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Duration: 54:58

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Canceled, clearanced, cursed? In this episode, we're considering the mysterious failures and flops in action figure lines with a case study from my favorite subgenre - videogame figures. They seem to have so much going for them - enormously popular IPs, gorgeous designs, heavy reuse recolor potential, gizmos and gadgets galore, and for goodness sake 3D reference models straight from the source material! Yet even the mighty machines of Hasbro and Blizzard couldn't crack the formula on this Hasbro Overwatch Ultimates line, for which current prices tell you everything you need to know. Fortnite Victory Royale seems headed in a similar direction.

My suspicion is that action figures and videogames can overlap as sources of interactive and collectible entertainment and therefore act more like economic substitutes. Contrast that with passive movies and TV which are also not very collectible on their own, leaving space for figures to complement. Comic books are halfway between and on their way out of collectible in the era of digital.

Perhaps the sweetspot is an enormously popular videogame franchise that nobody is currently playing. Games that are evergreen and few+far between, or maybe one-hit wonders with a small and temporary development team. This is why I have more confidence in Jada Street Fighter 2 than say a hypothetical shiny new premium line of Street Fighter 6 figures from SH Figuarts. Consider lines with some staying power like Jakks Pacific Mario - evergreen franchise with game releases few and far between, and plenty of nostalgic content people are no longer collecting in games. Figma has the odd Nintendo or Sony title character, but why don't they go any deeper?