Boba Fett vs. IG-88 - Hasbro - Shadows of the Empire (1996)

When Collecting Becomes A Checkbox

Posted by Thomas on March 30, 2022 at 1:56 PM

After eons of waiting I received two long delayed figures today: Vice Admiral Rampart and Wrecker from The Bad Batch. I had pre-ordered both ages ago so I should be happy now to finally have them. Only I am not. I look at Rampart and see a cookie cutter Tarkin clone with a new head. The first thing I noticed was the very inaccurate rank insignia. Rampart is a vice admiral, not a Grand Moff. And when I look at Wrecker’s box I feel like an idiot for overpaying for a figure that comes with one backpack, one knife, one blaster and one helmet. The box is ca. 75% empty air. The mouse droid that comes with Rampart is nice to have, sure, but I really didn’t need a Rampart accessory for that. To be honest, I pre-ordered both figures “just because”. So I have a full Bad Batch team maybe. More like a checkbox. But is it fun? Does it excite me? No. And I wonder why. Well, I can tell you why and it’s something we have talked about before. It’s a perfect storm of increased prices and low effort. To the point of cynical laziness on Hasbro’s part. Click through for a discussion!

Is this what Patrick and his team are playing in their free time?

Before I proceed I want to be more precise, I will talk about The Black Series here, since this is what I mostly collect. Mileage for The Vintage Collection may vary. But I feel that TVC is also affected.

I see both Rampart and Wrecker as perfect examples of Hasbro’s current Star Wars action figure business model. Offer as little as possible at the highest price you can get away with. Yes, we all know Hasbro’s margins for Star Wars are pathetic, in part because of Disney’s insane licensing fees, the other factors are shipping and production costs, even raw materials are getting more expensive. None of these things can be influenced by Hasbro, so they have to try their best to navigate these stormy waters. A price hike, given the current situation, is inevitable.

But does that mean you should offer sub-standard products? Many collectors are ok with smart reuse of molds when the choice is “either get a screen inaccurate representation of a character” or “don’t get this character at all”. I feel this is a fake choice forced upon us by Hasbro and it’s nothing a collector line aimed at (mostly) adults should get away with. Yes, there is “smart reuse”. Asajj Ventress is probably one of the best examples. That figure reuses the arms and legs of Dark Side Rey. But it’s ok. You don’t see the legs anyway and the arms look good enough.

But then there are figures like Rampart who have the very wrong rank insignia, a figure like Boss which is 100% reuse of Hunter, only with fewer accessories (and higher price), and Hasbro could not even be bothered to tool a tiny plug to fill the hole in the gauntlet left behind by the missing sheath for the combat knife. And then there are all the fake deluxe figures that offer little – sometimes even nothing – extra. Wrecker is yet another example here. They gave him the least amount of accessories, none of which are “fun”, only the essentials. His helmet, weapons and backpack. But not, for example, his stuffed toy, which pretty much defines his (childlike) character.

So I look at these two figures I received today and it once again reaffirms a feeling I’ve had for quite some time now… I merely collect The Black Series “just because”. But for me it stopped being fun quite a while ago. Yes, there are still good figures, the basic releases can still be pretty excellent at times, but even here you can see the laziness more and more with reused parts and figures that were made because they require minimal new tooling. So we get a Mayfeld figure in his season 2 trooper disguise, instead of the more interesting season 1 look, because Hasbro happens to have the Han Solo Mimban trooper tooling.

It boils down to this: I am no longer excited. Why should I feel passionate about something that is treated with such laziness by Hasbro? And yes, as mentioned above, I understand that things are not exactly easy at the moment, but I ask again, does that mean so many figures need to be sub standard (screen inaccurate) cash grabs or repaints and photo real repacks?

So, over the course of the past two years or so, The Black Series has turned into a checkbox. Something I don’t really do for fun anymore, but because I still want this or that character, however few figures really excite me. Actually, the only figures that still excite me are from the various Japanese companies. They are much too expensive of course. But at least I feel I am not treated like a complete idiot when I buy them, since you (usually) still get a ton of useful and/or fun accessories and the whole presentation says “adult collector” and not “Happy Meal”.

Thus I enjoy having something like SHF Wonder Woman 1984 with her golden armor or even the latest SHF Mandalorian figure, pinhead or not, at least the sculpt is accurate and you get almost all accessories you could ask for, only the darksaber is missing. You can also tell SHF put a lot of effort into the figure, some may call it overengineering, but you can tell that they tried their best to give you everything you could ask for, even if that means handling tiny fiddly bits.

So why then do I feel The Black Series is no longer fun, even despite the occassional great basic release? Because I feel that Hasbro is treating customers like sheep, like sheep who buy anything, “just because”, just as I do. They don’t even try anymore, they do knock it out of the park every now and then, so it’s not that Hasbro is incapable of making excellent figures, no, their business model is by choice and certainly by necessity as well, I get it, but since I only buy around 20 Black Series figures a year I’d rather pay 50 instead of 35-40 euros in Germany for figures that deserve the “collectable” tag instead of buying glorified Happy Meal toys where you can literally tell they put no effort into it. Be it buying boxes of mostly empty air with one figure and three accessories maybe inside that Hasbro labels “deluxe” or figures with paint apps that are so deceptive, you can’t even see them, because there are no paint apps. Then there are all the screen inaccuracies and while other collectors may feel different about it screen accuracy is a major factor for me and things like Koska Reeve’s wrong shin armor or Rampart’s very wrong rank insignia bother me.

I will probably keep buying most of the basic releases, but even now I summarily ignore 75% of all Black Series releases. I feel there may come a time, maybe sooner than later, where I may ignore most of the basic releases as well, namely all the kitbashed cash grabs and fake deluxe releases. I feel nothing about figures like Ponda Baba, Dr Evazan or Mayfeld. I have them because they are checkboxes. Not because I feel they are fun. They could have been fun, if they had been executed better, with better accessories, better accuracy and if Hasbro gave me the feeling that they truly love the products they are releasing instead of being a means to an end: getting money from customers. All companies just want our money, and this is ok, but I don’t like it when companies are becoming very blatant about it and I feel Hasbro has crossed that line. So even though SHF or Mafex are a lot more expensive, too expensive, no 1/12 scale action figure is worth $70-$100 if you ask me, their releases are the only ones that can still excite me and which give me fun. Even a basic figure like Mafex’ Mera is more exciting to me than 95% of all Black Series releases these days.

And I wonder if it could be any different, with how things are now. Would it be better for the Hasbro figures to be even more expensive, when you actually get more in return? Or are repaints, repacks, inaccurate kitbashes and the occasional good figure good enough?

To me, the answer is more and more “no”.

Another major factor that bothers me is the almost complete lack of support for current Star Wars series. The Mandalorian is “ok”, the selection is not too bad, after three years, mind you, but even here you only get the obvious choices and quite a few very screen inaccurate Mandalorians, with how things will be, with maybe 4 Star Wars series per year and new movies, Hasbro will probably not support most of it. The Book of Boba Fett has two or three (!) figures. Which is just ridiculous. But this is what happens when you are in the business of selling action figures but can’t or won’t afford new tooling, so collectors get maybe 20 new-ish figures per year (many of which are still kitbashes), which is by far not enough to support eleven movies and six or more series, with more series added every year.

For Star Wars collecting to be fun again – for me, that is – Hasbro would need to give me the feeling that I am not just a sheep to them, I would need to feel that they actually put effort into the releases and that figures are not cynical cash grabs aimed at the fomo crowd or the poor people who feel they need to be completionists. I pity the completionists. And Hasbro would need to seriously increase their number of standard releases for current movies and series.

As things are now I would not be surprised when in a year from now I only buy a handful of Hasbro figures. The few I actually like and which are not just checkboxes.

But what about you? Do you still have fun collecting Star Wars action figures? The Black Series? TVC at least has a nice playset in the pipeline and the original 96 collectors can slowly fill all the gaps, but even here you more and more have to overpay for boxes of mostly empty air and “deluxe” figures that come with just standard accessories. So is it all still fun or is it becoming more of a checkbox lately for you?

When Collecting Becomes A Checkbox

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