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This past holiday, Activision release the game Skylander’s: Spyro’s Adventure and it was a platform game that unknowingly sold very well (especially for Wii). With this game came additional action figures you can buy (or had to buy) to get to other areas in the levels. It uses the universal model that you can take and play that one character on any system which is cool and handy. There’s one problem that is killing it.
Limited Release
Not of the game but the additional characters. Activision was selling a ton of them by the minute at stores. All the characters and 3 packs and additional content where flying off the shelf and then…
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I don’t know of any stores still have a lot of one toy or the ones that kids need but I do know some of them are now discontinued. I understand Activision’s business plan and they have succeeded. Now what happens? Well, that is when Amazon or Ebay and exuberant prices come around.
See, when a game of this caliber has this kind of business model, there tends to be problems. If the product has a limited release to it, that can make consumers in general not buy the product from the get go. Skylander’s didn’t sell for the a week over the holidays. Then one day, it becomes hot cakes in a second and people are buying it by droves with the addition characters. You can’t download any DLC and now people are looking for particular characters and from my perspective, not many stores have them (unless they get lucky and find it a K Mart).
This happen with one of the NHL games that came out for Wii. Some stores got them and when they were all sold out, not one of them popped back up in their store. Parents were asking for it and stores didn’t carry it which for EA, was a bad business model for them for not restocking it by droves when they should. EA could have made money and their other sports franchises weren’t selling at that time (and this was in 2009 in November).
Even when there are pre-orders, it still is a limited supplies on the product. Skyward Sword bundle pack was suppose to be at a lot of stores but some of them didn’t get it which Nintendo missed out on too. Same with Call Of Duty and Assassin’s Creed. It happen with the Once Upon A Monster which took a long time to sale but now people want the 1st edition when it came out but once again, it was a limited release.
If people wait for these items to go on the cheap because they think it won’t sale, they might want to rethink that philosophy. When a company means limited release, they really mean it now. Just like Earthbound and Snatcher, their gone when they are sold out.
Now that we can buy a lot of our media online, this wouldn’t be a problem. That’s true but you are only getting the content and sometimes not having a physical version of a game can hurt a collectors library and you also have to think about space of that system’s hard drive, your account to go online and every thing else. It’s good you got library as a digital download and don’t have to deal with no hassle but did you know a store was offering additional items with the physical copy?
So going forward, Activision did a great job but could’ve made more money with the sale of Skylander’s action figures. If they relied on COD: MW3, then that would been understanding but MW3 stop selling two weeks after its release where Skylander’s is still selling in droves (even with the LR toys).
Has there even been a product you wanted to get that had a limited release?
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