Are they, tho?
I see a lot of their stuff with 100, 200 and 300 ES being still available one year or more after preorder, with the ES cut or statues with Regular/Exclusive runs being reduced to just the Exclusive run and such. It's never a good thing when a company has to cut the ES, it just means that sales were lower than expected.
As for the original characters - yes and no.
It gives them a lot of freedom and no license costs, that's true, but this also means they're doing stuff nobody gives a damn about. As characters, people buying them have no real tie to them, they're buying just for the aesthetics. Nostalgia, attachment and such are some of the driving factors in sales and the exact reason why companies still mostly do licensed stuff and not original/unlicensed stuff.
They're doing a dumbed down version of the Court of the Dead idea, pretty much, but Sideshow has the capital, means and talents to pull it off, and even they are not really sure if what they're doing will be worth it. What's the point with original characters if they only do Medusa 2948948394, Blonde Chick 487498, Other Blonde Chick 24824905, Undead Chick 239839 and so on.
Sales have been kinda slow. Secondary market is not there, people are not looking for those pieces the same way nobody is looking for any ARH piece (except the occasional guy looking for Medusa or Thor) and this is a problem, because if people realize that what they're buying will depreciate in value... they won't buy.
They had a MUCH better chance with their gods line and pissed it away, they could have done an actual line of characters, people like to commit to lines, it's what makes them repeat customers. They announced Poseidon and Hades years ago, then just let it die after doing Athena and Ares and their gold variants. By now they could have out a consistent line of 6-7 gods and they're fair share of repeat customers and niche spot in the market.
Oh, and they're doing half naked people all the time and yet they still can't paint skin tones for the life of them.
To sum things up, it seems to me that ARH is going backwards, as a company.
What they're doing now, considering the edition sizes and everything, looks more like they're just trying to survive.
Companies usually have their bunch of strong licenses that are the core of the sales, and then try to make unlicensed stuff as a side project, like Sideshow does, PCS has also been hinting that they wanted to to a fantasy creatures series (or dinosaurs).
You do not give up licenses to focus on original stuff, I agree with you that numbers of the Frazetta license probably weren't enough to justify a license renewal, but my point was... it's not the license in itself, it's the way it was handled.
Then again, I could be totally wrong. I mean, I'm pretty sure their statues are not selling big numbers and I'm 100% sure that secondary market for their stuff is just non existent. Maybe they're making a killing out of those action figures they do, no clue about those.
Sorry for the long ass post but I'm a huge Frazetta fan, huge Conan fan, in general huge fantasy fan, always been a huge classical-greek mythology fan (and egyptian too) since I was a kid, so I have no clue how ARH managed to push me away as a customer but I can tell with absolute certainty it's not about the licenses/themes, it's an issue of what they do and how they do it.
I see a lot of their stuff with 100, 200 and 300 ES being still available one year or more after preorder, with the ES cut or statues with Regular/Exclusive runs being reduced to just the Exclusive run and such. It's never a good thing when a company has to cut the ES, it just means that sales were lower than expected.
As for the original characters - yes and no.
It gives them a lot of freedom and no license costs, that's true, but this also means they're doing stuff nobody gives a damn about. As characters, people buying them have no real tie to them, they're buying just for the aesthetics. Nostalgia, attachment and such are some of the driving factors in sales and the exact reason why companies still mostly do licensed stuff and not original/unlicensed stuff.
They're doing a dumbed down version of the Court of the Dead idea, pretty much, but Sideshow has the capital, means and talents to pull it off, and even they are not really sure if what they're doing will be worth it. What's the point with original characters if they only do Medusa 2948948394, Blonde Chick 487498, Other Blonde Chick 24824905, Undead Chick 239839 and so on.
Sales have been kinda slow. Secondary market is not there, people are not looking for those pieces the same way nobody is looking for any ARH piece (except the occasional guy looking for Medusa or Thor) and this is a problem, because if people realize that what they're buying will depreciate in value... they won't buy.
They had a MUCH better chance with their gods line and pissed it away, they could have done an actual line of characters, people like to commit to lines, it's what makes them repeat customers. They announced Poseidon and Hades years ago, then just let it die after doing Athena and Ares and their gold variants. By now they could have out a consistent line of 6-7 gods and they're fair share of repeat customers and niche spot in the market.
Oh, and they're doing half naked people all the time and yet they still can't paint skin tones for the life of them.
To sum things up, it seems to me that ARH is going backwards, as a company.
What they're doing now, considering the edition sizes and everything, looks more like they're just trying to survive.
Companies usually have their bunch of strong licenses that are the core of the sales, and then try to make unlicensed stuff as a side project, like Sideshow does, PCS has also been hinting that they wanted to to a fantasy creatures series (or dinosaurs).
You do not give up licenses to focus on original stuff, I agree with you that numbers of the Frazetta license probably weren't enough to justify a license renewal, but my point was... it's not the license in itself, it's the way it was handled.
Then again, I could be totally wrong. I mean, I'm pretty sure their statues are not selling big numbers and I'm 100% sure that secondary market for their stuff is just non existent. Maybe they're making a killing out of those action figures they do, no clue about those.
Sorry for the long ass post but I'm a huge Frazetta fan, huge Conan fan, in general huge fantasy fan, always been a huge classical-greek mythology fan (and egyptian too) since I was a kid, so I have no clue how ARH managed to push me away as a customer but I can tell with absolute certainty it's not about the licenses/themes, it's an issue of what they do and how they do it.
