They could make alot of money by increasing print run sizes but they don't want to make the art worthless either by making too many prints. The low print runs basically just enforce the value and popularity. It is pretty sad when almost half the Hugo print run got tossed on ebay within the first day
I see your point, but that's kind of the problem. Certain people (including the buyers) have a NEED for these things to be considered valuable and collectible. Which in turn creates this repulsive ebay culture that simply has no business in any real market, never mind one involving the consumption of something as romantic as art.
Why should the art be "worth" $300? There is no plausible reason other than to drive ego's of artists, sellers, collectors and so on. It's not a painting that is impossible to recreate in large quantities. This market is created to serve that person who wants to own an expensive print or the artist who wants to see his/her prints exchange for obscene amounts. Not the person who wants a nice picture on their wall or the artist who wants to share their work with as many people as will fall in love with it.
For a product that is very cool, forward thinking, trendy and likeable, it lives in a market that I find disgusting.
It's like a musician who limits the release of his music to 500 or an author who limits a book print to 500. I mean can you imagine if Radiohead limited their next album to 5000 copies worldwide.
Clearly they can't print seemingly infinite numbers the way albums/books are released that end up in the bargain bin, but there's no reason they couldn't double edition sizes or do repeat editions or have some other model that actually benefits the consumer.
Sorry I studied business and this irritates me. But I won't clog up the thread with it anymore!
Really interested to find out what Olly Moss's pokemon edition sizes were, I liked his release model for that one.
