Again Zavvi is a RETAILER....HOWEVER taking in the communities feedback and our responses over the past year they can easily turn around to the studio who is doing the Steelbook and tell them that it's probably not going to sell aswell because people dislike the artwork. They could easily say "At the end of the day if you want better sales and want us to sell most of these copies at full price instead of us having to lower it to get rid of them you should think about your art choices, the community, your main audience isn't happy."
It benefits us, it benefits Zavvi, it benefits the studio...we all win
You're being serious or is your tongue firmly in your cheek?
Are you saying that Zavvi should consult hdn and all the other forums to see what their members think about the artwork allocated to each and every steelbook release - maybe take a vote each time?
Apart from time expended on this eccentric notion this will undoubtedly cost money which will not be reflected favourably in the final price of the steelbook I imagine.
The fact remains that there must be hundreds or thousands of people who buy steelbooks and who are not part of a forum like this and who may have no wish to be and who may be perfectly happy with most of the artwork chosen by whoever is paid to choose the artwork just because they like their favourite films in metal cases instead of grotty blue plastic ones..
I imagine the results speak for themselves - out of the 700 or so U.K. steelbooks released since the first in 2008 (Play.com's 'Sweeney Todd' with booklet) I wonder how many of those are now OOP. I haven't checked this yet but I imagine the percentage is pretty high . . .
Anyway, IMO it doesn't matter which artwork is chosen because no matter which is chosen there will always be grumblers - as John Lydgate wrote "You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time".
There will be those happy with artwork from an original poster or artwork specially commissioned from a famous artist or even pop art style - each to their own.
In conclusion: I'd say that selling steelbooks must be working for Zavvi no matter the choices of artwork as why else would they be getting so many exclusives every month?
Surely if the steelbooks weren't selling well and accumulating in warehouses they would soon change tack and maybe either cut back on the number of releases or price each one more reasonably to start with in order to sell them quicker? You can't have a business losing money month after month - that would be suicide.
They must be making good money out of steelbooks and that's despite reducing the prices on many several months after release.
Of course I have no idea how much a steelbook costs Zavvi to buy but would it be any more than a fiver I wonder?
EDIT 15/6 : You may have a point. . .
Just noticed the new artwork for 'Silver Linings Playbook' on the relevant hdn forum though this new artwork is not shown on the pre-order page at Zavvi for some reason.
EDIT 19/6 : New artwork now showing at Zavvi for 'S L P'.
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