It’s 2:30 in the morning and I know I have to be up early. I just can’t give up now. I mean I stood in line for 8 hours to play the new “Wolfenstein”, this, this is nothing. Twitter was full of quitters venting at the enemy. I’m not quitter, these people are going to take my hard earned money whether they like it or not.
“Why do I do this? Why am I bothering?”
At about 3:00am I gave up. I couldn’t do it anymore. I had been up 20 hours and I just gave up. Barnes and Nobles won, they defeated me and many many others. I closed my laptop and sulked to bed. Four hours later I was up again, and Barnes and Nobles STILL hadn’t figured it out. Website STILL crashing, tons of exclusives just sitting in their warehouse.
“As a collector you get used to disappointment”
This is a familiar story to any collector. Funko was doing shared exclusives this year and a gang of websites put theirs up around 3 am EST. Hot Topic, Walmart, Target, Box Lunch and Gamestop all basically went off without a hitch. There was some minor website hiccups but nothing like Barnes and Nobles. They finally got sorted out around 10am PST and everything was sold out. That’s right, the multiple hours of refreshing, pounding my credit card info into the appropriate boxes I was left with nothing. Again I wasn’t alone and to be honest it was a familiar feeling.
As a collector you almost get used to disappointment. Walking into a Walgreens that is supposed to have an exclusive Punisher Marvel Legends figure, or a Toys R Us that is supposed to have an exclusive Funko Pop, and finding nothing. Again. You start to ask yourself “Why? Why do I do this? Why am I bothering?” I don’t have a great answer. It’s hard to explain, but completing a collection or having a super rare piece gives you this jolt. It’s when you don’t have control over something, like Barnes and Nobles shitty servers, that you want to blow your brains out.
It isn’t my fault either. As the years have gone on companies have wanted to cash in, and people have made a killing flipping these pieces for profit. Just look on eBay right now, Scare Glow, the chief piece I wanted this weekend, is already being sold for almost 4 times its original cost. SDCC in 2008 was so vastly different than it is now. I remember WALKING into the Funko booth, grabbing a Yeti bobble head, and walking out. Painless and fun. Walking to the register at NECA and buying a Mouser set, or getting into a Ballroom without waiting in line, and getting free DVDs (Thank you Always Sunny). It’s felt like SDCC has become more business than pleasure for more and more people and there is no sign of change.
What’s the answer? I’m not sure, obviously we won’t stop reporting on exclusives or awesome collectibles but where does it end? I could be sad because I’M not at SDCC or it could just be collector fatigue.
What do you guys think? Has SDCC and the exclusives involved with it gone too far? Is it not for the fans anymore?
FrankenCulture 