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Post by The-Rock on Apr 29, 2020 11:00:04 GMT -5
Great post. I was 12 when RA’s started hitting in early 2003 and didn’t mind them as a kid. But looking back I feel like RA’s were a step backwards when compared to R3 as R3 had the right idea of more “realistic” figures going forward. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the first year of RA’d but I’m guessing they were a hit with newer stars like Lesnar and Orton in early waves and more up to date attires. Just as an initial matter in 2003 Jakks released 7 series of RA's (RA 1-6, Best of RA - 42 figures), 4 adrenaline series (24 total figures but only 21 were RA...but only Big show and the Diva's weren't really RA's), 2 pay per-view series (in which 6 figures were RA), and 4 RA figures in the Raw X set. Excluding store exclusives (Bring the Noise, that website that had Goldberg and massless Kane) and boxed sets that add up to 73 figures. So just from the get go Jakks released ~25% less figures in the first year for RA's than for TTL's. I'll do a deep dive later. But it's far more favorable than R3's.
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TheXtremisT
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Post by TheXtremisT on Apr 29, 2020 17:50:44 GMT -5
Wow dude that is some extensive research. Great effort, appreciated.
Really does sum it up well. I agree with Cordless, looking back I think R3 could have flourished instead of RA if managed better.
Wondering what the price points were vs TTLs. I remember in the UK BCAs were around £4.99 each. And RAs I know for a fact were £5.99. But cannot remember how much TTLs or R3s were. Interested in knowing how or when the increase came about.
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Post by The-Rock on Apr 29, 2020 23:10:10 GMT -5
Wow dude that is some extensive research. Great effort, appreciated. Really does sum it up well. I agree with Cordless, looking back I think R3 could have flourished instead of RA if managed better. Wondering what the price points were vs TTLs. I remember in the UK BCAs were around £4.99 each. And RAs I know for a fact were £5.99. But cannot remember how much TTLs or R3s were. Interested in knowing how or when the increase came about. My pleasure, I really enjoy doing deep dive statistical analysis and breaking things down like that. I'm a lawyer with an engineering degree (which typing that on here seems so odd since I started coming here when I was in 6th grade). I knew R3's never really got off the ground, and I was selfishly happy about it...but until I did that analysis (and I lost the like 20 data point factoids I developed) I never realized how badly Jakks botched the execution. While all those facts are interesting, ultimately Jakks erred by continuing to consistently produce TTL's and release marquee wrestlers (RVD, Booker T, Flair, and Lesnar) in TTL form. TTL's were the ex-gf that Jakks kept talking to even though they had now started dating R3's. I also blame the Draft series because of the aforementioned inclusion of TTL's and the fact that it injected straight repaints to the tune of 20% of all R3's ever produced. Jakks should've limited it to a Raw series of 6 figures and SD! series of 6 figures each- all in non-repaint R3 form (IE actually release Lesnar)...do that and maybe R3's would've made it. One thing that my analysis didn't (and has no way of covering) was how much over supply there was in stores. You'd go to KB toys and they'd have case and cases and cases of everything. I didn't add up the numbers on the back of the card, but my guess is that the entire Draft series had about 400,000 figures produced. That is absolutely absurd. 400,000 repaints. I'd be surprised if your average mattel basic series has 25,000 figures total figures produced. Now onto pricing...In the USA, BCA's were $4.99, TTL's and R3's were $5.99, and RA's were initially $6.99...before jumping up to 7.99 and 8.99 (this is based on the TRU/Target standard...wal-mart was similar maybe a few cents less or more because they always had strange pricing conventions with $5.88 and such and KB was always more money with TTL's being $7.99 and RA's being $8.99-9.99 eventually). The only time I really had sticker shock on a retail figure was the Raw X figures that were $9.99 at TRU. For the RA's like HBK and Goldust it was palpable because they were really expensive on RSC, but for the TTL lawless it was a hard pill to swallow. the other day I looked at an inflation calculator for something unrelated but then decided to look at what the various price of a figure (at certain years) translated to in 2020 dollars...and was really surprised to see the dollar value of figures honestly has stayed about the same with prices increasing only because of inflation.
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TheXtremisT
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This is the way
Joined on: May 3, 2008 8:03:15 GMT -5
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Post by TheXtremisT on Apr 30, 2020 10:12:11 GMT -5
Love stats and research, fellow nerd here.
Surprised at the inflation being appropriate, I really thought it was such small increments every year.
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