When some people, especially men, approach the half -way for their life, they often go through a mid -life crisis. This deeply sitting existential fear tends to manifest itself as sudden and unexpected hobbies. Some guys buy a motorcycle, others really get kickboxing.
I am currently in my own Midlife crisis (at the age of 35, I am a pessimist), and the crushing reality in my own imminent departure has taken the form of a massive funko pop collection. Maybe it is not as cool or dangerous as basic jumping, but we all fill in our own way.
Like all hobbies, there is much to learn about funko pop collection when you first get started. It may look like it's just about buying lots of cheap plastic figures with big heads and self -sufficient eyes and that's it. But how you buy them is more complicated than you would think. Between store drops, exclusive conventions and even NFT redemption – which does not suck almost as much as they sound as they would – you have to have your head on a swivel to keep up with all roads to find new pops.
In an attempt to make Pops exclusive and exciting to collect again, Funko recently launched a new type of Pops with limited edition. These have their limited paragraph printed on the box, so that everyone can see how rare and valuable your figures are. If you are in some kind of collector's hobby, these types of boastful rights are worth a lot. Surprisingly, these Le Pops therefore cost a lot.
Le Pops releases through a few different roads, but most of them are sold directly via the Funko website. This is a new process for funk, and it has not gone very well. This Friday, the third time marked in a row, by not having anything wrong, failed to secure one of these pops with limited edition, and dang it is starting to get a little peeked.
Funko's website has been unreliable in terms of drops with limited edition
Funko releases a new Le Pop every Friday on a first, first-served basis, with a warning. For articles with a bill of 3,500 or less, customers can buy guaranteed early purchasing access with fan reward points, which are collected by making purchases on the site. The rare pop, the more fan rewards it costs to participate in early access, but if you submit your points you are guaranteed the opportunity to buy that pop during the early access period … or at least that is how it should work.
I have missed a drop with limited edition three weeks in a row and I am getting tired of the whole system. The Dropp on September 5 was the adorable spider cat from all over Spider verse. As a 5,000 bill, no early access period was offered, it was purely first served.
Spider-Cat would certainly be a popular pop, but at 5,000 it is not very rare. By comparison, the highly sought-after funko Funday Pops are all 100- or 250 bills. Not all 5,000 were available at launch, as some were saved for the physical funko stores, and some are likely to be made available to the UK in the future, but still, there are many pops. I still expected Spider-Cat to sell out quickly, but I didn't expect it to sell out immediately.
I logged in to the site early, made sure my payment was set up, added it in my trolley exactly at 9 o'clock, hit the checkout and … sold out. I looked out as fast as humanly possible and it was still not fast enough, which makes me wonder: did I drop out to other customers or to bots?
I know it is tempting to cry bots when you miss an online sale – Skewer is after all a simple goal – but without the fan's reward points act as a barrier, it feels like bots are the only explanation, especially when you see how many of them immediately appeared on eBay. I was not too pressured about it, and I even stopped a spider cat from a dealer at a half-way decent price, but my problems with the funk shop have only worsened.
Three strikes, and I'm out
Two weeks ago, the drop was a 1,200-part big boy, the hamburger mask that is mostly known for its many collectable figurative nations. At 1,200, Big Boy starts entering the Grail territory. This is definitely one you would have to spend fans rewards on if you wanted a chance to buy it.
Just kidding. When Big Boy's planned early access period began last Friday, you did not have to spend fans rewards points at all. He was available to everyone immediately, which means he sold out immediately. The rewards kicked shortly after, but it was too late, he was already gone. Funko managed to repay people who spent their points but could not get the figure, but for anyone who missed it was still too little, too late.
Last week's Snafu is the one that hurts most of all. The drop was a 3,500 bill Phantasm, one of my favorite Batman villains from one of my favorite Batman movies (Mask of the Phantasm, please see it). I logged in, as I do every week, light and early, ready to spend my reward points and make my purchase. For the third week in a row I couldn't.
The site simply refused to take my points, and it turns out that I was not the only one. After ten minutes of error messages, Funko announced that it took fantasm offline until the problem could be fixed. At 12:07 Funko tweeted that the pop would be re -listed at 13:00, but anyone who did not see that tweet, including me, was sunny.
I wish FUNKO had expected at 9:00 the next day to give people enough time. I wish they could have found a way to save a place for anyone who showed up at the right time and could not complete the purchase. In the end, I wish this issue had not occurred in the first place.
Technical problems occur, and I was never entitled to any of these toys in the first place, but (big) boy it feels bad when I show up, in time, pointing in my hand, and it is still not enough – three times in a row.
If Funko wants these limited editions to have value and to serve their fans' confidence, it should take a little more care to ensure that this will not be a negative experience every Friday morning. So far I have no fun time with my Midlife crisis.
