darkSpyro

every year- there are figures that cause issues.

SSA- WHAM SHELL
Released in Australia first, before making it's way to the rest of the world... in limited quantity. Many collectors had issues finding wham shell, and a chase variant of him only made it worse.

SG- SERIES 2 DROBOT/SERIES 2 BASH
Depending on who you ask, drobot S2 was only released in USA widely, UK limited, and not at all in AU. Series 2 bash also became an issue after wave 2 vanished- he had a restock in AU, but only there.

SSF- FIRE BONE HOT DOG/SCRATCH/PUNK SHOCK/FRYNO
The unholy quartet of wave 4 SSF was there- and then gone. Never seen again outside of the AU goldmine. Punk shock also never saw a release outside of the easter varaint packaging in MOST Of the usa.

STT- ANYTHING LIGHT AND DARK
The expansion packs, to this day, are selling for 110 + online. spotlight and blackout are gone. the l/d traps are also gone... but the real TT issue is...
THE YAWN TRAPS OF INFAMY
In Australia, these 3 traps came out in limited supply. And then... nothing. no releases anywhere else, and dead silence from acti. needless to say.. hardcore collectors of skylanders are pissed.

SSC- THRILLIPEDE
Only seen in short supply in AU, UK, and CA. everywhere else... nothing. and dead silence from acti again.


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what the hell?

This is MONEY that is being lost.

why is this happening???

Yeah things weren't as great in Australia as your making them sound .

Also c'mon .... The lack of yawn traps are only really a big deal to collectors, your not missing out on anything functional not having them. The world wide limited number of light and dark adventure packs is a much bigger issue, having effected alot more fans in a much bigger way.

Wham Shell actually made a pretty big re-appearance around Thanksgiving during Giants. TRU has a ton of them and they lasted a couple weeks. Same with Drobot the next year. And Scratch/etc. the next. The rest, not so much.

The problem is Skylanders longevity, it simply does not have the excitement to sustain all the way into late Spring. People get bored with each game faster and faster each year. Retailers aren't going to order new waves if the figures aren't selling, because they will have to put them on clearance, and they do not want that.

They really need to accelerate the waves, and they almost did that this year - then fell off before wave 5. I would be VERY leery about Imaginators collecting, I have a real suspicion that retailers are going to drop off after Wave 3, and while you could get Thrillipede if you jumped on it - you might end up with a partial collection regardless this year.

Wham-Shell can be explained, they were all sent to Brazil. Seriously, until three years ago he was /everywhere/, along with Voodod and Boomer. But time passes, just like all other figures they're gone, only some SF clearance stuff on the shelves for me now.

I think the lesson here is don't wait for sales on Wave 5 ever. You'll regret it every time. One thing is for sure though, they've always underestimated how long it takes to kids to get bored of a game - long gone are the times you could get someone involved for more than three months with anything that's not a JRPG, now sometimes even less than two months if they're particularly wealthy to get more games than they can play. An older player has the mind to go 'huh, this character is new, I should dust off my copy and see how they do', but the kid is just going to wait for the next title or play for 10 minutes then forget about it again.

Quote: Bifrost

the kid is just going to wait for the next title or play for 10 minutes then forget about it again.

This is so true. Other than Pokemon games, I've picked up loads of DS/3DS games from garage sales with saves on them that rarely show over 2 hours of play time. A few Wii systems with less than 10 hours logged onto it in total (the used Wii U I got only had 6 hours). I've bought loads of Skylander figures that never made it past level 5. And then they toss the stuff away for pennies on the dollar a year or so later (which is good as that's how I get my 90% of my hobby stuff as I rarely need anything day one).

But yeah, I learned my lesson with Spotlight and Blackout to pay better attention to the waves. I didn't really care for them at the time and I saw them everywhere for two months, so I didn't expect for them to become rare. Same with Scratch from the year prior. Thrilipede is a no brainer as he never even reached the stores in the USA, so my finding one in the wild is going to be nil and he's certain to only go up in price. Collecting all of the Skylanders is almost like playing the stock market, you have to watch daily for product release and buy immediately the moment it goes up for sale. Wave 1 and 2 you can ignore and they will have a fire sale, wave 3 too, probably but never wait on a wave 4 and 5. That's why I say people should also get the Power Blue stuff and Roller Brawl right now (on sale for only $5 at gamestop.com!), as they'll probably end up Punk Shock-ish rare in a year or so at around $30 NIP.

you can add ssc triger happy racing pack to that list to, it had a very limited sale in europe...

I don't think it's completely activisions fault . I think a lot of the problem with the dwindling availability of waves 4 and 5 is that department stores learned after SF.

they had so much left over stock. That now they've learned to decrease their orders drastically soon after New Years, and definately by Easter.


Really I think activision need to get rid of wave 5 and make sure everything is out before Easter. Also they need to stop making stupid variants For Easter. that's when they should be trying to finish off the original roster .

Australia is not getting original thrillipede at all, but every store is full of those stupid Easter variants.

Quote: B-BOB358

I don't think it's completely activisions fault . I think a lot of the problem with the dwindling availability of waves 4 and 5 is that department stores learned after SF.

they had so much left over stock. That now they've learned to decrease their orders drastically soon after New Years, and definately by Easter.


Really I think activision need to get rid of wave 5 and make sure everything is out before Easter. Also they need to stop making stupid variants For Easter. that's when they should be trying to finish off the original roster .

Australia is not getting original thrillipede at all, but every store is full of those stupid Easter variants.

i agree with that, specially here in europe the two first racing packs plus the legendary version is still over stocked everywhere here... so they didnt bother much with the trigger happy racer pack.

Quote: ZapNorris

every year- there are figures that cause issues.
.
STT- ANYTHING LIGHT AND DARK
The expansion packs, to this day, are selling for 110 + online. spotlight and blackout are gone. the l/d traps are also gone... but the real TT issue is...


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what the hell?

This is MONEY that is being lost.

why is this happening???

Everything? I saw knight mare and knight light singles at toys r us about 3 weeks ago. They already sold, but they were there

I watch many Skylander sites for when new figures come out in stores then pick up one of each. Never saw Thrillipede on a hook. I guess I need to order from overseas? Lame.

I'm another pissed off collector. I watch for release dates diligently online. I hunt usually a couple times a week and have employees checking for me for availability and release dates. NO ONE HAS A CLUE WHERE THEILLIPEDE IS!!! This is unacceptable!!! Worse than the yawn traps.

Quote: skylandsfan

Everything? I saw knight mare and knight light singles at toys r us about 3 weeks ago. They already sold, but they were there

TRU is a bit strange where they will magically find a few hundred boxes of older figures and ship them out to their stores. That's how I got my Scratch and other later wave characters in November 2015.

I know it was a one-and-done blast, but why does everyone forget about TRU's online release of regular Thrillipede in the US?

Quote: UncleBob

I know it was a one-and-done blast, but why does everyone forget about TRU's online release of regular Thrillipede in the US?

That's what I have been wondering. The US version of Thrillipede came out in the US, maybe not in a preferred location, but it did. When he went up on toysrus.com, he was eligible for a 20% off sale and it was put up numerous times on this forum. It lasted several days. Then he went up again right after he started shipping. A lot of people were like "I'll just get him in the store on the release date (which was always just speculation based on a TRU document that wasn't supposed to be public)". But he came out, there was ample opportunity to order if you were paying attention. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush, people rolled the dice knowing how Wave 5 tends to be and how bad Skylanders retail sales are right now and appear to have lost.

I have sympathy for people that cannot just buy things immediately, kids and such. But if you are in that situation, you probably are not a collector. I have some sympathy for the boxed collectors, we all know TRU ships in mailer envelopes - to iffy results. But in that case, the best thing to do was order, then deal with in store exchanges/online customer service to fix crushed packages. The main thing is you get one. Everyone else that cares about him should have ordered, many posts on the thread highly encouraged it based on history.

If you just figured you would pick it up later, or wait for a sale then "You snooze, you lose".

Quote:

SSC- THRILLIPEDE
Only seen in short supply in AU, UK, and CA

Australia, to this day has never seen the release of normal Thrillipede.

I know there are a lot of people filthy about the yawn traps but it swings both ways...

Ever since I started collecting Skylanders (around April of last year) there have been a numerous amount of items I've had to import due a lack of release here..

Life and Air trap team minis had to be purchased for $50 AUD each... (when you can get the other 6 elements for $7 AUD)

Legendary traps had to be purchased for $120 AUD as a set.

All the Power Blue variants had to be purchased online mostly through scalper fees...

Every single superchargers chase (except gold hot streak) were never found in AU, so we never had an opportunity to hunt for those..

We were fortunate enough to get yawns, but not fortunate enough to get a lot of other things. Again, I say it swings both ways, but I can appreciate why there's so much negative comments about the handling of the Yawn traps.. There are far more collectors in the US that AU.

You should change that as the US did get normal thrillipede in during early may on toys r us online with his vehicle and they sold them in a sale for skylanders buy 1 get 2 free

punk shock is an easy find for me she is swarming at the five below like 20 minutes away from my house though I never bought her lel

New Zealand Also Got The Yawn Traps