Loot Boxes WTF?

[Consignia]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCgI3ZaQuRc

All that money on Funko Pops and all he can afford is Billy bookcases. This displeases the god of Funko.

[Replies From View]

Are the big funko pop heads meant to make them resemble lolly pops?  The aesthetic makes me feel physically sick.

[idunnosomename]

They're primarily based on the anime chibi style. However the simplification of the eyes to big black dots is a weird aesthetic and I don't understand how it's appealling. If a character doesn't have regular eyes (e.g Robocop) then they look normal caricatures.

lol just noticed that rick and morty collection has THREE Pickle Ricks

[TommyTurnips]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCgI3ZaQuRc

The guy is basically a hoarder.

[Consignia]

I find mentality around them, well, mental. They seemed to be designed around the fact they are investments rather than models, so no one takes them out of their ugly boxes[nb]not that I don't find the figures ugly, but I couldn't say if they were objectively so[/nb]. So you end up with walls of uniform shit, which are only differentiated on closer inspection. Surely the whole point of figures is to display them as models not keep them in card coffins as a tribute how much money of wasted.

[Midas]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCgI3ZaQuRc

Ushabtis were placed in tombs among the grave goods and were intended to act as servants or minions for the deceased, should they be called upon to do manual labour in the afterlife.

[Replies From View]

loot box, loot box, roly poly loot box

loot box, loot box, eat them up yum

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I find mentality around them, well, mental. They seemed to be designed around the fact they are investments rather than models, so no one takes them out of their ugly boxes[nb]not that I don't find the figures ugly, but I couldn't say if they were objectively so[/nb]. So you end up with walls of uniform shit, which are only differentiated on closer inspection. Surely the whole point of figures is to display them as models not keep them in card coffins as a tribute how much money of wasted.

There was a youtube scam a few years back where vloggers would open random loot and pay gambling fees in videogames on camera, and of course mega winz $$$ then brag about selling digital goods for real money. The point I think was although the implied audience for the videos was adults, the real audience was under 18s and priming them for the addiction cycle of opening boxes and trading whats in them.

Gotta wonder if thats what is happening here. Youtube and Insta users treat worthless object like an investment, and kids rush to buy it (or get it at a mark up from a third party on Ebay).

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Or maybe its like an unintentional Nigerian Prince scam thing - Funkos are shit because people with bad aesthetic judgement have bad judgement in other areas?

I have one Funko product. Their Bender wobbling statue thing from when Futurama was still on. Its great, detailed and nicely painted. Even came in a box that made it look like a 1950s toy to fit the retrofuture thing. A universe away from Pops

[imitationleather]

Reminds me of Beanie Babies, although from what I can tell they don't appear to be as much of a bubble?

[Goldentony]

because now if you tell anybody their stupid hobby for cunts is shite they go ohh me ma died at dunkirk etc

[chveik]

funkocoin to the moon

[Video Game Fan 2000]

GPUs melting my Funkos into a river of plastic and I'm sitting there in my throne breathing in all the fumes

[idunnosomename]

Reminds me of Beanie Babies, although from what I can tell they don't appear to be as much of a bubble?

there's no investment element to Funko Pop collecting really. you can sometimes make a profit getting hold of a limited line and selling it on to an obsessive, but really these piles of vinyl these weird young men have are all destined for landfill in just over a decade.

At least Beanie Babies were cuddly and cute. not hard and grotesque

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Beanie Babies were obviously high quality and the name tag thing was supposed to guarantee collectability. The bubble was at least partially caused by suppliers bottlenecking demand to hype them up, and it went out of control.

Funko gets the rights to properties that don't have action figures yet and floods the market with slightly tweaked designs of what its already made. I can't see where any collectable value is supposed to come in at all. Damage the box slightly ITS WORTHLESS NOW

[Midas]

I do think there's an absurd and naïve honesty to Fucko Pox collectors, in that they're able to subsume themselves within an unreal world of disposable landfill-fodder, which could essentially be replaced with boxes of dirt, seemingly without the contrivance and self-deception we otherwise employ when consuming mass culture. I don't think indulging in this type of consumerism is healthy at all, but it isn't happening in a vacuum; what could be a better way to represent our self-destructive eagerness to anesthetize ourselves to the complexities of the changing world by escaping into meaningless fantasy, than by surrounding ourselves with hundreds of poorly-rendered, conformist, plastic facsimiles of fictional characters? Most of us are covering our windows with something, even if it's not necessarily as overt as a shelf of ridiculous, infantile dollies.

[idunnosomename]

the amount of licences they get hold of is amazing though. perhaps they get away with it because the products look like complete shit so don't really impinge any other merch sales?

[Catalogue Trousers]

Loot crates are the sort of things that I can see somebody, including myself, buying once for fun and then discarding entirely.

I mean, there's an ad on FB at the moment from some coves hawking loot crates of various horror film figurines and action figures. You look at the ones they say might be in the box if you're really lucky, but you know damn well that you're not getting the Pinhead or Leatherface figures, let alone the seriously expensive ones that they claim one in a hundred or so boxes will contain. Nah. You're ending up with a Funko Pop of Pennywise and maybe a cheapo Jack Skellington and that's yer lot. Eat up, son!

[willbo]

Collecting 100s of boxed Funkos is like going a to a gig and standing still filming it all on your phone, it's one of those things modern culture has clicked people into wanting to do, to fulfil some prehistoric urge, without really understanding why.

[mippy]

I have Pet Shop Boys ones and would absolutely get Sparks ones....and that's how they get ya.

[Neomod]

A Loot box subscription was basically setting yourself up for a shit Christmas present each month wasn't it.

I guess the surprise element must have been the main draw so why not go into your pop culture shop of choice, buy that Blade Runner Joi Doll you've been after for ages and then ask the assistant to chuck 3 random pound shop level items in the bag as well. You save money, get the surprise and at least one thing you really desire.[nb]© Neomod[/nb]

[TommyTurnips]

I remember when I used Facebook about 10 years ago being heavily advertised at by lootcrate and other such subscription services. They would boast that for your monthly subscription, whatever it was, you would chance getting a box of items that were worth more than your monthly subscription.

The reality seems to be that you would actually stand more chance of getting prizes such as AN INFLATABLE FUCKING CROWN! like popular YouTuber Ashens did. https://youtu.be/1enqg5HkyHI

[Dex Sawash]

The dollar store here does paper lunch bags stapled closed with random shit inside for a dollar.

[imitationleather]

I remember years back on the darknet I saw someone selling a mystery bag of drugs.

Seemed a bit unwise to be honest.

[Sebastian Cobb]

When you think about it Brittania Music Club was a bit like loot boxes.

Here have this old shit the record companies made too much of. £15 please.

[Better Midlands]

I thought Funko Pops were WTF until I saw KAWS figures.

[Better Midlands]

I remember years back on the darknet I saw someone selling a mystery bag of drugs.

Seemed a bit unwise to be honest.

Isn't that all darkent powders?

[Sebastian Cobb]

I remember years back on the darknet I saw someone selling a mystery bag of drugs.

Seemed a bit unwise to be honest.

Bit like tucking into found drugs. Always a gamble but yolo.

[Dex Sawash]

On way to Lidl this morning saw a car with a window sticker with representing family members and pets, only they were all Funko Pop-form. Reader, I murdered them.

[Sebastian Cobb]

On way to Lidl this morning saw a car with a window sticker with representing family members and pets, only they were all Funko Pop-form. Reader, I murdered them.

I pass a van on the way to my local that has a load of solar-powered dash ornaments that shimmy. Hawaiian women in grass skirts, that sort of thing.