As someone who attends Comic Con and always buys most of the Hasbro exclusives Im not sure how I personally feel about this. On one hand, it will (hopefully) free up time that I can spend doing other things. On the other hand in the past I knew that so long as I spent the time and had a strategy I would always get all the exclusives I wanted for my collection. If this is just an online sale that may not be the case, especially if the online sale is open to everyone at the same time (which means bots). I understand and can emphasize with people not going to the show who end up having to spend a couple of hundred bucks extra on exclusives via eBay, but on the flip side Im spending thousands of dollars on hotels, and travelwhich Im fine with but what would suck is if on top of those thousands of dollars Im already spending I also end up unable to get the exclusives from Hasbro and thus Im spending hundreds of extra dollars on eBay on top of the thousands I already spent.
The other issue is will these items go on preorder during the con or will they go on sale at a later date? If during the Con then that actually puts the people physically at the Con at a huge disadvantage as its very difficult to order something online while at the convention since we wont be at our computers and with all those people in one place its hard to get a strong and steady cellphone signal.
Lastly there was always something nice about physically getting those exclusives at the show. Ive been attending Comic Con for 25+ years and over those years have literally bought thousands of exclusives there to add to my collection. And as odd as it may sound each and every one of those exclusives have a special place and memory tied to them. In most cases I can tell you exactly which show I bought them at and by looking at them I am instantly reminded of where I was when I bought them, what hoops I had to jump through to get them, and the good times I had with my other friends who attended that specific con. When I just buy something online and it just shows up in the mail I have none of that. Its just another item in the collection with no specific memories or feelings attached to it.
Less merchandise to haul to the show and this limits Scalpers hording all the exclusives for eBay. This also helps people who can't go to SDCC get a chance at the exclusives. It looks like Hasbro is finally learning and it would be nice if all companies attending SDCC take on this method for exclusives.
