Do companies have a moral obligation to make fandom affordable?

[babyblob]

I doubt they are doing damage. I dont think the huge fan boy will stop reading comics, going to the movies, or collecting action figures because they cant afford a couple nights at a resort. They will not stop passing on that love to friends or their children. At least I wont stop. I couldnt come close to afford this. Rather then get bitter about it and blame the brand I love so much I will get over it watching my Star Wars DVDS, reading the comics I have, or playing The Force Unleased on my Xbox 360. No damage done.

For every one or two people that are going to boycott Disney because they cant afford this get away thee will be a thousand who just say "Man I would like to go this sucks." And get right on with their lives. And those that do Boycott Disney will forget their outrage when the New Season of Mado drops or the next Marvel movie comes out.

[seismic-2]

you can definitely say that they are doing damage to the Star Wars brand by trying to squeeze every last red cent out of it and in the process making it inaccessible and unappealing for future generations of fans.

On the contrary, the only way "to squeeze every last red cent" out of the franchise is to continue selling all the lower-priced merchandise to the mass market and to sell some ultra-high-priced merchandise to rich folks. Disney is not going to stop catering to people who are currently buying their less expensive offerings just because they are now also getting profits from the high-rollers. In fact, the profits they will make from that resort will likely always be small in comparison to the cash they rake in from the average Joe. No way are they ever going to turn their backs on that huge market.

[maczero]

If a hardcore fan can't afford a night at the resort, what difference should it make to him whether the people who can afford it and do go there are also hardcore fans or are just resort-fans with only a casual interest in Star Wars? Either way, they're not displacing the hardcore fans who can't afford to stay there.

Honestly, it's just speculation on my part but it could be a form of gatekeeping where they feel they're more entitled to be there because they've devoted a significant portion of their lives to Star Wars versus a casual fan with money. Again, I could be totally misreading the situation. It would help to get a better understanding of the anger to hear from someone who is seriously bothered by the price.

I'm seeing a similar scenario play out with Hasbro's Galactus action figure. Its price is $400. That's a good chunk of change for essentially a 32 inch chunk of plastic. That said, it seems the preorders for Galactus indicate that the figure is popular. On the flip side, I just listened to a youtube rant where a long time collector felt Hasbro is screwing over its loyal customers with high priced figures such as Galactus.

I guess I'd like to get a feel for what's the real problem. Is it corporate greed or fanboy/girl entitlement?

[MajorHoy]

Maybe Disney doesn't have an obligation, but you can definitely say that they are doing damage to the Star Wars brand by trying to squeeze every last red cent out of it and in the process making it inaccessible and unappealing for future generations of fans.

Actually, I think the damage may have started even before Disney bought out Star Wars by some poorly conceived attempts to grow beyond the original three movies.
Disney then cranked out even more stuff that may have stretched the Star Wars brand to a place far, far away.... where it may lost its way.

[babyblob]

Anyone who feels entitled to a luxury item has some issues. Be they a fanboy or the super rich.

This is not education, Healthcare, or medicine we are talking about. This is a couple nights at a luxury resort run by a massive corporation, at the world's most popular amusement park.

And to be honest most of the people I am hearing that are pissed are more pissed at the rich and entitled people who can afford it. I have not heard more then a handful of the so called fan boys pissed about it and none of my friends or their friends are pissed about it. Just people yelling that the rich and entitled have yet another thing they do not.

Now dont get me wrong. If I had the money I would go. But I cant so I will find other ways to entertain my self and let the people who can afford it have fun.

[PwrdOn]

Honestly, it's just speculation on my part but it could be a form of gatekeeping where they feel they're more entitled to be there because they've devoted a significant portion of their lives to Star Wars versus a casual fan with money. Again, I could be totally misreading the situation. It would help to get a better understanding of the anger to hear from someone who is seriously bothered by the price.

I'm seeing a similar scenario play out with Hasbro's Galactus action figure. Its price is $400. That's a good chunk of change for essentially a 32 inch chunk of plastic. That said, it seems the preorders for Galactus indicate that the figure is popular. On the flip side, I just listened to a youtube rant where a long time collector felt Hasbro is screwing over its loyal customers with high priced figures such as Galactus.

I guess I'd like to get a feel for what's the real problem. Is it corporate greed or fanboy/girl entitlement?

Well let's not get confused here - Star Wars was always a fairly crass commercial exercise to begin with and a major reason for its staying power has been just the sheer quantity of merchandise that has been pumped out for it over the years. And sure, maybe people who have devoted their entire lives to the brand might feel a degree of ownership over it, but ultimately being a fan of any franchise isn't something that you have to earn, and anybody who spends time trying to gatekeep who is or isn't a "real fan" really needs to find something better to do with their time.

That being said though, companies would be wise to cultivate this kind of brand loyalty by at least making a show of caring what the fans think and making them feel like they are part of the process and have just as much of a stake in as the creators. This might get tiresome, especially when dealing with some of the entitled fanboys these days, but ultimately it does help foster a more communal feeling among the fanbase and makes people all the more willing to remain invested for the long term. By contrast, treating the fans like suckers whose only functioned is to be bled completely dry will of course be great for short term profitability, but even the most devoted fanboys know when they are being squeezed, and it just isn't a very good feeling when something you have spent years of your life fixated on just keeps asking you to spend more and more money chasing that momentary nostalgic high.

And consumer goodwill is something that takes a long time to build up but can be lost practically overnight. Just think about what happened to Game of Thrones at the end of its disastrous final season. That show had been a real pop cultural touchstone and an absolute merchandising juggernaut, but after that finale, you could hardly find anyone who would even admit to ever liking the show at all, and it's almost like everyone just forgot that the show ever happened at all. Sure, you can still go rewatch the episodes and read the books and what not, but that shared fan experience was really what made GoT the phenomenon that it was in its heyday, and just knowing now that pretty much everyone has abandoned it, it just isn't the same and it's not possible to enjoy it the same way ever again. Now of course Star Wars has been around for much longer and can likely weather some fan discontent much better, it is by no means guaranteed to remain popular forever, and certainly has a bit of an uphill climb right now after the disappointment of the last two films in the main series.

[babyblob]

A lot of people thing the brand is dead or hurt because of a bad movie, or a decision by a company they di not agree with.

The last 3 movies were god awful. Yet that didnt stop people from buying millions of those little BB-88 Toys. It doesnt stop them from watching the shows on Disney Plus that are doing pretty well and it will not stop anyone from going to see a new movie when it is released. Solo and Rogue One did not do all that great but as I said it didnt hurt the Star Wars brand enough for people to stop watching the shows, or buying the toys. And it will survive a resort that caters to the élite.

Disney has been doing Star Wars stuff at their parks for a long time and not everyone has the money to go to those places. And it didnt hurt the brand one bit.

[Totoro Man]

Honestly, it's just speculation on my part but it could be a form of gatekeeping where they feel they're more entitled to be there because they've devoted a significant portion of their lives to Star Wars versus a casual fan with money. Again, I could be totally misreading the situation. It would help to get a better understanding of the anger to hear from someone who is seriously bothered by the price.

I'm seeing a similar scenario play out with Hasbro's Galactus action figure. Its price is $400. That's a good chunk of change for essentially a 32 inch chunk of plastic. That said, it seems the preorders for Galactus indicate that the figure is popular. On the flip side, I just listened to a youtube rant where a long time collector felt Hasbro is screwing over its loyal customers with high priced figures such as Galactus.

I guess I'd like to get a feel for what's the real problem. Is it corporate greed or fanboy/girl entitlement?

I dunno if this is -just- corporate greed at work. we're talking about a 32-inch tall figure with 70 points of articulation, a fair amount of detail, multiple colors, built in lights, etc. and the cost of materials goes up considerably as the figure becomes larger. it's not as simple as saying "if it's only four times bigger it should only cost four times as much."

a 17" Michegan Wheel Dynaquad bronze propeller is about $800, a 26" is about $2600, a 34" is about $4000. a 44" prop of the same design costs about $10,000. the bigger the figure becomes the more expensive it becomes to get the materials and pay for design and construction.

it's also the result of an entire team of people working on the artwork, practical design, manufacture of parts, and assembly. these people need to be paid a fair wage for the work that they're doing. just paying for the labor, materials, and artwork for something like this might cost a thousands just to make ONE of them.

take a look around, and you'll find that making a pretty bare-bones action figure can be expensive. herobuilders.com charge $375 for a single action figure based on your likeness, and $70 for the copy. and that's just using two photographs (front and profile) and generic bodies. they don't even TRY to get the level of detail and artistry that Hasbro puts into the Marvel Legends toys.

Galactus appeals to a very specific market. he just doesn't have the same sort of fanbase that Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc. have. so, it's naturally going to be more expensive to develop and produce. certainly they will mass produce this figure... but instead of 50,000 or 100,000 copies they'll probably top out at 20,000 or so. instead of being truly mass-produced for general consumption.

I dunno, maybe it's because I make artwork and music on the side... or that I've gotten hints of just how much hardwork gets put into making action figures... I don't think $400 is even that ridiculous of a price for what you're paying for. I would never buy it, but I don't think they're intentionally making it too expensive.

I'd never buy a Galactus figure... because I don't like the character that much. but, after looking over the figure and seeing how much work they've put into it, I think that the price of $400 is not terribly unreasonable. I've always been in favor of paying artists for their hours of dedication and hardwork. so, to my mind, this is like blowing $200 on good ballet or symphony tickets. I recognize that I'm paying a large team of people for making a piece of art. of course, the artists have probably already been paid and sent on their merry way... but they still have to at least make a profit after everything is said and done. a cheap 8-inch tall action figure might cost around $20-$30,000 to produce and manufacture... something like this probably costs even more.

as regards to the OP... eh, it looks like they're trying it out. if it does well they will probably make more of them AND make them cheaper. I like Star Wars, sure... but not so much that I'd blow thousands on a theme hotel. regular hotels are plenty expensive enough for me.

[PwrdOn]

Well the most egregious thing about Galactus is not so much the price but the fact that they are crowdfunding it, so that it won't even get made unless they can guarantee a healthy product. It is somewhat understandable that for really big items like Galactus or the Sail Barge that Hasbro would want some guaranteed sales so that they aren't shipping out a big expensive dud that takes up a ton of shelf space and just sits there, but for a multi-billion dollar corporation to use a financing model meant for independent creators just really rubs me the wrong way. And yeah I can understand that you want to reward artists for their hard work, but at the end of the day, while Galactus might be really big, it is still just a cheaply made plastic toy, and most of the profits it generates will go toward licensing fees and shareholders, not to the toy designers and definitely not to the poor saps working in the sweatshops who have to assemble them. If these things were being handcrafted by a single guy working in a quaint little workshop, then yeah the price might be justified, but a company like Hasbro has spent decades perfecting the art of churning out as many toys as possible as cheaply as possible, and they aren't going to do anything different for Galactus just because he happens to be really big. People love to bitch and moan about how expensive electronics are, but the engineering and design that goes into your phone is light years ahead of anything Hasbro has ever attempted, though I've never heard anyone argue that paying $1200 for an iPhone is justified because Apple's designers deserve to be rewarded for their hard work.

[babyblob]

A product is worth what people will pay for it. To you Galactus is just a cheap piece of over priced plastic. But to others it is something they find value in and it is worth it. It looks cool. its not worth it to me because I dont have the money. If I did then it would be worth it to me. You are made the money made from the toy will not go to the people in sweat shops who make it. How much of the Iphone money or Samsung profits go into to the hands of the people putting them together? Or the guys loading boxes into the trucks? It is the same with pretty much any product. How much of Disneys profits go to the worker manning the drink machine in Disney World?

If you are made at Hasbro for not giving profits to grunt workers then you have to be made at every company that makes a product including Iphones. Most of Apple's Iphones are made in Shenzen, China. You think those cats on the line are getting a cut of those massive profits?

The parts for the Ipoines and Ipads are put together in factories owned by 2 companies. The largest is Foxxcon with factories in Chine as well as Thailand, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Singapore, and the Philippines. Apple is damn sure not giving these workers even a fraction of what they make from a 1200 buck Iphone.

[Zauriel]

A mint-condition copy of Action Comics #1 costs over 1 million dollars. How many die-hard fanboys have 1 million dollars to buy and own a mint-condition copy of Action Comics #1?

Probably a 60-year old multi-millionaire who loved reading Superman comics as a child decades ago and would like to buy the Action Comics #1 again for nostalgia. Since there are a few original copies of the book, He would be happy to pay lots of cash for a near mint condition copy of Action Comics #1

[Totoro Man]

People love to bitch and moan about how expensive electronics are, but the engineering and design that goes into your phone is light years ahead of anything Hasbro has ever attempted, though I've never heard anyone argue that paying $1200 for an iPhone is justified because Apple's designers deserve to be rewarded for their hard work.

I generally respect your opinions. you typically have well thought reasons for what you write. but I think you're out of line when you make arguments in this way.

don't pretend as though I'm arguing for something that I am not. if you want to believe that I'm arguing in favor of iPhone prices, that's entirely on you. anybody who read my post can see that I didn't even mention them. this is also the very definition of a false equivalence.

now, if you harbor resentment for paying $1200 for an iPhone... well, I heartily endorse the use of flip-phones. cheaper, less vulnerable to data breaches and hacking, longer battery life, more robust. (for a guy who has never even come close to reaching the US median income level... even when I worked an average of 56 hours a week ... I find them very handy and affordable)

I don't even complain about spending $200 on ballet, opera, or symphony tickets. I can appreciate that there are hundreds of people involved in making these things happen. if I really want to see it, and can afford it, I'll go.

now, the Hasbro Galactus figure is (as you say) a "cheap" non-essential piece of artwork. people buy it for the enjoyment. is it a mass-produced and manufactured piece of art? sure.

the iPhone that you're describing is a mass-produced technological device with a very practical everyday purpose. people buy THAT for the utility. if it's TOO expensive then people won't buy it. that's a far bigger liability for a phone than it is for a figurine/action figure.

although I don't know for certain, the crowd-funding was very likely part of the sales pitch to even get the product made to begin with. it's not like there was a movie tie-in, or a big comic book push to help create a demand for it. the crowd-funding could be used as a means of creating pre-orders to meet a minimum production requirement for profitability. once they got enough to make a profit (or break even), then management could greenlight production. besides, it's not against the law for Hasbro to use this type of funding. by doing this they can diversify their product lines and offer things that would otherwise be financially unviable. it's also entirely possible that the development team suggested crowdfunding because this was not part of a regularly scheduled operation and didn't fall within an existing budget allocation. we don't know.

now, if you still don't like it... that's okay, too.

[Kirby101]

The $1200 iPhone is a luxury item. No one needs to pay that for a smart phone. I have never paid more than $300, and usually closer to $200.
I have had no problems making calls, texting, taking pictures and looking things up on my less expensive phones.

As to the lager question, companies have no obligation to make things that people with disposable income buy affordable. It's supply and demand.

Essential things are different, food, medicine, energy, housing, there is a moral obligation for affordability.

[PwrdOn]

I generally respect your opinions. you typically have well thought reasons for what you write. but I think you're out of line when you make arguments in this way.

don't pretend as though I'm arguing for something that I am not. if you want to believe that I'm arguing in favor of iPhone prices, that's entirely on you. anybody who read my post can see that I didn't even mention them. this is also the very definition of a false equivalence.

now, if you harbor resentment for paying $1200 for an iPhone... well, I heartily endorse the use of flip-phones. cheaper, less vulnerable to data breaches and hacking, longer battery life, more robust. (for a guy who has never even come close to reaching the US median income level... even when I worked an average of 56 hours a week ... I find them very handy and affordable)

I don't even complain about spending $200 on ballet, opera, or symphony tickets. I can appreciate that there are hundreds of people involved in making these things happen. if I really want to see it, and can afford it, I'll go.

now, the Hasbro Galactus figure is (as you say) a "cheap" non-essential piece of artwork. people buy it for the enjoyment. is it a mass-produced and manufactured piece of art? sure.

the iPhone that you're describing is a mass-produced technological device with a very practical everyday purpose. people buy THAT for the utility. if it's TOO expensive then people won't buy it. that's a far bigger liability for a phone than it is for a figurine/action figure.

although I don't know for certain, the crowd-funding was very likely part of the sales pitch to even get the product made to begin with. it's not like there was a movie tie-in, or a big comic book push to help create a demand for it. the crowd-funding could be used as a means of creating pre-orders to meet a minimum production requirement for profitability. once they got enough to make a profit (or break even), then management could greenlight production. besides, it's not against the law for Hasbro to use this type of funding. by doing this they can diversify their product lines and offer things that would otherwise be financially unviable. it's also entirely possible that the development team suggested crowdfunding because this was not part of a regularly scheduled operation and didn't fall within an existing budget allocation. we don't know.

now, if you still don't like it... that's okay, too.

I did not say that you were complaining about phone prices, I was just pointing out that as an item that many people generally consider to be overpriced, but if paying $400 for a big hunk of purple plastic, then how much would a marvel of modern engineering like an iPhone be worth? And yeah I suppose you could call this thing art in the sense that any toy is some type of a sculpture, but at the end of the day this is just a scaled up Marvel Legends figure and would look out of place on display if it had an inordinate amount of detail or articulation compared to the basic figures, which you can find at any Wal-Mart and are hardly masterworks of artistic brilliance.

As for the crowdfunding aspect, obviously there are reasons to do that beyond raw corporate greed, though none of them makes Hasbro look any better or less manipulative. For one, it helps build hype for the project and make the process of funding almost like a shared fan experience in its own right, and people who buy into it can get an additional sense of accomplishment that they somehow were partially responsible for it getting made. For another, this sort of funding model sort of preys on collectors' FOMO, as it makes it known to everyone that this is their one and only chance to buy this item, unless they want to be stuck paying an even more ridiculous price on the secondary market down the line, and this helps to rope in buyers that otherwise wouldn't consider something like this.

And look, I love collecting toys, and there's no doubt that making something limited release or exclusive just adds that extra sheen that makes it that much more special and desirable. But it's also true that for every item that becomes a holy grail worth several times MSRP down the line, there are mountains of plastic junk that you can hardly even give away. And while this was bad enough when toys were cheap and collecting them wasn't much of a financial burden, when companies start cranking up the price and offering these ridiculously over the top items, a lack of impulse control can really be a major hit on your wallet and even negatively impact your quality of life significantly, which if nothing else sours you on the idea of fandom and makes it seem more of a toxic and addicting influence than anything else.

Ultimately, what we consider to be "moral" are just whatever actions or behaviors make for a functioning and sustainable society, and what doesn't work ends up as a cautionary tale that we are taught to avoid. Now of course Disney and other big media companies aren't going to ruin our entire civilization by making random fan merch too expensive, but excessive greed for short term profits can often kill the golden goose in the long run. While it might seem like Star Wars and Marvel are these evergreen brands that can absorb any amount of bad PR and fan distaste and remain profitable forever, that's just being a prisoner of the moment, as it's not hard to think back to a time when Star Wars was just a single trilogy that came and went, and Marvel was just a publisher of cheesy comics that would never get made into any decent films.

[Starter Set]

Come on now, a moral obligation?

I sure as hell am no Disney enthusiast but even if the wanted to ask 1 million bucks for some item or one of a kind experience (oh yeah), well, it's their right to do so. They own the damn thing.

And it's your right as a customer to say, fck you, i ain't going to pay that much, lower your prices you ridiculously greedy mouse.