUR degree in that.
its a demand thing and as far as I can tell these Botcon repaints are in demand, production costs can't be so high that these figures should cost $60.00 each to produce or even with a profit gain of $20.00 they don't cost $40.00 to produce.
Maybe this will fit through your skull. They made what, 1400 Trions? That's abnout the same number of Vector Primes 1 walmart stores gets in a month. Maybe even less than a month. Multiply that by the several thousand Walmarts in the States, add all the OTHER stores selling Vector Prime in the States, and then you'll se ethat we're right and it does cost thst much. And I haven't even left our borders. There's still half of North America, and the rest of world to figure in.
Rule of thumb, the more you produce the cheaper the item becomes, and because they under produced, which still doesn't cost them that much to manufacture, I'm sure of it, they can charge extremely ludicrous amounts of money to purchase them?? WTF!!!
See previous
It's Insane!
So are yo, and most of the fandom, but at your level
Lets put this into perspective shall we, a MP-03 Star Scream from Takara retails on ebay on average at about $75.00 to $100.00,
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dl ... category0= while the Wal-mart "exclusive" repaint will retail somewhere around $50.00, which is more sought after then the Takara release, it's a masterpiece repaint and not some voyager class repaint???
Dim-Wit. That figure is being sold to Walmarts in 50 states. that's an average of 1000/2000 stores, in fifty states, for three months or more. Using a mold that's already been made.
I know I'm new and all to this fandom, but come on!! does anyone else think that these sets are just way too expensive?
Not to this lunacracy, we don't.