Preface:
Sorry this is so late. Honestly, after I opened this thing up I
forgot all about it. Then I saw something about Loot Crate on
Facebook and I was like, “Wait – I got one of those…” and had
to go look for it. There’s really no point in reviewing it because
it’s not like you could get one even if I had posted this the day
it came. But I guess this can give you a pretty good idea of what to
expect from the service if you’re thinking about subscribing.
Early
in December I misread somewhere that the month’s Loot Crate was
going to be themed for the 75th
Anniversary of Batman. That didn’t just appeal to me, it seemed
like something I simply couldn’t pass up. A whole box full of
Batstuff, with Exclusives that would only be available as part of
this? YES.
Naturally,
within a day of placing my order I saw a thing online that made it
clear that this was just a general anniversary theme, not
specifically Batman. I was disappointed, but there was still
potential awesomeness. And I knew there would be at least one Batman
item.
I
awaited delivery of that Crate with anticipation that I hadn’t felt
since I still cared about the Masters of the Universe Classics line
(I kid, I kid). I followed the tracking number, I got updates texted
to my phone, I watched for smoke signals. Finally, one day when I was
at work I got the e-mail stating that my potentially precious package
had been delivered. I left work even more excited than usual to be
departing that wretched hive of boredom and misery. As I pulled up my
driveway I spotted a black box perched on the wall beside the
carport. I parked and jumped out of the car, finding a Loot Crate
that would best be described as “smashed as fuck”:
Additionally,
the tape holding it shut had come off and it was just sitting there,
open.
While
this is clearly the fault of the United States Postal Service, Loot
Crate is also responsible. This thing should have an exterior
shipping carton. After posting that picture online I discovered that
this is not an uncommon occurrence. My question is this: Why do you
keep getting Loot Crates? The first thing I did after opening mine
was to send an e-mail with attached pictures and cancel my
subscription. Oh, and by the way:
Cancelling
your Loot Crate subscription is a pain in the ass.
It’s
clearly designed to be time consuming and difficult so that people
will not cancel their subscriptions. You have to compose an e-mail
and submit it to them, and then wait for a reply. There’s not just
a button to click or anything. I’d admire their cleverness if I
hadn’t been so irritated.
So
far my experience has not been super. Maybe the goodies inside will
make it all worthwhile.
As
I describe the contents, I will track two different values for this
thing – my estimate of the retail value and the value that I,
personally put on the items. As in, “This is what I would pay for
this thing”. I just want it to be clear that I get the perceived
value of the thing even if I don’t agree with it. I won’t
however, be looking any prices up; only because I think it will be
more fun to guess. Or maybe I’ll put a full list at the end if I’m
not sick of writing about this thing by then.
First
Glance
Well,
it’s certainly the box of crap that I expected. Supposedly each
Loot Crate is at
least
forty bucks worth of stuff. Just looking at the open box I can’t
imagine how that’s possible. That Pop! figure is worth ten-ish,
though, so maybe there’s a twenty dollar gift certificate to Hot
Topic or something.
Packaging
The
Loot Crate arrives in a black box with “Loot Crate” printed on
it. It’s made out of a cardboard that I would describe as “not
sturdy enough to ship things in”.
The
interior of the box is fucking
delightful,
though. I don’t know if they all have a theme like this, but
December’s box folds out into a neat-o and adorable Batcave
diorama. I had to fold the little Batcomputer piece down, but
otherwise it was ready to go. I sat mine on top of the Pop! figure
box to give it height. This portion of the Loot Crate is wonderful
and a nice touch that I would consider “above and beyond”.
Too
bad it’s all mashed up and torn. While I am pleased with the
interior design, this is packaging. Furthermore, it’s packaging
that the Loot Crate company didn’t even deem valuable enough to
protect.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = ZERO DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = ZERO DOLLARS
Contents
This
is all of the stuff. While I suppose this is technically well over
forty dollars’ worth of goods, what I really see is the contents of
a bin at the bottom of Hot Topic’s Clearance section that should
have a sign over it reading “Buy One Get Two Free”.
Except
for the Funko Pop! figure, which is a nice Exclusive and clearly the
belle of this ball:
Funko
Pop! The Joker Batman Vinyl Figurine
This
is silly and great. I stopped reading the main Batman book, so I’m
not sure if this is an actual thing or if it’s just a neat, odd
variant. Either way I like it. If the rest of this stuff feels like
five bucks worth of stuff I’ll be happy. I will say, however, that
I would not have bought this at retail.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = TEN DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = TEN DOLLARS
Before
I get any further, this is the Loot Crate Magazine:
Loot
Crate Magazine Issue 17
This
serves as a mini-zine and also as a packing list. There are a couple
of interviews inside, a description of the Mega Crate that you didn’t
win, and the list of products in this month’s Crate.
The
interviews are with Stan Lee (it’s pretty good) and the guy that
does the “things made of words” pictures on the front. He’s
holding a bunch of t-shirts, but there’s no shirt in this month’s
Crate. Or if there is, it was taken out of mine, which is entirely
possible since it the seals were broken and it was open.
This
is branded as a magazine, but it’s really marketing material and a
packing list masquerading as a pamphlet masquerading as a magazine.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = TEN DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = TEN DOLLARS
Time
to look at the rest of the stuff.
These
are the items that I consider pure garbage, with a value of less than
a dollar (to me):
Garbage
The
candy cane arrived broken. The air freshener arrived fine, but it’s
a fucking air freshener. The button says “Loot Crate Anniversary”,
but as you might have guessed by now I will not be wearing a Loot
Crate button anytime soon. That piece of paper is for a free trial of
Crunchyroll. Free trials are worthless anyway, but even if they
weren’t this is no good because Crunchyroll has something to do
with anime and you guys know how I feel about anime.
I’ll
give the button a one dollar value and assume the air freshener is
from the higher end of the scale for such things and assign it three.
The free trial and the trisected candy cane get NIL.
Honestly, it boggles my mind that people buy air fresheners. I have owned many in my life and they have all come free as part of some sort of bundle of crap.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = FOURTEEN DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = TEN DOLLARS
This
is a paper fucking wallet:
The
Simpsons Tyvek Wallet
It
is embellished with beautiful art depicting characters from The
Simpsons
and it has tons of pockets:
But
it is a paper fucking wallet.
I’m
sure it’s sturdy and I’m sure it does exactly what this little
card says it does:
And
“wears in” (loses all of the color and pictures) and “takes on
the look of a well loved wallet” (“well-loved” meaning the
owner will have to have sex with it because no guy that carries a
paper fucking wallet will ever get his penis anywhere near a vagina).
This
is probably the hardest item for me to gauge. I have no frame of
reference for paper wallets. I feel like the absolute maximum price a
sane person would pay for this is five dollars. I also know full well
how stupid people are and how much some will jump at gimmicks,
especially if they have one of these on them:
So
it’s possible this thing could retail for as much as fifteen
dollars. I’m going to play it safe and split the difference – ten
dollars.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = TWENTY-FOUR DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = TEN DOLLARS
Baby
Groot Socks
These
are baby Groot socks. I have nothing bad to say about baby Groot
socks. They’re a little thin – as novelty socks tend to be – so
I’m not sure if they’ll fit my size thirteens. But I won’t hold
that against them.
These
are a perfectly good item that I’d say would retail for about eight
bucks. Like the Pop! figure, though – I would not have bought these
at retail.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = THIRTY-ONE DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = EIGHTEEN DOLLARS
That
means even with just my personal value I’ve gotten more than my
money’s worth. Retail value-wise we’re at double what I paid.
Tetris
Stickers
This
is probably the item that reminds me the most of the Hot Topic
Clearance section. It’s not that these stickers aren’t neat or
they don’t have value, but this is exactly the sort of gimmicky
crap that we got in every month, sold two of, and then marked ten
down to 75% off before marking them out of stock.
These
are neat and I’m sure some folks will have a blast with them. I am
not those folks. They just look like a headache to me. These might
retail for about three bucks, but could be as much as six, I suppose.
I’ll say four.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = THIRTY-FIVE DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = EIGHTEEN DOLLARS
Ghostbusters
Doorknob Sign
This
probably should have gone in with the garbage since it’s the sort
of thing somebody would hand you at a Con, but I just can’t bring
myself to call something with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man on it
garbage. Since I’m a grown man with no roommates I have no use for
such a thing, but I’ll give it a dollar value for retail.
I
do find this slightly disturbing because the Stay Puft side is
suggesting that Mister Stay Puft wants you to fuck him.
Personally
I can’t give it any value because I wouldn’t spend even a penny
on such a thing.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = THIRTY-SIX DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = EIGHTEEN DOLLARS
Batman
#36 – Loot Crate Exclusive Variant Cover
Here
we have a tough one. In theory, this should have a value higher than
that of the regular edition of this issue. Regardless of any other
factors, only
the people that ordered this Loot Crate were able to obtain it.
But
I know nothing
about comic book values. I have no idea how to estimate what this
could or should potentially be worth on the secondary market. All I
know is that it got mashed up along with the box and, as a result, is
not even worth as much as the standard issue I would have bought from
my Local Comic Book Shop.
Additionally,
I am no longer buying Batman
because “Zero Year” was not to my liking. But that’s my own
personal thing. Technically this has a retail value of four dollars
(the cover price of the issue), but nobody would actually pay four
dollars for a current comic book in this condition. I honestly don’t
know how to rate this one. I guess two dollars retail and zero for me
since I wouldn’t have bought it in the first place and definitely
wouldn’t have bought a bent-up copy.
RETAIL
VALUE SO FAR = THIRTY-EIGHT DOLLARS
PHANTOM
VALUE SO FAR = EIGHTEEN DOLLARS
Okay,
I don’t feel like it’s fair of me to say that Loot Crate sent me
less than forty dollars’ worth of stuff (though they would have hit
forty if Batman
#36
hadn’t been messed up), so I’m going to have to look up prices.
In the event that I can’t find a price for the specific item, I’ll
find a similar item. I’m also not taking damage into account, as
this list is meant to reflect what Loot Crate thought
the value of this collection was.
Crunchyroll
Trial = $0
– This has no value, as the first thing I saw when I went to check
on prices was a free trial offer that I could sign up for on the
spot.
Loot
Crate Button = $4
– The best I could do here was to search completed auctions on
eBay. Surprisingly, past buttons sell for between one and eight
dollars. So I’ll give it four.
Candy
Cane = $.06
– A tub of 280 of this kind of candy cane costs $15.95.
Captain
America Air Freshener = $5
– I underestimated this one, as well. It looks like this and
similar air fresheners go for five bucks. Which is absurd.
Pop!
Figure = $10
– All of this scale of Pop! figures retail for ten dollars, even
Exclusives. But just for shits and giggles, I checked eBay to see
what it’s going for – by itself without the rest of the Crate
it’s going for around fifteen bucks. But it looks like a patient
person could find one for ten.
Simpsons
Wallet = $15(!!!)
– Wow. I was right about the fifteen bucks. I checked out
Dynomighty.com
and that’s what this vagina repellent goes for.
Groot
Socks = $5
– These sorts of superhero socks sell for four or five bucks. These
specific socks are going for ten bucks on eBay, though. But I’ll
stick with five since there’s no way these won’t hit retail in
some form.
Tetris
Stickers = $2.50
– I was surprised that I wasn’t able to find these at any sort of
normal retail price. They seem like a mass market item. On eBay
they’re selling for between one and five dollars, so I guess I’ll
set them halfway.
Ghostbusters
Door Hanger = $1
– I couldn’t find anything even similar to this through a
standard retailer, which proves my belief that this isn’t the sort
of thing that people buy. I’ll stick with my dollar.
Batman
Comic = $3.99
– That’s the cover price of that issue.
So,
all of that together brings what I believe to be the value that the
Loot Crate folks perceived
this to be to…
$46.55
Which
is, indeed, more than forty dollars, which is all they guarantee when
you sign up.
Overall
If
I had to put money on it, I’d bet that the Loot Crate folks
estimated a higher value than that.
Look
– I know I’ve been a dick throughout this review. Because it was
fun to do it that way and because this Loot Crate was, indeed,
exactly what I thought it would be and what I said up at the
beginning – a box of crap. Yes, some of that crap was cool. And I
certainly got my money’s worth, if only for the fact that I got
this post out of it (I’ve paid more for less entertaining
features).
The
bottom line is this – I am not telling anybody not to buy Loot
Crates. I think if you’ve got the money to spend on it, it could be
a fun thing for a lot of people to receive each month. It certainly
lives up to the value it promises. I just wanted to give those that
might be curious a fair idea of what to expect from these things. Now
I know that they’re not for me.
Now
to check out this “Horror Block”…
Well now, PT, I think you're being a little harsh on the Tyvek wallet! I mean, I have their Mad Love wallet with the Alex Ross painting on it, and it's surprisingly durable, and people seem to think it's cool!
ReplyDeleteHeh. I never said that it wasn't durable or that some people wouldn't find it cool. It's just not the sort of thing I'd ever use.
DeleteI just started getting Loot Crate in January and I was pretty happy with the first month. I'm going to cover mine here in a few days (I've got lots of stuff I want to review!). Cool to see yours, though. I would have mostly been interested in the POP! and the Groot socks.
ReplyDelete