[Alucard1138]

Quote:

Originally Posted by webz

Collectors are a small sliver of a toy company's bottom line. Their enthusiasm is useful for gauging a toy, but for the most part, they are a very vocal minority. My ex was in the toy sales industry, and through her I got to know a few vendor reps. To most of the major companies, adult collectors are a bonus. The only toy companies that REALLY focus on adult collectors are smaller companies that live or die because of adult collectibles (Neca, McFarlane, etc).

I know that kids still play with action figures. I've seen kids throwing tantrums at Target aisles because they see Toy X that they need. The reason you don't see kids playing with toys is because kids don't leave the house anymore to play outside. Kids aren't allowed by themselves in the park with a tote of action figures today, like I was in the early 80's. When they are at the store, the parents give them a cellphone to play on, instead of their toys, because they don't want their kids to leave a $25 toy in the cart. I'll agree that numbers have probably dropped since the 1980's, but they are still fairly strong.

SDCC isn't just a collectors fair, there are also a lot of families, and a LOT of press. It's a nerd's version of disneyland that comes once a year.
It's worth it for Company X to offer a collectible to drum up excitement for a future product. Whatever doesn't sell at the convention sells online at a discount or at Ross.

Also, $30 isn't really that pricey these days. A cheap transformer toy at Walmart is $16. Marvel and DC figures are $16 to $19. With the exclusivity factor on top, $30 a piece is what I'd expect at SDCC. The level of articulation on these, the Walmart release will probably be $16.
Simplified figures for younger fans will probably be released for $12.

Im sure there is truth to what you're saying. But kids don't/can't buy figures cuz they don't have money. So they can't make up much of the action figure market. And every brick and mortar store I go to they pretty much have full stock of all figures. The ones I look for that actually aren't in stock, some other older dude bought for himself not for a kid (or to flip online, to another adult). I don't think action figure collectors are a small slice of the action figure market anymore, I think collectors are keeping the action figure market alive, since we're the ones buying them with our own money. If you look at a big variety of action figures on the market currently, not many of them are geared towards kids. Amazon, BBTS, Entertainment Earth, etc primarily carry everything that gets released in the US and even a lot of stuff from foreign markets, mostly seems to be for adult collectors. Go to Amazon or Walmart and just search "action figure", well more than half of what you can buy is geared toward adults, not kids.