Exclusives No More!

This just in from CineQuest.com:

SIDESHOW ALERT: Sideshow Collectibles let us know last night that their announced 12” versions of Angel’s Cordelia, Lorne and Buffy’s Rupert Giles will be made available through CineQuest.com and other retailers. Previously limited exclusives, these top-notch figures all can now be preordered at www.cinequest.com!

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Interesting.

Must not be selling as well as expected

I guess they're looking for help to push these things. Only a 1500 ES for Cordy and still no low quantity alert, and she was a heavily requested character. Methinks the writing is on the wall.

TheObsoleteMan said:

and she was a heavily requested character. Methinks the writing is on the wall.

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this will not fair well for the Kurgan Krusade

also you know this will induce cancellations of direct orders for cheaper reseller prices

I'd say that is pretty much the final nail in the coffin.

Yeah, I think the life support machines just went from a slow beep to a flatline. I knew the Angel line would be short lived, but now I honestly have to wonder if we'll see anything past Lorne.

this is really sad news for Buffy and Angel fans. Perhaps SW, LOTR, and Marvel line is taking all the thunder away from other SS figures.

I got that notice from CineQuest as well. Wonder if our board dealers will have it? I want these figures, but I'm certainly not above buying at a discount from a dealer instead of paying full retail to buy from Sideshow. It would be incredibly stupid on my part to NOT buy from my dealer if it's less money.

Every dollar I can save is more to spread around for other Sideshow figures!

These would've sold much better at SS if not for their insipid 1-per-customer limit. If that hadn't been counterproductively in play, they'd probably have sold a few hundred more of each at full retail profit. Most of SS's Buffy-related decisions have been poor and I count SS mishandling as being fully responsible for the troubles the line faces.

DST is making a killing with the Buffy/Angel property not just with commodity 6" figures, but with expensive prop replicas and with plushes which sell out edition sizes of 5000 and 10,000. DST has been responsive, asked the fans what they wanted, and given us every core character and developed prop replicas and plushes based on customer feedback. Clearly, the audience is there--but Sideshow's repeated bunglings have alienated it.

The Willow fiasco was just the start of one bad decision after another. As an ensemble show, fans demand the full core cast--and with no committment to that, the line suffered waning interest through figure releases of one minor MOTW and retread after another. Going Exclusive-only was yet another nail in the coffin since many, many fans buy from specific retailers or the slightly discounted Buffy Collector Club--and if you go Exclusive-only, the 1-per-customer rule is counterproductive and a huge mistake which limits dissemination of the figures beyond the relatively few Buffy fans who know or care about the SS website. Buffy fans have a huge universe of products competing for their money, from inexpensive but numerous 6" figures to plushes, from replica props & jewellry to the real screen-used props & wardrobe sold at the studio's official online auctions every week. In that universe Sideshow's products are relatively uninteresting--"You can't even collect all the main characters, so why bother?" is a reaction I've heard from several Buffy collectors.

Sideshow is solely responsible for the line's troubles through its long string of poor decisions, IMHO. [Sergei puts on flame-retardant suit]

I agree Sergei that it seemed ridiculous to put a "1 per customer" limit on these. I've bought up to three of each figure since I've been collecting. Recently I was only buying two because one of my daughters no longer collects. And then it was just buying for myself because I could only have one.

if they did SEINFELD they would sell out in 5 minutes easily:chew

Cosmo_Kramer said:

if they did SEINFELD they would sell out in 5 minutes easily:chew

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Dunno about that. If they followed the logic that was used in the Buffy Line, you'd probably get Jerry and then The Soup Nazi and a couple of Jerry's girlfriends, then maybe another core character.

And that's even assuming a Seinfeld line WOULD sell - which I'm not so sure it would.

Am I missing something with all the supporting cast comments? Didn't they make Xander, Willow(twice), Oz, Faith, Spike(several times), Angel(several times) and now Giles and Cordelia(albeit from a different show)? That leaves Tara, Anya, Dawn, and Joyce. None of whom were even in every season.

Is it possible to buy from Sideshow AND from Cinequest?
That way we will be able to have more than one...

I just canceled my Sideshow order and bought from the Buffy's Collectors Club at Time & Space Toys. I'm getting Cordy, Lorne and Giles and with their free shipping coupon and their cheaper prices I'm saving about $45. I'm far from being rich so every penny I can save is a big deal for me (especially because we just had to purchase a brand new mini van)!

bluesparrow said:

Am I missing something with all the supporting cast comments?

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Nope. You're wide-awake and very alert. I, however, apparently missed all the MotWs that are keeping all the fan-favorite core characters from being produced, because out of the 30-plus figures released to date, I only count one, Der Kinderstod. What's that? D'Hoffyrn, you say? Fine, two.

SergeiEsenin said:

...the line suffered waning interest through figure releases of one minor MOTW and retread after another.

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Checking Time and Space Toys' in-stock crop of DST's current Buffy and Angel offerings, I count 11 Buffys, 6 Angels, 5 Spikes, 5 Faiths, 5 Wesleys, 4 Willows, 4 Xanders, 4 Anyas (plus 1 Anyanka), 3 Cordelias, 3 Taras, 3 Dawns, 3 Lornes, and 2 Glorys. And that's just the action figures.

Retreads?

SergeiEsenin said:

DST is making a killing with the Buffy/Angel property not just with commodity 6" figures, but with expensive prop replicas and with plushes which sell out edition sizes of 5000 and 10,000.

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DST may be wholesaling a boatload, but I wonder if the retailers' sales are as brisk? I see a lot of in-stock DST Buffy and Angel product dating back a year or more on Buffy-centric sites like Time and Space Toys.

The "Smile Time" Angel puppet selling-out of 5000 pieces was a fluke. The battle-damged version at an ES of 5000 is still available, as is the Vampire version at 10,000. Have any of the prop replicas sold-out?

The economics and marketing of 6" versus 12" figures is so different that it's fatuous to compare the two. DST's action figures are much cheaper to produce; many of the parts are designed to be interchangeable and repainted for use on variant figures or recast for other products; their relatively low cost enables multiple characters and variants to be released more frequently, and in waves.

Though the 12" figures may share a few different stock bodies, the sculpts and costume design are usually unique to each individual character. Sure, sometimes a head sculpt might be reworked, and hands, shoes, or and article of clothing may be recycled, but not to the extent the practice is utilized on the 6" figures.

There's a lot more R&D with the 12" figures, which means fewer releases and, their higher price-point precludes them from being released in waves of 3 or 4 figures at a time. There's this notion that people want more figures to be released more frequently, but when they are — take Star Wars as an example — people start to complain there is too much coming at once! Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

SergeiEsenin said:

"You can't even collect all the main characters, so why bother?" is a reaction I've heard from several Buffy collectors.

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We can certainly argue who are the main characters of the Buffyverse, but the essential characters — Buffy, Willow, Xander, and Giles — the Core Four — have all been released or announced. Maybe not in as timely a manner as some may have preferred, and yes, Willow was a huge disappointment, but ultimately, they all got produced.

amarcord said:

Is it possible to buy from Sideshow AND from Cinequest?

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Yes. In the past, only the non-exclusive versions of the figures were usually available from online and brick and mortar sellers. In the case of Giles, Lorne, and Cordy, there is only one version of the figure — the figure is the exclusive, so to speak — so you would be getting the exact same figure that Sideshow is selling direct.

I agree that the one-per-customer limit should be waived. It was stated that it was imposed to deter scalpers from gobbling up all the figures; Is that really an issue, now?

Firefly Flanatic said:

I just canceled my Sideshow order and bought from the Buffy's Collectors Club at Time & Space Toys. I'm getting Cordy, Lorne and Giles and with their free shipping coupon and their cheaper prices I'm saving about $45. I'm far from being rich so every penny I can save is a big deal for me (especially because we just had to purchase a brand new mini van)!

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What if Time & Space Toys cancel these figures (If I remember well, this happened with an exclusive which was on pre-order with Forbidden Planet - I forgot which one)

So I am keeping my pre-orders with Sideshow, just to be absolutely sure to get them.

Worst case scenario : buy them on eBay for a lot of money...

amarcord said:

What if Time & Space Toys cancel these figures (If I remember well, this happened with an exclusive which was on pre-order with Forbidden Planet - I forgot which one)

So I am keeping my pre-orders with Sideshow, just to be absolutely sure to get them.

Worst case scenario : buy them on eBay for a lot of money...

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I highly doubt this will happen. In the circumstances with Darla, T&S toys jumped the gun and listed her for pre-order even though both the red and blue Darla's were really exclusives. They clearly state on the order pages for Cordy, Lorne and Giles that they got special permission from Sideshow to sell these whereas with Darla they did not get permission ahead of time.

For me, Willow killed the line. I was so absolutely disgusted with that figure that I literally lost most of my interest in the line. If they had followed it up with something special... say Giles or Cordy, maybe it would have saved it for me. I loved the Buffy line, I really did, but when Willow arrived and I opened that box... ugh. I honestly still can't believe Sideshow had the audacity to release the figure in that condition while still having the prototype pictures up on the site. I lost much faith in Sideshow beginning there, to be followed by Wai-Lin and Prophecy Girl Buffy. There were definite quality control issues around that period of time, and I was appalled that Sideshow never addressed it.

So, if these three figures had been released 2 years ago, I would have ordered them quicker than you can say uh... something you can say really fast. However, lack of quality, followed up by a string of figures I didn't feel strongly about at all destroyed my interest. Even Xander did nothing for me.

Anyway, that's just my story. Maybe other people feel the same way, maybe they don't. All I know is that 2 years ago, Sideshow would have had three guaranteed sales from me... now I didn't even click on the announcements.

007 said:

For me, Willow killed the line. I was so absolutely disgusted with that figure that I literally lost most of my interest in the line. If they had followed it up with something special... say Giles or Cordy, maybe it would have saved it for me. I loved the Buffy line, I really did, but when Willow arrived and I opened that box... ugh. I honestly still can't believe Sideshow had the audacity to release the figure in that condition while still having the prototype pictures up on the site. I lost much faith in Sideshow beginning there, to be followed by Wai-Lin and Prophecy Girl Buffy. There were definite quality control issues around that period of time, and I was appalled that Sideshow never addressed it.

So, if these three figures had been released 2 years ago, I would have ordered them quicker than you can say uh... something you can say really fast. However, lack of quality, followed up by a string of figures I didn't feel strongly about at all destroyed my interest. Even Xander did nothing for me.

Anyway, that's just my story. Maybe other people feel the same way, maybe they don't. All I know is that 2 years ago, Sideshow would have had three guaranteed sales from me... now I didn't even click on the announcements.

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Well, I can kind of understand where you are coming from. I also was totally disgusted with how Willow turned out and was also very upset and annoyed that the proto picture remained on their site for a long, long time. They did eventually remove it but their catalogue still has the proto picture in it. I also even called them up to inquire about another shipment and in that conversation mentioned how disappointed I was in Willow and how it looked nothing like the prototype and was then told by the Customer Service Rep that it was the same exact figure and looked exactly like the prototype which led to an argument that it certainly was not the same exact figure shown in the prototype.

I was so annoyed by that whole phone call that I almost did cancel all my orders and was going to stop collecting this line. But, I realized that one bad experience with a Customer Service rep and one bad figure (well, Faith was too but I knew when I purchased that one what I was getting) didn't take away from the joy I've experienced with all my other very well done figures and great experiences I've had with customer service.

But, I totally agree that the Willow fiasco severly hurt this line and Sideshow, by not addressing it and admitting that they messed this figure up, turned away a lot of collectors. People now had doubts about whether or not what they purchased will be what they are getting. Sideshow should have possibly offered to make another Willow that really represented the adorable Allyson Hannigan or they should have recalled her and fixed the sculpt which obviously looked like a manufacturing error.

And the proof that a new and better looking Willow would have been a hit is shown with the 6" figures. There have been so many Willows made for that size that it is obvious that she is a hot seller and a very popular figure. We got the one disaster and it seems that Sideshow has blamed it on the character and not the bad sculpt and hasn't given us a new one.

Edited to add that I do think Sideshow has made a big effort to now show us what the finished product will look like before shipping them out and I've been very pleased with every figure since the Willow fiasco.