Comments on: Blindsided: A ToyCyte Investigation – Part 1: Toy Companies

By: Tenacious Toys

Tenacious Toys — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:00:35 +0000

Jeremy- Most excellent article, I have read the first part and I am looking forward to the next 4 parts! Hope you don’t mind if I link to this article, it’s definitely an interesting read for everyone in our community.
-Benny

By: Dunny Club - Weblog [ Vinyl Figures / Urban Vinyl / Designer Toys ] » Blog Archive » Interessant - Blindsided: A ToyCyte Investigation

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:37:23 +0000

[...] Part 1: Toy Companies [...]

By: nyx

nyx — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 06:13:57 +0000

as one of jeremy’s closest pals, i must say that i wouldn’t jump out of an airplane with him to achieve a social thrill.

By: Steve Talkowski

Steve Talkowski — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:51:23 +0000

Excellent part 1 Jeremy! Looking forward to reading the rest.

By: Blindsided: A ToyCyte Investigation

Blindsided: A ToyCyte Investigation — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:09:55 +0000

[...] http://www.toycyte.com/blindsided-a-toycyte-investigation-part-2-toy-fans http://www.toycyte.com/blindsided-a-toycyte-investigation-part-1-toy-companies [...]

By: DoubleDee

DoubleDee — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:56:41 +0000

clever, contemporary, critical, complex: contains some serious thought and commentary. nice going!

By: JoeAlmighty

JoeAlmighty — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:09:15 +0000

Great job on the article, Jeremy. Can’t wait to read the rest.

By: Steve Brown

Steve Brown — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:58:18 +0000

Yes you are. Clearly, the world has gone mad.

By: Jeremy Brautman

Jeremy Brautman — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:52:24 +0000

“1. I will not buy a blind box unless every possible figure would make me happier than a beer.” (Ross)

“This is the single best toy-buying strategy I’ve ever heard. You win!” (Steve Brown)

That really IS a top notch toy-buying strategy! Am I also agreeing on something related to blind boxes with Steve Brown?

By: Spazda

Spazda — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:39:28 +0000

Very interesting article. I can’t wait to read the rest of the viewpoints on blind boxing.
As a fairly new collector blind boxing has been an interesting thing for me.
On one hand I love the idea on not knowing what I’m going to get and the suprise that awaits me when I open up my figures.
On the other hand I get the reality of a lot of the toy sets I’ve been trying to collect which is I buy 5 toys and I get 3 of the same figure and 2 that are different. Most of the time I just end up giving the duplicates away to friends who don’t normally collect art toys but think my duplicates are kind of cool.
I don’t think it would be as bad if the ratios per box were a little more balanced in general.

By: Steve Brown

Steve Brown — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:32:30 +0000

“1. I will not buy a blind box unless every possible figure would make me happier than a beer.”

This is the single best toy-buying strategy I’ve ever heard. You win!

Free blind box of your choice from Shoparooni. Drop me a line at steve@shoparooni.com to claim.

By: Ross

Ross — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:25:27 +0000

I’m on a bit of a budget (or, rather, have decided that toys will not consume my budget), so I’m a big fan of blind boxes. Or, at least, of toys that at one time were in blind boxes. I love that they’re (mostly) inexpensive, as I can’t afford to drop $50+ every time I need a fix. I like series like Invisible Plan, Inventsville and Mechtorians (not blind, but small), where one artist gets to develop an idea in a bunch of different forms. I also love the Dunnies, since I think they provide a thrill similar to customs — only much, much cheaper. As you might have guessed, I’m not in the market for entire cases, nor am I interested in collecting complete sets of anything. I want the ones I like, and no others, thankyouverymuch.

Since blind boxes cost a bit more than a pint of beer, it’s pretty easy to determine whether a purchase makes sense. My wife (an economist) and I have even developed a strategy for avoiding disappointment with blind boxes. It is as follows:

1. I will not buy a blind box unless every possible figure would make me happier than a beer.

2. I will not buy more than one blind box from a given series unless I know that there are no duplicates in any given case, and I buy them from the same case.

These are tough rules, but they’ve kept me happy. And if I want a figure that I can’t get by these rules (any dunny, say), I buy it off of ebay. I’d rather pay an extra $5 for shipping than pay an extra $8 (or more) for figures that I don’t want, and that I’m to lazy to trade.

By: Freeny

Freeny — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:00:28 +0000

BTW, I bought 2 full boxes of the Uglydoll action figs. First time I have EVER done that….

By: Freeny

Freeny — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:58:35 +0000

Judging from this read, KR seems to have everyone’s attention, but all those people are coming across very disgruntled…

By: Freeny

Freeny — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:49:06 +0000

Kudos Jeremy. Nice read. Cant wait for the rest…

As for the subject, I like blind boxes, I like the chase. Especially when I have several favorites i am looking for.

When a set comes out I dont like except for maybe one, I hate blind boxes. I end up on Ebay paying double for the piece but most likely less seeing as I most likely would have had to buy 10…

Some people like repeating artists. KR does this a lot. Every series is new designs from the same lot as last time with a wild card thrown in…
Personally this method creates a stale design set. I havent seen a KR product I wanted to buy in over 2 years.
But to those who like to collect a set of a specific artist this is a good thing.

There is no perfect formula so its a good thing there are so many companies trying different things.

By: Steve Brown

Steve Brown — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:30:25 +0000

Huck:

Drop a mini-series with another company. I’m betting you’ll have KR’s full attention at that point. Ha!

By: Huck

Huck — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:24:57 +0000

Kylo76

Good point… or is it gambling/investing with a really high success ratio? Peeps assume my stuff will increase in value straight out the gate. But I have recently seen a couple of folks lose money on their attempts to flip my works on Ebay. Silly flippers.

And I wholeheartedly agree. I’ve been the voice yelling at KR to pay more attention to their messageboards for way too long.

By: Kylo76

Kylo76 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:11:57 +0000

Huck, I don’t think it’s gambling as much as straight up business or investing for some resellers, whom i loathe with all of my soul. Granted you could get stuck with something you don’t want but these people know what they’re doing when they buy your customs or bootlegs or some KAWS stuff. Trust me I’m at the point where I want that kind of stuff now in my life and can barely afford it at the initial price much less the aftermarket prices. So I usually get nothing out of it at and then see theses pieces on Ebay when they just sold and you know they don’t even physically have them yet. Art has been bought and sold for investment for hundreds of years before art toys even came about. I think gambling implies you will actually be losing something, which these resellers usually don’t, besides their honor.

And although no business should be governed by message boards, KR should also focus on their fans a bit more. Those kind of threads are representative of a larger voice in the collecting establishment and should be at least acknowledged.

By: Huck

Huck — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:01:17 +0000

And I forgot to mention… love the article!

By: Jeremy Brautman

Jeremy Brautman — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:59:10 +0000

Huck! Wait for tomorrow’s segment on fans, where you’ll hear different responses from a wide group of fans. It is lost on me though, your point on why Kidrobot would seem to ignore the feedback it gets directly from its fans on its own forum. Look at the join dates on that thread. Those aren’t KR’s “die hard” fans–they’re KR’s newest fans. But more on that tomorrow…and more from Huck on Thursday.