Op-Ed – More thoughts on the number of older titles being released, and the risks of quantity over quality

Our previous Op-Ed piece from reader Garry Rooney, criticising the number of old titles being released prompted this response from ‘Gemini-Phoenix’, who covers some similar topics in a bit more depth.

As a collector who is trying to maintain a complete set of UK SteelBook releases, I would say that there are too many Steelbooks being released now – or rather, too many in such a short space of time. The quantity isn’t really an issue provided they’re spread out more evenly, but I am sure many collectors will agree that releasing 6-12 SteelBooks every week is a little OTT, and just gives the impression of greed on the part of Zavvi and the studios in question!

There are indeed a lot of catalogue releases being given the SteelBook treatment right now, many of which I am sure aren’t actually in demand by Blu-Ray collectors. In the last 18 months we have seen many SteelBook releases which (in my opinion) didn’t necessarily deserve such treatment, and feels almost as if it was done in order to attract more sales of titles which would have otherwise sold poorly as Amaray releases. Likewise, there are a lot of obscure titles due to be released in the next few months, yet there are many popular titles which are being neglected – Terminator 3 and Rambo 4 are two such titles which are very much in demand by British SteelBook collectors!

I also believe that quality over quantity isn’t being observed by studios like FOX and Warner Bros, instead flooding the market with any and all titles in their back catalogues simply because they can, regardless of popularity or quality of the finished product. Instead of taking time producing a good quality SteelBook release for popular or cult films which deserve it, they’re churning out some of the worst artwork and poorest quality releases possible!

As others have previously mentioned, many catalogue SteelBook releases are already available for less than a fiver as an Amaray release, yet the same discs are being re-packaged by the studios and being sold at a significantly marked-up price – Zavvi’s Disney / Pixar collections are a prime example of this! The exception to the rule is where a SteelBook is released alongside a regular Amaray release as an alternative form of premium packaging, which is often the case with Arrow and Eureka releases

Thoughts? get in touch!