There is a phenomenon taking place in the action figure market right now. Hundreds of fan-favorite characters from film, television, animation, and video games are getting figures and toys in all shapes and sizes. It’s not just new franchises either, its established media that can be up to 40 years old, with companies cashing in on Gen-Xers looking to recapture the toys of their youth. As a buyer you have a myriad of choices in size and style of action figure, as well as pricing from $10 to $200 and everything in between. Quality varies greatly with price, but it allows the consumer numerous choices of action figure style. It’s truly a great time to be a toy collector…or is it?
I really haven’t bought action figures in big box brick-and-mortar stores since the Justice League Unlimited series was sold exclusively at Target, but I still browse the aisles. Ten years ago you could go to the mall and pop into Electronics Boutique, Kay Bee Toys, Babbage’s, Media Play, Suncoast, or Spencer’s Gifts and buy an action figure. Today the first 5 stores don’t exist anymore and Spencer’s stopped selling toys years ago. They kept the shower massagers though, so I guess it depends on your definition of “toy.”
We have Hastings Entertainment here in Texas and I feel like they’re a good metric of the market. Hastings stocks everything from $2 gag toys like fake poop to $250 1/6 scale figures and statues. When I shop there I get prematurely excited to see figures from films like Pulp Fiction and Big Trouble In Little China, but the collector in me feels like what is being offered is sub-par and as someone who’s a huge fan of those franchises, I feel kinda let down. I know the rights to those franchises aren’t cheap, so I feel like they’re being exploited for crappy bobbleheads and junky, wanna-be retro garbage.
Action figures, like any other pop culture collectible, go in and out of style with the general public. For a collector though, you’re always curious of what the next thing may be, so like me, you’re always going to browse the toy aisle. Currently the market is being dominated by figures with tooling and packaging made to look retro or vintage. The idea is that these retro-styled figures would be a crossover hit with regular consumers, causal fans, and collectors alike—all who are salary earning adult Gen-Xers or cash strapped Millennials looking for a fun toy fix. But are the collectors buying? Is anyone buying?
How about an example? You need a character that has a cult following amongst the general public and a fan base with collectors. How about a guy like Snake Plissken? He’s a household name with the higher level of cult film buffs and still cool enough to beg for a decent toy for both causal fans or collectors. He currently has three figures available for purchase right now: a ReAction (by Funko) 3 ¾-inch, a Mego-styled 8-inch, and a 1/6 scale figure. The ReAction line contains figures done in a basic 5-point articulated form with card art made to look early 80s in period, so the line is considered neo-vintage. And they’re doing EVERYONE in this style…but I’ll get back to them in a moment. NECA is behind the 8-inch clothed version of Snake, whose style in a tribute to old school Mego dolls—again neo-vintage in execution. The third Snake is from Sideshow Collectibles and is meant to be an up-to-date high quality collectible of our favorite hero.
So first off—will all the Escape from New York collectors stand up? Hello? I mean, I’m sure there are people that collect nothing but EFNY merch, but I’m not even sure if they abbreviate it “EFNY.” Do they have an EFNY-con? Maybe people collect John Carpenter stuff solely, but I’m thinking most people buying Snake Plissken toys are collectors of the above three figure styles. Sure, someone has an uncle with an eye patch who looks like Kurt Russell so you got him one for a gag, but that’s not going to be the $159.99 one from Sideshow. This leaves us with roughly 7 types of collectors to market Snake to currently. You have causal movie or sci-fi toy collectors, 3 ¾-inch, 8-inch, and 1/6 scale figure collectors and ReAction, NECA, and Sideshow collectors. Those groups are most apt to buy one of three Snake Plissken figures available. Outside of completists, some of those groups may be a tough sell on needing a Snake Plissken on their shelf. He’s not a Luke or an Indiana or Bruce (Willis, Lee, Campbell, Banner or Wayne). And have you seen the ReAction version? Woof! I know they’re supposed to have a cruddy basic 80’s look to them, but the nicest part of that figure is the card art. I personally don’t get the draw of these figures. It’s almost that they’re so bad that ReAction is daring consumers to buy them.
Now you’re in a bind—do you buy the ReAction version just to have a Snake toy or do you save your money? As a collector, you’d probably lean towards a better representation of Plissken. That is of course if you’re not a hardcore ReAction figure collector, which I’m not even sure exists. Then do you spend $30 or almost $200? That’s a pretty big jump for causal fans of a causally popular character of a causal franchise. If you’re an 8-inch or 1/6 collector, your choices are obvious, but Snake may still be a character that doesn’t resonate enough with any section of the market to warrant major sales, so why are there three different versions for sale right now? I really don’t think the demand is nearly as high as the supply. It’s hard to measure this accurately, but the Sideshow Exclusive Plissken is still available online and the last three Hasting stores I went to had plenty of ReAction figures for sale.
What does this mean? It means that in 5-10 years the stuff you see in the store will be at flea markets next to Spawn and Toy Biz X-Men figures and not worth anything, which may be why hardcore ReAction collectors don’t exist. Remember when Jakks Pacific had the license for the Rocky franchise? They exploited every potential opportunity to make characters from five different films. They exploited the franchise so much that it compelled them to make a side of beef toy. Yup. They thought people would shell out their hard earned money on the side of beef Rocky trained on as separate individual toy. The ReAction 3 ¾-inch figures give me that same feeling and that’s not good for the industry, dumping a bunch of sides of beef in the discount bins. And I don’t think you’ll be buying the Pulp Fiction Gimp figure for your other uncle anytime soon.
How and why did we get here? We’ll talk about that in the next article, but let’s just say capitalism and George Lucas has a little to do with it.
Nathan is a life-long toy collector with a serious Peter Pan complex and an addiction to plastic smells. If he could ride an adult-sized Big Wheel to work, he would.