Star Wars subscription service?

This came up on rebelscum, but I believe we'd discussed it before. Would you joing a club ala Columbia House that would commit you to ordering every Star Wars 12" that they produced, sight unseen?

So no matter the price ($50-$100) you'd commit to buy each exclusive figure they did. In exchange for this commitment you'd be exempt from the pre-order frenzy.

I could see this effecting the number of exclusives made, they'd make as many exclusives as club members and perhaps no more than that.

Now I don't know what kind of software this would require and don't know if it's even something they'd consider. But I'm curious how many would participate.

As great as that sounds I'd have to opt out. Its not that I don't think Sideshow would do an awesome job on any figure, its just that I can't afford nor have the room to get every single one, much as I would LOVE to. But, if sideshow wanted to implement it and my fellow freaks liked it, I wouldn't object, even if it meant missing out on the exclusives. I'd just have to hope the exclusive wasn't something that I would be really really unable to live without!

Well I suppose alot of people would want to know how many "all of them" means. Poeple might be willing to commit if they knew if it was 20 or more like 50, cause that is an expensive difference.




Jesse

I would seriously consider if it absolutely guaranteed every 12 inch to be made - including any and all convention exclusives.

I would. But how would the exclusives be handled? If 2000 are on this special order list, only 1700 exclusives, who determines who gets the exclusive?

I'd think they'd have to produce enough exclusives for all the club members. It's not a perfect system, because it does make it easier for scalpers as well as honest collectors, but it beats the frenzy of trying to get an order in.

I like the way it is now. But moving it to the weekend or Friday evening would be perfect.

Moving it to a weekend or a Friday would be nice but imagine how hard the servers would get battered then. A 2 hour window with everyone in the Star Wars fanbase that collects these pieces would cause a meltdown of epic proportions. It would be spoken of as legend. Exclusive-lore if you will. You want to read about bad go over to rebel scum and read the tales of trying to pre-order GG exclusives. I think when Han went up, it had to go up twice. The first try caused a major meltdown. We got a notice later that they were going to try it again, but on a different day! Talk about steamed people! They had a chance to really fry on that one for like a week. All exclusives are going to be a nightmare and I have yet to see a good way to handle them. Produce too many, say, for all the subscribers, and is it really an exclusive any more? Sure, then you can throw the rest to the masses, but are the people that don't get one of those going to be any happier? You can go on and on with scenarios. There are just way too many factors involved to make everyone happy. I say stay with what you have and improve on what you can. Just my $.02 please don't flame, kill, or set my house on fire.

JustinLuck said:

I like the way it is now. But moving it to the weekend or Friday evening would be perfect.

Click to expand...

No, that'd be awful for me.

I don't believe I would have gotten Anakin yesterday if I'd been trying from my home's dial-up connection.

I like the idea, and I would join. Just work out the details and it can work. 1 or 2 year deals, seem ok. Include an extra figure for members only.

NO NO NO!

I HATE collector clubs! I shouldn't have to pay to join a club just for the right to give a company money to buy a product! The products will always sell, even without a club, so that is just an excuse to rake in more money! BAH! NO CLUBS!

I also would join if it included convention exclusives as those are the hardest for me to obtain. If I didn't like the figure, I could always sell it.

lcummins said:

I HATE collector clubs! I shouldn't have to pay to join a club just for the right to give a company money to buy a product! The products will always sell, even without a club, so that is just an excuse to rake in more money! BAH! NO CLUBS!

Click to expand...

I don't believe that Dave said it would cost anything. I certainly know that Columbia House doesn't charge anything but what you pay for the product. You just have to commit to buy them all to be ensured of getting them all.



Jesse

Jesseawilson said:

I don't believe that Dave said it would cost anything. I certainly know that Columbia House doesn't charge anything but what you pay for the product. You just have to commit to buy them all to be ensured of getting them all.

Jesse

Click to expand...

Well, if you didn't have to pay to join, it's not much different than the newsletter already, except for the commitment to buy and how will they enforce that? If you can't afford a figure at one point in the releases are you kicked out of "the club" and not allowed to get any of the other figures? Again, I will state, I HATE CLUBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have already commited my self to buying every figure. I've already done it/doing it with the X-Files. This club would be perfect to me (and would get rid of some stress). I wouldn't mind paying a few bucks, ($0-$20 Max) to be guranteed every exclusive figure. Sideshow should really consider this. Or perhaps members of this board should be granted a little more privilages (not that we haven't gotten some already).

We are their most loyal customers. Most of the Rebelscum guys are true Star Wars fans and honestly want the figures, but most of them are only buying the Star Wars lines, whereas most of us here buy many other lines. In Sideshow's eyes, we are the target market since we aren't limiting ourselves to one line. Sorry for the rant, but I just feel something needs to be done with the exclusive Star Wars figures. Why not make them TBD like they did with the Iron Man statue? Even for 24hrs would do, that way most everyone would be able to get one. The exclusives should be rewards, not punishments for not being by a computer all day to order them.

I voted yes. Though depending on how the rules came out I might change my mind. I know there would be some that would not be my cup of tea but I could help other members out that did want them. It would be nice to know when Vader, Maul, Fett, Clone Troopers, etc. come out I didn't have to make sure I was at the PC. Either way I'm all good.

There's just no way to make everybody happy. It all comes down to a question of rewarding your most loyal fanbase, which is what they are trying to do. But when you reward a few, inevitably the rest feel slighted.
I'd be more inclined to not have exclusives at all! I was a big fan before the exclsusive thing! They were putting out magnificent figures with perfect accessories.
Honestly, look at your collections. If you never knew about the exclusives, would you have missed them?
This is not to say I'm not grateful for the warm feeling of ordering and receiving something special. It's just not paramount to my enjoyment of the figure.

As a "collectibles" company I can see that they might be resistant to open editions, it does take away some of the collectibility.

And given their incredible flexibility on canceling orders I don't know how you enforce the subscription service, perhaps take a deposit that is applied to the cost of the figures, but is forfeit if you cancel one. Or if you cancel one your subscription ends and you have to re-join the preorder madness.

It's not my job to come up with the specifics, just to propose impossible solutions.

(Unless they want to hire me as a consultant....)

Sign me up!!!

This is a great idea.

I hate clubs. But, I have to admit, I hate the frenzy of ordering these figures even more, so I voted yes. The exclusive edition sizes will be much larger and the regular figures will probably languish.