Here's the thing: this is an expensive specialized hobby. These aren't mass market toys. If $400 is to much, then fine don't buy it, but don't try to suddenly pretend that this hobby is affordable or budget minded.
I seriously doubt that Hot Toys is clearing huge margins on these figures. Maybe they are, but probably not.
First there are the licensing fees they are paying to Disney, which are probably in the millions.
Then they are paying their artists, who are doing amazing jobs and, given that this is a Hong Kong based company and not China, are probably being paid very well for their skills. (Which they should be.)
Then you have the production process. Figures like Iron Man are always going to be more expensive because there are fewer molds they can reuse from previous figures. Making those molds is probably the most expensive part of this whole process. The dies for the metal parts are going to be even more expensive.
And then there are the supply costs. The production of plastics are tied to the cost of petroleum, which can fluctuate quite a bit. If one supplier goes out of business they may have to go to another, which may raise prices. International tariffs and import taxes can dramatically raise production costs if any of their suppliers are outside of Hong Kong.
Now most mass market toys make this money back by selling very large quantities and spreading that cost out over hundreds of thousands (if not millions of a particular figure.)
A $20 action figure you buy at Target probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to prototype and produce, but if they are going to sell 2,000,000 of them, they can spread that cost out over that entire amount.
Hoy Toys have a production run of a few thousand. That means there are far less of them to spread that cost out over. Meaning that each figure has to reflect a higher percentage of that production cost.
It's fine to say that $400 is too much money for you to want to spend on an Iron Man figure, but let's be realistic about what these things are and why they cost what they do.
If no one buys this, then maybe Hot Toys reevaluates their current strategy and moves back away from Die Cast, or tries to cut back on accessories to compensate for rising costs.
