I still remember the craze that surrounded the Furbie, the Beanie Baby, and the Teletubby doll. Marketing overlords have a terrifying sorcery in their employ that allows them to turn ordinary humans into ravening beasts, lustful for scraps of molded plastic and stitched cloth full of wool. Skylanders, it seems, is the latest diminutive idol to weave its stick voodoo.
A lovely man from Activision who probably shouldn't be seen talking to me sent along a helpful link to an eBay page recently, one full of Skylanders for sale at exorbitant prices. Despite having been launched only late last year, the series of figures is already full of rarities and special edition figures. It's highly manufactured hype, but it seems to be working.
The rare "purple metallic" Cynder toy seems to rake in sums in the area of $200. It was exclusive to the New York Toy Fair, although judging from the eBay list, everybody in America has one. One fellow in the UK flogged a collection of six gold and silver figures for $1,260.46. Meanwhile, another seller shifted five three-packs of metallic blue variants for $650 apiece, for a grand total of $3250!
What's weird about the Skylanders craze is that Christmas is long gone by now. These toy fads usually happen in the run up to the holidays, as parents desperately scrabble to buy their kids' respect with material goods. Apparently, Skylanders is evergreen, and it's making mad cheddar for enterprising collectors.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
Likes
PS2, iPod Touch, Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid, Dynasty Warriors 3
Meet the rest of the team
| BBcode help |
| [b]Bold text[/b] |
Bold text |
| [i]Italic text[/i] |
Italic text |
| [url]http://www.dtoid.com/[/url] |
http://www.dtoid.com |
| [url=http://www.dtoid.com/]Web link[/url] |
Web link |
|
| [img]http://www.example.com/robot.jpg[/img] |
 |
Post a comment! You can also post a photo below:
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
33 comments | showing # 1 to 33
|
Comment with Facebook
Click connect and comment instantly!
|
Comment with Dtoid
New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds
|
Comments policy
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!
Contest:
9:00 AM on 02.20.2012 | 
Stay greedy Activision.
Its bullshit, and Activision could stop all this if they'd fix their fucking distribution. You never see this type a wanda sykes shit with modern warfare.
the kick in the balls of it all is that activision knows this, and they arent doing anything about it. What a company to support!
The thing that amazes me is that *every single time* I pass an empty Skylanders display, there's a despondent child looking around for any scraps that might have been overlooked.
The problem here is that its kids that are getting fucked. Its a Christmas toy craze that has lasted past christmas. The main collector for this line are the same kids who love pokemon. Except they cant catch them all. And it add insult to injury, you can't unlock parts of levels without having specific elemental powers of the different characters. Limited edition figures i can understand, even though they dont do anything in the game differently, but these ass munching dicks are scalping ALL OF THEM. Even the shelf warmers.
Beanies were collected by adults because of the manufactured rarity.
The worst part of this... more so than the scalpers who are cashing in on the craze, is that physical stores have done this as well. Toys R Us have raised the prices on these figures (right around christmas) from the standard msrp ($7.99 and $19.99) to ($9.99 and $24.99). It's getting to the point were they sell out online just as fast as they disappear off the shelves in physical stores, but the problem... AGAIN, is that the ones who want to play the game, can't, because they cant find the figures, or they have to pay at least 2X the msrp online.
It never transpires. Trust me.
My family makes a living off of ebay, everyone in the retail market makes money like this, so I can officially tell every single one of you this fact: Toy scalpers have a very short attention span. Remember that "super rare" R-C figure from the Transformers Animated series a few months back? No?
That's because it was a Target exclusive figure that was going on ebay for three times retail value despite it not being limited edition at all, it was just scalpers getting in fast and capitalizing on the rarity of it being sold at one store.
No offense to Skylanders, but the toys aren't important enough for toy resellers to care in four month's time. Unless Activision is stupid enough to play into their hands, that is. Every few months there is a new figure or set that catches interest.
Galactic Heroes WANTED to be that figure, and it failed horribly, there aren't any new TFs around that catch interest, so these guys are focusing on Skylanders.
Give them time, and don't buy from them.
Having said that, I don't know the first thing about Skylanders. That's why I'm the sort of parent that makes other kids glad they're not related to me... /out of touch
12 shells for a metallic purple.
This weekend I drove 30 miles to meet a college kid who wasn't a jerk to buy one from him, and son was ecstatic, because he finally got his favorite. Shouldn't be that hard.
Combining children's love of video games with their love of collecting physical toys? Genius money-making venture.