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Amiibo Thread 6 | We're up all night to get salty

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K

Kaibutsu

Member
wow, so that's a kick in the nuts. The credit card I used for my jigglypuff target.com order was stolen and I was issued a new one. I changed the default payment method on my account to the new card but noticed that it didn't change the card in the actual order. When I called Target I was told that there was no way to change the payment method on existing orders and my order would be canceled. wtf? is this online shopping from 1995?

edit: if anyone will have a jigglypuff to trade please let me know. right now it doesn't look like i'll have extras of anything other than squidgirl but maybe that will change :(
 
C

Curler

Unconfirmed Member
I'm going to mix up the topic a bit here for a bit of a discussion. Was going to make a thread of its own, but it would kinda get OT and I don't think it would be very popular a topic anyways :p

Anyhow, I'm honestly wondering why Amiibos are constantly compared to the Beanie Baby craze? I feel like like more people who say that really didn't know much about the "craze".

With Beanie Babies, I was deep into it a (young) collector that really liked the cute animals! Even bought the value guides for news and out of curiosity with how much my plush were worth. eBay was still in an infant stage of its life, but honestly, the prices of the rare retired beanies and special teddy bears, more reflected the values from the guides. Although, I'm sure the values were more based on just what they were selling at the time. It was never like how it was today with people sticking stuff online and expecting a quick and easy $1000 :/ The "craze" itself, I entered when it was just getting big and starting to climb in popularity. A whole batch of Beanies just retired (since it was TY's way of making flashy OOPs and help raise their popularity and values). The teddy bears too were always super popular. I really liked some, but honestly preferred the animals to it. The thing is, because people saw the bears as popular, they would be bought up as a FUTURE INVESTMENT. This is probably why so many are seen in consignment stores, since everyone just bought them and held tightly onto them, just expecting them to go up in value. Pretty much the opposite to Amiibos.

Retailers did their own way of stopping large buys of the bears, but honestly, I didn't know what a "scalper" even was at the time. If anything, "counterfeit" was the big name of the game, but most were super obvious. Anyhow, many retailers I went to would make you by 1-3 common, animal Beanies, before you could even purchase a bear or retired one. I wonder how that would work with Amiibos if it was originally implemented? Buy 2 commons or whatever before you can buy a Villager or Marth or whatever. I'm sure it would slow down the scalpers a bit! Beanies if anything, appealed to a variety of ages, and I knew a ton of older people that collected them too, moreso because they actually liked them. No nostalgia or fan favorites like with Amiibos, but it was fun getting your hands on a rare one! But really, what was this "craze" that people speak of? I mean, I've heard of the rare stories of crazy ladies climbing onto UPS trucks to open boxes for Beanies, but nothing about how people would buy up boxes and boxes just to resell. The demand was there and TY had a good way of doing it with retiring plush fairly often, creating a demand for others as time went on.

I never once saw hoards of resellers and people lined up for the new products. Nothing like that. I've seen videos on Youtube of women going crazy over Cabbage Patch dolls in the 80s' that is more similar to the Amiibo craze than Beanies ever were :p Beanies WERE definitely popular and something that people really tried to invest in (or you know, collectors like me that actually enjoyed them) but that's all they really were. eBay was most listings of the more vintage retired characters, rather than pages and pages of Princess Di bear (although she did get rare and shoot up in price at the time, but I got mine without too much effort).

I dunno, figured I'd post some thoughts while the topic is pretty quiet :p Maybe some can relate, or maybe some just see it the same way I do.
 
D

Diggeh

Unconfirmed Member
Thank you for starting a nice discussion, Curler.

Limited Nintendo products are always in high demand. The Smash line is producing official figures of obscure characters that have not or never will have figure representation again like Captain Falcon and the Fire Emblem cast. You have collectors going head-to-head against scalpers, and in the end the only winner is the person who happens to be up at 3 AM for the five seconds Wave 4 preorders are up for those characters.

The comparison to Beanie Baby collecting is in terms of it being a huge fad. Amiibo collecting is much, much worse than Beanie Baby collecting, especially due to each retailer having exclusives and online preorders being nearly impossible. Heck, Ness and Wave 4 crashed the ENTIRE GAMESTOP INFRASTRUCTURE.

I liked Beanie Babies but I was never aware of the insanity until I saw my Bubbles the Fish was $75 on eBay (early internet). I just got the ones I thought were cute and that was it. With amiibo, you have an entire internet wanting to complete a collection of 50+ Smash figures when most of them are insanely rare or never readily available. Sure, Sonic and Mega Man became common, but some poor kid will never get Pit or Little Mac.

I'm still pretty salty for never getting Trap the Mouse. Always wanted him.
 
SaviourMK2

SaviourMK2

Member
Curler said:
I'm going to mix up the topic a bit here for a bit of a discussion. Was going to make a thread of its own, but it would kinda get OT and I don't think it would be very popular a topic anyways :p

Anyhow, I'm honestly wondering why Amiibos are constantly compared to the Beanie Baby craze? I feel like like more people who say that really didn't know much about the "craze".

With Beanie Babies, I was deep into it a (young) collector that really liked the cute animals! Even bought the value guides for news and out of curiosity with how much my plush were worth. eBay was still in an infant stage of its life, but honestly, the prices of the rare retired beanies and special teddy bears, more reflected the values from the guides. Although, I'm sure the values were more based on just what they were selling at the time. It was never like how it was today with people sticking stuff online and expecting a quick and easy $1000 :/ The "craze" itself, I entered when it was just getting big and starting to climb in popularity. A whole batch of Beanies just retired (since it was TY's way of making flashy OOPs and help raise their popularity and values). The teddy bears too were always super popular. I really liked some, but honestly preferred the animals to it. The thing is, because people saw the bears as popular, they would be bought up as a FUTURE INVESTMENT. This is probably why so many are seen in consignment stores, since everyone just bought them and held tightly onto them, just expecting them to go up in value. Pretty much the opposite to Amiibos.

Retailers did their own way of stopping large buys of the bears, but honestly, I didn't know what a "scalper" even was at the time. If anything, "counterfeit" was the big name of the game, but most were super obvious. Anyhow, many retailers I went to would make you by 1-3 common, animal Beanies, before you could even purchase a bear or retired one. I wonder how that would work with Amiibos if it was originally implemented? Buy 2 commons or whatever before you can buy a Villager or Marth or whatever. I'm sure it would slow down the scalpers a bit! Beanies if anything, appealed to a variety of ages, and I knew a ton of older people that collected them too, moreso because they actually liked them. No nostalgia or fan favorites like with Amiibos, but it was fun getting your hands on a rare one! But really, what was this "craze" that people speak of? I mean, I've heard of the rare stories of crazy ladies climbing onto UPS trucks to open boxes for Beanies, but nothing about how people would buy up boxes and boxes just to resell. The demand was there and TY had a good way of doing it with retiring plush fairly often, creating a demand for others as time went on.

I never once saw hoards of resellers and people lined up for the new products. Nothing like that. I've seen videos on Youtube of women going crazy over Cabbage Patch dolls in the 80s' that is more similar to the Amiibo craze than Beanies ever were :p Beanies WERE definitely popular and something that people really tried to invest in (or you know, collectors like me that actually enjoyed them) but that's all they really were. eBay was most listings of the more vintage retired characters, rather than pages and pages of Princess Di bear (although she did get rare and shoot up in price at the time, but I got mine without too much effort).

I dunno, figured I'd post some thoughts while the topic is pretty quiet :p Maybe some can relate, or maybe some just see it the same way I do.
Click to expand...

The major difference between Ty and Nintendo? Nintendo is a multi-billion dollar industry with products that apply to all age and genders, with products that be constantly re-used, re-imagined, and interact with prior, current or future products. Amiibos are one such "fad", they may die in popularity but they're be around for a very long time.

Beanie Babie where a temporal fad, like Furbies or Tickle-Me-Elmo, once you realized they did nothing outside of just sitting there, the novelty wore off. The target, as sexist as it may sound, is generally girls, which is the demographic in terms of cute animal plushies (although the audience would be more toward elderly and children). An interest in the product is what caused the craze, people saw others get interested and made them curious and eventually made them want to also collect. However, like I said before, once people realized they where more of a waste of space and provided no real entertainment, it lost interest, and it became more and more impossible to sell. Princess, Erin, Peace... the star-spangled one... they where popular, and sold for hundreds of dollars. But now? You're lucky if anyone bids on your Princess.

EDIT:
10 years later, a hundred dollar item is being begged to be bought for $5.... Princess
10 years later, a game that sold for $30-40 is still being sold for $30-40.... Pokemon for GB

it's really down to, which one is more worth your time
 
C

Curler

Unconfirmed Member
Diggeh said:
Thank you for starting a nice discussion, Curler.

Limited Nintendo products are always in high demand. The Smash line is producing official figures of obscure characters that have not or never will have figure representation again like Captain Falcon and the Fire Emblem cast. You have collectors going head-to-head against scalpers, and in the end the only winner is the person who happens to be up at 3 AM for the five seconds Wave 4 preorders are up for those characters.

The comparison to Beanie Baby collecting is in terms of it being a huge fad. Amiibo collecting is much, much worse than Beanie Baby collecting, especially due to each retailer having exclusives and online preorders being nearly impossible. Heck, Ness and Wave 4 crashed the ENTIRE GAMESTOP INFRASTRUCTURE.

I liked Beanie Babies but I was never aware of the insanity until I saw my Bubbles the Fish was $75 on eBay (early internet). I just got the ones I thought were cute and that was it. With amiibo, you have an entire internet wanting to complete a collection of 50+ Smash figures when most of them are insanely rare or never readily available. Sure, Sonic and Mega Man became common, but some poor kid will never get Pit or Little Mac.

I'm still pretty salty for never getting Trap the Mouse. Always wanted him.
Click to expand...

Definitely much worse! As I said, I didn't have too much of a problem in getting some rare ones, especially with connections. They did have their exclusives like the global bears were you had to VISIT THE COUNTRY to get them, but nowadays stuff like that would be easy-sauce. Another super exclusive line they did was make a bear for each of the 4 Seasons hotels. It makes sense now, since I recently learned that Ty Warner OWNS the chain (convenient!)

Even rare Beanies weren't too bad to obtain. I came across this flower/balloon/party shop once and it was FILLED with rare ones, old ones, you name it! I would just go and stare :p Prices weren't over inflated either, just around their value at the time. I mean, could you imagine going into a specialty store and actually able to FIND such rare Amiibos as an opportunity to buy?

As for Amiibos being a fad, we shall see. Skylanders are plenty more comparable, but even then are fairly different in terms of popularity and use. Their fad is pretty much gone, as evident by stores being well over-stocked of their figures, with Amiibo sections shrinking, but demand keeps growing. I don't see it slowing down any time soon, since the constant demand has yet to even be met.
 
K

kirby_fox

Banned
I think the comparison is because a lot of us are likely old enough to remember the Beanie Baby craze, but not really anything before it in a similar manner. This isn't Tickle-Me-Elmo where it was sold out just at Xmas, this isn't the Wii where people could fairly easily stake out where to get one and find one if they really wanted one.

I see it as a very modern day Beanie Babies scenario. You have people who are trying to sell defective amiibo, claiming they're super rare when they usually are missing a piece- and people actively spending $1000+ on these. And the question is: what's the real worth of that double arm cannon Samus? If you bought it for $500, is it going to retain value and increase in 5 years? And if not, why are you spending THAT MUCH money on a toy figure? There's gotta be people buying up these defectives in hopes of a return investment.

As for resellers/scalpers- compare ebay to what it was then. Now you have resellers whose entire income is from buying and selling things on ebay. Some don't even own the product, they just use Amazon and you buy it and pay them a charge for putting in an Amazon order. Any hot item that comes around and pays huge is going to be desired, and I think Beanie Babies back then would've exploded to the nth degree had it been anything like the market today. All those rares? You wouldn't find a single one in store, you'd have better luck finding a Ness in NA.
 
C

Curler

Unconfirmed Member
kirby_fox said:
I see it as a very modern day Beanie Babies scenario. You have people who are trying to sell defective amiibo, claiming they're super rare when they usually are missing a piece- and people actively spending $1000+ on these. And the question is: what's the real worth of that double arm cannon Samus? If you bought it for $500, is it going to retain value and increase in 5 years? And if not, why are you spending THAT MUCH money on a toy figure? There's gotta be people buying up these defectives in hopes of a return investment.
Click to expand...

Beanie Babies actually had a few famous missprints but those actually went onto more a mass production scale, and later corrected. I remember there was an iguana and chameleon that had their colours swapped for an entire run, later corrected. I actually got both sets since I liked both and thought it was neat :p In the case of Samus, it was just a printing error that... enhanced her almost, giving her more of a coolness factor. It was a unique error and stuff like that has some fans go crazy for them. I've never been one of hunting after error items, even if they are rare.
 
Joei

Joei

Member
I used to collect toys like Starting Lineups, Batman Animated, and Star Wars, among others, back in the mid to late-90s and early 2000s, and this Amiibo stuff reminds me a LOT of those times. From standing outside of stores hours before opening to watching people run to the section where the toys were stocked. It was crazy back then cause you never knew when stores were getting shipments of what you were looking for. You might know when Toy's R Us or Kay Bee or Kmart got their trucks in, but who knows if there was a box of Starting Lineups on it, or the new Star Wars wave, or a box of Hot Wheels, you just ran to the section for whatever you were looking for and hoped for the best. It was pretty awesome though when they had something stocked and you got the rare one. Obviously people weren't pre-ordering stuff online like now. Also, I didn't know of eBay back then, so to get the ones you wanted but couldn't get in the store you had to resort to Toy Shows and shops and even trading at times. There was/is a flea market around here that had other collectors, and I guess I might as well call them scalpers now, selling stuff. These were the same guys I was competing against as a teenager, lol.

I never sold anything back then (though I traded of course) and always tried to build my collection. What's funny is I recently sold a majority of the stuff I had on eBay and didn't get a ton money for a lot of it. It was fun going through everything and reminiscing about the good times my brother and I had getting these (he passed away about 2 years ago :/) I did keep my Batman Animated and Spiderman Animated figures (the first couple series' all in box, most mint) mainly cause I could never sell those, and as I just said, even if I did sell them I'm sure I won't get what I value them as. I wonder long-term if these are going to hold value, which I'm sure scalpers wonder as well, which is why I think you're seeing such a quick turn-around on these. Hell, in a few years, Pit might be "worth" 70 or 80 or whatever, but is there still going to be much of a market for it?
 
N

Neoxon

Junior Member
Byron Bluth said:
Best Buy Canada - Work-around Method to Pre-Order Wave 4 NOW

STEP 1
Go to the following link to list all amiibo on their site
http://www.bestbuy.ca/Search/Search...b9b4beca91fe414314b86bb581f8en20&query=Amiibo

STEP 2
Check off the "Compare" button on all 5 available (Robin, Lucina, Charizard, Pac Man and Wario).

STEP 3
Click the "Compare Selections" button that will bring you to a new page that lists each one you checked off but now has a "Add to Cart" button at the bottom of each column. Add all 5 to your cart.

STEP 4
Once in the cart just keep spamming the Checkout or Checkout with PayPal buttons. You will get errors but just keep spamming the buttons until it brings you to the order screen.

STEP 5
Enter all your details and submit. If it gives errors just keep going. Sometimes it will bring up the "Processing Order" screen and then the "Verified by Visa" screen if you use a Visa as well. You might submit and then go back to the order screen saying it needs an address again. Just keep trying! I went through that loop a dozen times before it worked.

STEP 6
You will receive an order confirmation email once it works and sit back and enjoy!

These orders may get cancelled so be aware

I checked out with PayPal as a Guest but many others used their accounts and a Credit Card so it doesn't seem to matter what you use. You just need to keep trying again and again! And again and again and again!
Click to expand...
Can you do this for the States?
 
P

prateeko

Member
SaviourMK2 said:
10 years later, a hundred dollar item is being begged to be bought for $5.... Princess
10 years later, a game that sold for $30-40 is still being sold for $30-40.... Pokemon for GB

it's really down to, which one is more worth your time
Click to expand...
If you look on ebay most Pokémon games are worth more now if they include boxes and manuals
 
D

Diggeh

Unconfirmed Member
ExVicis said:
Been a quiet day.
Click to expand...

EtCfxWZ.gif
 
P

pots and pans

Member
Curler said:
As for Amiibos being a fad, we shall see. Skylanders are plenty more comparable, but even then are fairly different in terms of popularity and use. Their fad is pretty much gone, as evident by stores being well over-stocked of their figures, with Amiibo sections shrinking, but demand keeps growing.
Click to expand...

See I think you're wrong on this point, and you're looking at it exactly how Nintendo wants people to see it.

Just because Skylanders are plentiful doesn't mean no one is buying them. In fact, the last sales numbers I remember seeing back around February had Activision putting worldwide LTD Skylanders sales at 240 million units. There have been four games in the series so far, so you're talking an average of 60 million figures sold per game. That's a ton. Like, more than a ton, that's insane.

I think Activision is just handling Skylanders the way Nintendo should be handling amiibo - making them readily available and selling as many as they can. I mean, the common amiibo are plentiful pretty much everywhere and never seem to move, but that doesn't mean the amiibo "fad" is over. It just means those particular characters have plenty of stock. It's the same with Skylanders, except instead of some of the characters being readily available pretty much all of them are.

I do think Skylanders sales will eventually drop off, and that's mostly going to be a result of series fatigue the same way Activision murdered Guitar Hero, but I still don't think we are there yet. Those things still sell WAY more than people think. I honestly thought the 240 million number had to be some sort of mistake.
 
B

brianmcdoogle

Member
Here's my second or third hand Beanie Baby story. People were so enthralled by them, and so specific (for those unaware of the difference between Beanie Babies, imagine those Tootsie Roll wrappers with the Indian shooting the star as being highly coveted) that people would drive across towns to local or national airports because those locations would have the latest and greatest ones.

Amiibos have nothing on the oddity that were Beanie Babies.
 
T

TheXfactor

Member
brianmcdoogle said:
Here's my second or third hand Beanie Baby story. People were so enthralled by them, and so specific (for those unaware of the difference between Beanie Babies, imagine those Tootsie Roll wrappers with the Indian shooting the star as being highly coveted) that people would drive across towns to local or national airports because those locations would have the latest and greatest ones.

Amiibos have nothing on the oddity that were Beanie Babies.
Click to expand...
o_O beanie baby craze was massive insanity
 
N

Neo Dark

Member
-Horizon- said:
Off topic but can anyone read what I wrote on my new avatar's chest? I'm doubting it but I'm curious lol



Heh
Click to expand...

Yup. I can read it. It wasn't easy. I had to zoom in which turned it into a blurry mess. Then using ultra top secret CSI "As Seen On TV!" technology (which you can buy for 3 easy payments of $99.99), I was able to pull the text from that blurry mess and enhance it as a new texture over the original. Here's my result.
3vagbo1y58azi116g.jpg
Click to expand...

And back on topic... why is Amazon so slow. Weren't they usually the faster ones to put up pre-orders for the past waves?
 
S

Shun

Member
H doesn't deserve a Kiyoshi avatar.

Apparently people are freaking about Target since the site is in maintenance right now.
 
Fox Mulder

Fox Mulder

Member
Neo Dark said:
Watch it turn out that they put up the preorders
for shoes
Click to expand...

not far off. Target's site had issues from people rushing to get some new exclusive designer clothes and other shit. There were massive crowds outside stores that ran in at opening and snatched everything off shelves. Make amiibos look small time really.
 
M

mariodad

Neo Member
Yea the target site was down and long lines because lilly Pulitzer. The wife wanted some so I went. The shelves were empty by 8:01. Crazy
 
H

-Horizon-

Member
Neo Dark said:
Yup. I can read it. It wasn't easy. I had to zoom in which turned it into a blurry mess. Then using ultra top secret CSI "As Seen On TV!" technology (which you can buy for 3 easy payments of $99.99), I was able to pull the text from that blurry mess and enhance it as a new texture over the original. Here's my result.


And back on topic... why is Amazon so slow. Weren't they usually the faster ones to put up pre-orders for the past waves?
Click to expand...

Neo pls
 
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