[Serious Lee]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kylactus

yeah the new BAFs look more like pack ins. look at the Apoc wave, his head/upper torso is more plastic than the x-23 it's packed with.

I wish I'd been collecting ML when the prices were ToyBiz, it was definitely a different time. What we have now as far as quality of sculpt IMO is better, not in every case of course because some TB figures stand the test of time, no doubt - especially BAF's!

We did get Terrax, Arnim Zola and the new Goblin, so if we're comparing size, we did get a few decent BAF's. I'm not sure we'll get a new Sentinel or Giant Man, but there are other large figure possibilities out there and I hope we'll see them (Hello Blastaar! Lol)

My pseudo rant here might be the actual retail cost of the figures today (no, this isn't a complaint about Puck or Hit Monkey), but any and all BAF's. I pay more than the average retail shopper at my LCS (whom I am 100% loyal before any retail shopping), however, if I was big store shopping here and paying $25 per figure after tax, at the very least possible barring a sale, I'd be concerned to know if that money being spent for each figure was 1% mark up or 71% mark up, from cost of production, not retail mark up. It wasn't the distant past that to buy a figure was less than half the current price.

I think it's obvious that ML, MI and MS are all popular lines, and the goal of a company like Hasbro or Diamond Select etc, is to extract the maximum amount from we the buyer, but where is the line? I look at Diamond Select and say to myself, ' $30 is an acceptable amount to pay for Abomination, Colossus, movie Wolverine and the new Venom figure, after tax of course, but is $25 for an ML figure (again, after tax), an acceptable amount for what we're getting? Hasbro recently bumped the price of a figure at retail by $5 per, many of us scoffed, but the line is probably more popular than it has been in years.

Even with the current popularity of said lines, and no toy company owes its supporters anything at all, but are we being gouged by toy companies? I've read comments here and there about what it really costs to make a mould, produce volume, package and ship, but I have no solid answer with conclusive proof. If there are some Arker's in the know, please share your experience and knowledge with the rest of us. Having an independent store owner speak up was very enlightening, in regards to how an LCS operates and needs to have a wide range of selection to make it all work out, I'm grateful to know these things, and it gives me more appreciation for my local store.

I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I'm curious about all the in's and out's of this business and it's culture. Really, I'm just a 41 year old rookie trying to see the whole picture. There won't be an answer the makes me stop collecting, because I absolutely love this stuff!