Unfortunately that is still me. I prefer buying them at Deluxe prices and its clear based on companies like FMF and Boss Fight that good figures can be made in small batches cheaper than S7 is doing them... but they are the only company making figures in the "Classics" style I love and of properties I desperately want.
I imagine most of us bear some guilt for S7 getting away with the way they do things. I bought Rocker Leo and Punker Don at full price and praised the HELL out of the former, despite knowing already how much Super7 was overcharging.
I would love for the line to shift to a Deluxe+ model maybe at $40 or so that featured new sculpts and another accesory or two. The worst element of Ultimates for me is the silly extra heads I will never use and the plethora of accessories that end up in a bin.
I would argue they should continue making Ultimates as they are but charge Deluxe prices. That's kind of more in line with the cost-to-profit ratio other toy companies are using. Sort've.
And I will always argue that there IS value in all those extra parts because it costs VERY little (you'd be amazed) to include them, but they create appeal for customers that want different things. You may only pose a figure a certain way with certain accessories, but those other options may be the deciding factor for -other- people buying them.
But I still want them. And if I have to pay $65 each to get my Tiger Sharks... I'm going to do it.
Look, the reality is that if Super7 made a decent go at a King Lionheart right now at 65 USD - I would buy it. I would buy it fully understanding I'm being a hypocrite. That's how much I want that one figure. So I totally get it.
I find value in something like an action figure is pretty divorced from the cost it takes to make. It's a combination of how much do I want it and how willing am I to pay the price they're asking. Since I'm a middle-aged man in his second childhood, the first answer is "a lot", and because I'm doing pretty well financially, the second answer is usually "yes".
Totally valid. You don't -have- to care if Super7 is charging far more than they need to. You don't have to care about anything companies do behind the scenes. I'd argue, in fact, most people don't. That's why we still buy slave-chocolate and drink water stolen from indigenous peoples. That's why people buy 100,000 dollar cars that cost the exact same to manufacture as 50,000 dollar cars. If the item is meeting a certain need for you, then everything else can often become background noise.
It bothers me that Super7 insists on a ludicrous profit margin for their products for a lot of reasons that aren't worth getting into. But I think what actually bothers me more is Brian's public insistence that it MUST be this way. He implies that the profit margins aren't good, and every minor thing makes the prices go up because oh poor little Super7 couldn't POSSIBLY absorb this or that cost without going out of business. It's the blatant dishonesty that upsets me more than anything.
However, I'll offer you one reason to care that you can consider: If you like a thing, you probably want the thing to continue. When a company is greedy beyond measure and stupidly prices its own products where only a very select few can afford it, then that item either becomes an extreme luxury item or stops existing. In this case, I don't -think- cheaply-made action figures are ever going to become a status symbol for people with more money than sense. So that is out.
So what's probably actually going to happen is eventually these figures will be priced in a way that most folks can't afford them and Super7 just stops making them (while lamenting that there's nothing they could have done and it's really actually the fault of the customers for not just buying them no matter what). If Super7 prices themselves out of the market, then YOU don't get them anymore either. So it's worth, in my opinion, considering whether or not an item is actually worth what's being charged for it - not just whether or not you can personally afford it.
Or not. I can't make you care about stuff.
