"Funko just admitted it might not survive another year."
(media.scored.co)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (71)
sorted by:
The cost of these things is outrageous. It's a pointless novelty plastic crap from Asia. I don't get it.
Young people spend their money on these things rather than investing in building themselves up.
Young people don't buy them. It was mostly younger Gen X and older millennials that bought them. Might be why they are going out of business now. Not future.
I guess I thought they were a late millenial and Gen Z thing. I knew a whole bunch of Gen Z people once upon a time who bought these things. I grew up with them. I bought tools and text books, they bought funko pops and cosplay gear. I am not joking when I say they spent thousands a year on this stuff
I think it started with late Gen X and went big with late millennials.
I have a funko chewbacca bobblehead doll on my desk I got for free from some work event as a "prize".
Pop culture crowd tends to be a bit older, although I am sure there are Gen Z... Uh, hipsters who buy this crap. But most "western pop culture" is gobbled up increasingly by an ever graying crowd.
What's ironic is that their low price was what got them their initial foot into the market. 10-20$ for a little figure of your favorite character back in the day was a steal compared to the 50$ for a "bargain" one or the 100$+ for a proper.
Like most markets, once people get involved to "invest" and treat it as a collectors thing they intend to flip the price just jumps into the point where it becomes meaningless to anyone else. Its what Pokemon cards or retro games are suffering from right now.
There is a finite amount of retro games. While fuckery has happened to boost the market, at the end of the day they ain't making anymore, so the price is only going to continue to go up. Not saying this is a sound investment, what I am saying is that if you collect, buying now is cheaper than buying later.
While true, there also is the fact that they are outdated, often damaged, and generally not worth much in reality. NBA 2k9 should never be sold for more than a few dollars, for example. Sure something mega rare like Steel Battalion has earned its high price, but a random Pokemon game had tens of millions of copies made which is completely antithetical to the idea that its "limited quantity" is what makes it worth 250$ with no box or manual. Especially with most of them needing new batteries to even function.
They aren't really making retro consoles anymore, but I can still find the majority of mainstream ones in the same Used Games store for 150$ or less, which is below most of their original asking prices too.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but the market has been deliberately poisoned to a point where its completely unfeasible for the average person to even spend. When every single item is now graded and bought with its resale value in mind (and priced accordingly in turn), then it just becomes a game of circle jerking yourself up. And so now every store you go to that deals in Retro Games has shelves lined with games no one will ever buy because any rando who walks in will balk at the price even if they want it, and any collector will look at it and say its too damaged/dirty to justify said price.
You just took the long way round to described why there are limited quantities, though. Corps bought up mass amounts for "grading" so that those entities can boost the price, and many left in the open world are too damaged to be worth much for anyone to collect. This in turn leaves very few for everyone to fight over, thus the prices will continue to go up until all that's left in the used market are the damaged and graded copies.
Because they also believe that it's an investment.
I think the popularization of making Amurguri lines up pretty well with how stupidly priced things like this are.