Funko, a popular toy manufacturer, has recently experienced dramatic ups and downs in its digital collections. After the long-awaited sellout of its second wave of digital collectibles dedicated to Transformers, Funko had to witness an unexpectedly poor performance of its Star Trek: The Next Generation NFTs. The unfortunate drop, which led to the burning of almost 49% of the NFT supply, took place on March 12th. In the meantime, the company prepared for its upcoming collection featuring Star Wars Funko NFTs and announced that the release is scheduled for March 26 at 11 AM PT.
Unlike the previous two March drops dedicated to Transformers and Star Trek, the Star Wars Funko NFT set will be a brand-new addition to the ever-growing array of Funko’s digital collectibles.
While technically Star Trek was also the first collection of its kind, as this time the company has focused on The Next Generation franchise, classic Star Trek has already been featured in one of the early Funko NFT releases. Meanwhile, the legendary Star Wars franchise has never been represented by digital collectibles from Funko before.
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"Introducing the newest release inspired by a galaxy far, far away — Star Wars Digital Pop," Funko invites collectors to participate in the drop.
It appears that Funko has prepared a greater supply for the upcoming event, expecting increased attention to its new collection. The Droppp platform, which handles releases of Funko’s digital collections, reports the availability of 35,000 Standard packs and 30,000 Premium Packs.
The difference between the two types of packages is in the number of NFT trading cards they hold. Standard packages are smaller, containing five cards compared to Premium packages which consist of seventeen items. Subsequently, the prices for these packages also differ, with Standard packs sold for $9.99 and Premium packs available for $29.99.
As usual, one of the most exciting parts of the Funko NFT drops is the possibility of earning redemption tokens, which can be exchanged for exclusive physical figurines.
"Collecting a Grail, Legendary, or Royalty Set qualifies you for a Redemption Token to redeem the physical counterpart," Funko explains.
It seems that with this release, Funko tried its best to create unique physical figurines for redemption. Yet, some collectors, including the team behind the Gastlecast YouTube channel, believe that focusing on the original Star Wars films can cost the toy company a lot.
Avid Funko collectors report that the characters of the original trilogy have already been overrepresented by Funko and currently, it may be rather difficult to create figurines that would spark interest in the community. In fact, the fans of the franchise claim there have already been rather similar physical collectibles, although without settings, which are likely to make the redeemable figurines less desirable.
Moreover, some collectors find the fact that the redeemable set does not include any physical figurine of Freddy Funko representing one of the Star Wars characters rather uninspiring.
This, in turn, is critical for the sales of NFTs. Although Funko’s NFTs which are designed in the form of animated trading cards are themselves very creative and sufficient to be an exciting collectible, the majority of drop participants are interested in acquiring exclusive physical counterparts in the first place. Apparently, the uniqueness of physical figurines may be a paramount factor in deciding whether or not to take part in a drop.
In the case of the March Star Wars Funko NFT collection, the exclusive physical collectibles are expected to include six figurines.
The least rare physical collectible, categorized as Royalty, will feature Princess Leia, reportedly including glow-in-the-dark elements. There will be 3,300 figurines of this type.
This time, Funko plans to release four Legendary figurines, representing Han Solo, Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and C-3PO. There will be 3,000 figurines of each Legendary type.
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Finally, the rarest figurine in the set will be the upside-down representation of frozen Luke Skywalker. There will be only 1980 figurines of this type.
All of the redeemable figurines for the Star Wars Funko Pop NFT collection will be of the Deluxe type, which is a special format of Funko’s collectibles often featuring a setting or scene and including additional elements such as bases, props, or vehicles.
While the choice of the Deluxe format, which has not been utilized for Funko NFT exclusives yet, may be the company’s attempt to bring some variation and distinction to the Star Wars protagonist as well as other characters portrayed by its figurines, it has actually sparked criticism in the community. For instance, Gastlecast raised an issue of the size of Deluxe figurines, which naturally take up more space to store and display and may be less appealing to collectors.
Although many members in the community wished the physical figurines were more distinct from those already on the market, which would contribute to the sales of Funko NFTs, the particular choice of redeemable items may also result from licensing restrictions from Disney.
While collectors are taking their time to decide whether to purchase Star Wars Funko NFT cards or not, the toy manufacturer scheduled the opening of the redemption window for July 24. Then, an inventory snapshot will be taken to identify whether collectors are qualified to get redemption tokens.
"Redeem your Redemption Tokens within 30 days before they expire on Aug 23rd, 2024, at 11:59:59 PM PT," Funko warns the community. The delivery of the physical counterparts is supposed to take place during Q4 2024.
