Re: NECA 7" TDK Joker, Reeve Superman, Adam West Batman
There's your problem. You can't seriously compare Hot Toys or Enterbay to them. Even their 1/4 are only $100 and a Hot Toys will run you over double that and in a smaller scale.
Also not all of us can afford those higher end figures. Honestly I can't see how NECA isn't killing it. They're putting out some damn good stuff. I also believe NECA is even better than those other high end companies when it comes to bang for your buck value.
Ah, I completely agree that the prices are completely different. BUT, I always want to put the money aside when I'm talking figures, because I don't feel it should impact your judgment on it. Sure you can say "this is not worthy of a $250 figure" "this is not acceptable for a $20 figure", "wow the figure isn't so great but for $10 it's a good deal". But I don't think it's a fair way of comparison.
To me what matters is quality, nothing else.
If you want to talk about money: I know we all have different budgets, don't have the same income, and I'm not a millionaire either. I just don't spend my money on things I feel aren't worthy of my money. I save a lot, and on the other hand, I can spend a lot once in a while, depending on the quality. I don't hesitate on spending $300 on a restaurant date to offer my girlfriend the best food she can get in the town once every 6 months, because the quality is there (while she hates me collecting those figures, she appreciates me for reasoning the same with restaurants). On the other hand, we never buy fast food, or do cheap restaurants. We prefer spending a lot in a restaurant once a while, than going to cheap restaurants every week.
What only counts for me is the end result. If something is worthy, I won't buy a lot of stuff I could buy for a cheap price to save for the more expensive great thing I want.
So with this logic, I can only say that with time, Neca figures look too cheap for my money.
When you look at Neca, you can say it's not expensive. But I really prefer buying ONE Hot Toys over 20 Neca figures.
That being said, money aside, I didn't buy Neca figures because they were not very expensive, it had nothing to do with the money.
I bought their figures because 4 or 5 years ago, Neca was the only brand that released some figures I wanted in a decent look (like the T-2 battle damaged, some Aliens figure, etc.)
But with time, it changed and Hot Toys did release some figures I wanted.
I don't think those Neca figure look ass, BUT... they don't look great either. I got some Terminator figures from Hot Toys, and I never look at my Neca figures anymore. It's a completely different world quality-wise.
It's just a question of quality. I feel that Neca put cheap toys on the market, and they're not unlike Hot Toys business-wise: they all need the money. Because the quality is cheap, they can afford to release a whole line-up of figures, which is very appealing because like me, you tell yourself "damn they already release all those variants, nobody else did, I need those." And they're unbeatable on their prices.
But I will say, to me it's one of the cheapest "collector" figures brand there is on the market. To me, Good Smile/Figma are completely killing Neca on every similar release, and they're not that much more expensive.
All the figmas I have, I may never part with them because for their size, it's perfection. I bought the latest Link from Figma (from the latest 3DS Zelda game) and it looks beyond amazing. Even an old Figma I have, Robocop, I still like it up to this day because it's so posable and the armor is shiny and true to the movie's colors (only thing that isn't good is the lower face, which absolutely looks nothing like Peter Weller). While the Necas from Robocop I have (regular, battle damaged, and the video-game version)... they really look so cheap. The paint, the articulation, the overall look: not good.
I would like to know out of all people who still collect Neca, do you also collect Hot Toys or figma figures, and if so: do you find any point in keeping those Neca?
If it's just a budget thing, my best advice would be to save on those cheap figures, and you will see that if you pass on like 10 figures, you'll end up having enough money to get a Hot Toys figure you will keep for life and never be disappointed with ; )
(of course it's all my own opinion, no offense)
