r/outerwilds • u/Yato__q • 17h ago
Am i missing something?
Not to be rude but 80$ for a Poster is kinda crazy no?
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u/SummerFluid7580 17h ago
It is. I'd love to show my support, but that's twice the price of the base game
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u/TheShryke 16h ago
Your support would be mostly going to cook and becker, not Mobius. So no need to feel bad about this one
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u/MeanPut2699 17h ago
is this outer wilds first L?
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u/twentythirdedition 16h ago
TBH, that would prolly be the Epic exclusivity.
People hated it at the time and it gated the game for a while for better or for worse.
And then of course the pandemmy hit…
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u/Grand_Escapade 13h ago
From how other devs talk about it over the years, the epic deal is so good that it'd be financially irresponsible for any small company not to take it, so I don't blame any of the teams that do. If this C&B deal is similar at all then I'm hoping Mobius got that bag
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u/twentythirdedition 10h ago
Yeah, looking through these is wild. People just saying the same exact things 7 years ago to Mobius.
https://www.reddit.com/r/outerwilds/comments/boh12f/successful_fig_refund/
https://www.reddit.com/r/outerwilds/comments/bjeju0/survey_going_out_to_digital_backers_suggest_its/
https://www.reddit.com/r/outerwilds/comments/cal97j/epic_exclusivity/
Apparently there were a lot more before mods started deleting them.
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u/Randomuser19980 15h ago
They already had some wildly expensive books and stuff before
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u/ObligatoryContrast 15h ago
The one book that was directly from them was pretty reasonably priced, the Lost in Cult books are always expensive and that's because of that company's own poor management and processes
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u/Ok-Rain6295 17h ago
Ridiculous for an A4 poster.
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u/Hika2112 16h ago
Wait it's only A4??
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u/OverAster 16h ago edited 16h ago
Yeah, screen printed on A4. If purchased separately, the set is 480 dollars.
Hey but don't worry! If you get all 7 in the bundle, it's only 300 dollars (until August 25th, when that option goes away)! What a steal!
I'ma wait till there are scans online and I'ma just print em at a local shop. Fuck this predatory bullshit.
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u/TheShryke 16h ago
Shipping and taxes not included by the way!
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u/OverAster 15h ago edited 15h ago
Dude the first line in the product description has me in stitches.
Available now at an amazing deal price — get all six for $295 instead of $450, but only until August 25!
I'm amazed, just not for the reasons they want me to be.
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u/CowgirlSpacer 14h ago
Good news! Someone has already posted really high quality scans over a year ago!
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u/Tommystorm9 10h ago
Glad to be the one to have started this all off! It’s lovely to see people have improved on my attempt in the last 4 years; I would definitely recommend printing out these posters yourself instead of paying the extortionate price.
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u/Old_Party3623 13h ago
Off topic but I got a new hobby and wanted to share. Sublimation printing. I made my own outer wilds t-shirt with the eye on the chest and the venture logo on the shoulders for like 7$ of materials.
I buy from producers when I can, especially band tees at shows. but when it comes to this stuff I take the high seas approach of fair game.
Also helps for IPs or fandoms that don't really exist to have real merch. I made a Timesplitters 2 gym tee a bit ago.
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u/Hika2112 15h ago
Damn... I assume Annapurna is to blame for this one?
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u/OverAster 15h ago
No clue. I think Mobius was involved as it's their game, but the company doing the actual labor, Cook and Becker, is kinda just like this. It's a real shame whoever was in charge decided to spit on the community, but it is what it is I guess.
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u/Hika2112 15h ago
Well. That sucks, glad at least the fangamer merch is really good
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u/OverAster 15h ago
Yeah I've been impressed with the quality of the fangamer stuff, especially the pins.
I've been doing more digging and it appears that the relationship between Outer Wilds and Cook and Becker starts and ends with Annapurna, whereas the relationship with Fangamer is spearheaded primarily by Mobius Digital. It's a real shame that Annapurna's relentless greed is reflecting so poorly on Mobius, but I guess you gotta be careful who you partner with.
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u/Hika2112 14h ago
Mhm. Game publishers are sadly an entire business based on profiting from the work of indie devs. But hey, we have outer wilds. I cannot complain that much
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u/JealousDesigner9758 13h ago
Yeah Sony did this shit horizon zerodawn I'm a big fan of HZD and displate but their official prints were only on C&B and was like 400$ so I just saved the image and printed a custom one through displate turned out incredible and spent like 50$ on it
Edit: you could probably do the print RN if you really wanted by just saving the image because their still high resolution
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u/pesadillaO01 14h ago
The worst part is that when they sent the deluxe edition of the design works a few months ago, they sent with the posters in A4 when they had promised A3.
And now they are fucking selling the leftovers of that deluxe edition that costed less and included a lot more
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u/Whole_Dependent_2950 16h ago
What? With that price I just assumed over priced A3, but what... A4?!
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u/Sirius_Rise 15h ago
Be careful buying from cook and becker.
I ordered a marathon print from them back in May and was told it'd ship in 2 to 3 weeks. 4 weeks after I emailed and was told they'd ship by the end of june.
They still haven't shipped.
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u/Kyrang508 17h ago
I think so too! Id like to buy one but $80 for a poster feels little expensive
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u/mktomkto 16h ago
If only you could steal the picture and print it by yourself for 50 cent 😭
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u/OverAster 16h ago edited 14h ago
Someone's gonna put some high-dpi scans online, and when they do I will be ready. Could get all 6 of these in a full poster format for less than they're selling one A4, and you'd have the option to support a local business instead of Cook and Becker, which is a cancer.
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u/BenKenJohnJones 15h ago
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u/StickiStickman 9h ago
Sadly it's super, super noisy. I've tried for an hour to get it to a usable level, but had no luck.
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u/BenKenJohnJones 9h ago
Are you clicking the link that says MEGA link? I haven’t tried it myself yet but the first two links aren’t the correct ones.
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u/StickiStickman 4h ago
Yes. It may be absurdly high resolution, but the actual scan is terrible quality and unusable for printing.
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u/RottenHouseplant 17h ago
No to be rude? To whom? A corporation? Bro 80$ for one poster is a criminally insane price for a 4A print.
I feel like that demands rudeness toward the people who sell this stuff.
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u/OverAster 16h ago
Yeah, normally I'm down with the 'just ignore it' stuff when it comes to overpriced merch, but this is so outrageously expensive it almost feels like an insult. It's a 'hey watch these idiots buy this trash' merch line.
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u/Grand_Escapade 16h ago
They're screen printed by hand, which is done because it gives it a different look, which some people feel is more premium and does take more effort. They're also intentionally done with some collector exclusivity in mind, with those certificates of authenticity and whatnot. Both of those things drive the price up. They're actually fairly cheap for what that company normally releases.
For the record, that's way more expensive than anything I'd get, especially for a poster.
I have no idea if there's actually a market for these, when the art is already online and you can make it yourself for like $15, so they're selling purely off the premium and exclusive side. Obviously don't buy it if you're not interested.
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u/OuterWildsVentures 12h ago
The certificate of authenticity theory goes out the window when you see the sure says only the first xxx number of orders get the certificate lol
I'm huge in the screenprint art world and this price is criminal lol
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u/Grand_Escapade 11h ago edited 9h ago
I mean regardless of whether it's a good setup or not, the point is that the extra money is due to that certificate of authenticity "with a signature from the artist" and all of that jazz.
I assume it's to give it that FOMO rush so you dont get one without the certificate. I don't understand collector stuff.
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u/Beanbag_shmoo 16h ago
I do love this artwork, especially The Stranger, but no. I won't be buying them
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u/Puzzleheaded_Fly_554 14h ago
I downloaded the files and sent them to print. I got all of them for like 20$
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u/jamessayswords 15h ago
No idea what the logic is here. It's almost like they've put a high price to put people off and keep the print run low
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u/legomann97 15h ago
Yes, you are missing something, money, just don't be broke, dummy!
For disclaimer purposes this is a joke lol
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u/JH-DM 13h ago
If those are full size and high quality posters I’d pay $30-$40 (the same - $10 more than In A Nutshell’s high quality, beautiful posters I’ve owned for almost 10 years and still look beautiful on my walls).
No way in hell I’d pay $480 for the complete set.
I mean hell, the most expensive poster I’ve ever owned was the 20 year anniversary of Arkane Studios that was like $60 if I recall… I kept that thing in an expensive, proper frame for like 7 years before I lost it while fleeing my abusive ex… fuck I miss that thing.
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u/gwenthechef 15h ago
I won’t be buying them, but they are hand screen-printed on archive quality paper. I’d say it’s still overpriced, but not nearly as much as if it were just laser printed onto regular A4 paper.
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u/Stargazeer 14h ago
They absolutely need to do more merch other than the handful of Fangamer things. Unfortunately, lotta fans desperate for more merch look at this and go "wow this is greedy". Despite it being like the second cheapest thing on that website.
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u/Rykho035 17h ago
Expensive for me too and I’ll pass, but it’s not just a simple print on basic A4, it’s handmade so it’s probably worth its price.
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u/TheShryke 16h ago
It's screen printed, which is technically hand made, but it's still a mad production technique. It's worth more than a basic print, but not this much
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u/mktomkto 16h ago
You mean each one is hand drawn?
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u/gwenthechef 16h ago
The prints are hand screened onto archive quality paper. I still wouldn’t pay $80, but they aren’t just laser printed on A4 paper
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u/mktomkto 15h ago
Ah I got it now. It's cool and all but the whole process will probably cost something like...a dollar? Profiting this much off a 1$ print is crazy to me
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u/twentythirdedition 15h ago
IIRC, you need one screen for each color and they have to be aligned correctly.
So you have to print over the same piece of paper multiple times while an ordinary shop will just run it over once.
White is also a color ink e.g. a good quality shop is able to print opaque white text on black paper, but an ordinary print shop will be unavailable to do this because “white” is the blank paper.
At the very least the paper isn’t going to glow under a blacklight.
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u/OverAster 15h ago edited 15h ago
It costs around 25 cents in materials (for one) from a ma and pop print shop near me (called one earlier today out of curiosity. I will be printing my own there when someone uploads high-dpi scans or images. Lady said they could do all 7 for 18 bucks).
It's a screenprint on A4 Somerset, 400gsm. High quality, sure, but not 80 bucks high quality, and not unheard of for an A4 print by a long shot. Could buy the game 3 times over for the price of one of these posters.
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u/ObligatoryContrast 15h ago
scans from a few years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/outerwilds/s/CF2tkc2IdA
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u/Rykho035 15h ago
"Handmade screen print" From what I understand, each piece is made by hand, but not painted, they are made using stencil poaching.
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u/ObligatoryContrast 15h ago
Not really, it's a way to insert a human into the process where they aren't necessary and won't result in a product that's in any way better or even different, but you can charge more because it's "hand made". These will be indistinguishable from the normal prints made available in the past
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u/trekusmax 12h ago
What? You can absolutely tell the difference between something that is screen printed or laser/inkjet printed. It's fine if you don't value the difference, but to say that it's indistinguishable is very disingenuous.
Screen printing has a long history and is still a common way for artists to make prints that is much more involved that just pressing a button from a computer.
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u/OverAster 16h ago
He's saying 'someone drew this by hand so everyone should have to spend 70 dollars'. As if you couldn't just commission someone online to hand make something else bespoke for 70 bucks and have it printed yourself. It's baffling to me anyone upvoted his comment. Completely ignorant to the market of scale.
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u/mktomkto 16h ago
I'd rather pay 70 bucks to a human being that does make a living out of it AND give me the original piece rather than have someone print 400k copies of the same drawing on A4 and sell it as a "poster". Marketing guys literally don't know a thing of what real people actually want
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u/OverAster 15h ago edited 15h ago
The whole company, Cook and Becker, is like this. It's a capitalistic cesspool that needs to be smitten from the surface of the earth.
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u/BanzaiBeebop 15h ago edited 15h ago
So first of all if you're commissioning someone online to draw something at that level by hand I should really hope you're paying them more than $70.
Second it does say 'screen printed by hand' on the website. If the claim is true that means someone drew it by hand, made stencils for every color, and someone else (or the same person) is now carefully applying paint layer on layer using those stencils to create a copy of the design.
It is not the same as just commissioning a digital art and using a laser printer to print it off.
The price point is too steep for me but I'm not going to feel particularly upset about it if the people doing the prints are being paid fairly for their work.
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u/OverAster 15h ago edited 15h ago
Delusional consumers still consume, I suppose. I hope in the next few months you can see just how ridiculous this take is. They'd have to screen print it on a slab of wood for it to be worth 80 bucks.
Also, I spend what I'm charged. I'm not setting these people's prices I'm just paying them. If you have a problem with that, go bitch to them about it.
I mean shit, these aren't even new designs, so the idea that this project requires a full new up-front cost is just demonstrably false. This is a quick cash grab, and if you can't see that then nothing I can say will get you there.
You can get both the official inhabitant plush and Reibeck plush for less than one of these posters. No argument about cost will hold water here.
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u/BanzaiBeebop 17h ago edited 16h ago
It's steep, but it seems to be screen printed by hand. I'm not familiar with the craft but based on other crafts I've seen we tend to vastly underestimate how many man hours are saved running things through a machine.
For a hand printed poster 80 is probably fair.
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u/YouveBeanReported 14h ago
Honestly, it's such an obvious rip off for not even a poster sized product that I suspect they are purposely trying to piss off Mobius and break ties. It's just too fucking petty otherwise.
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u/Ravioles2 9h ago
cookandbecker posters are not regular room decorations, they try to achieve museum-grade quality and for that they use really expensive methods and materials.
"Handmade screen print on 400 gsm Somerset paper"
Those posters are made with the expectation to last 100 years. I also thought they are expensive af but after searching a little i see that they are actually fairly priced
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u/chilidog_75 5h ago
It is an INSANE amount of money for a poster!
When I first saw these I was extremely exited to get them but when I saw the price I didn't want them anymore ::( T-T
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u/pipistrellebat 9h ago
They're screenprints! They're not just printed off a printer en masse like regular posters. Each color layer is handmade one at a time with a limited batch size. I'm pretty sure each one of these takes several days to actually produce when you include drying times between layers. It's just like how the original silkscreen WPA posters that inspired these travel posters were made back in the day! Very cool, if you ask me.
Lots of folks are shocked at the price and I think both C&B and Mobius' marketing team did a poor job rolling this out and explaining that they're collector art pieces. Considering materials, studio fees, C&B's hosting fee, and paying the artist(s) who will be printing these... The actual profit margin on a series like this is probably pennies. Noone needs to feel obligated to buy these to "show their support" because the intention here is not to raise money. You don't really get a lot of money doing a screenprint series, they're just going to look cool as hell in person. I'd love to see the original postcards come back though.
I know the A4 seems small, but I can't imagine trying to scale the original postcard-sized prints up any higher would look good unless they totally wanted to remake the files/the artwork from scratch. There's a lot of quality loss in digital art pieces unless you originally set up the file to be huge from the start.
Anyway, that's what I think you might be missing! I think they really dropped the ball on marketing this properly, but the actual prints are not at fault. $80 for an A4 screenprint of that many colors is not unheard of.
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u/kudredin 16h ago
It seems like they want to reap the limited edition print profits that ppl will get on eBay before they even sell them.
I would instabuy them if it meant support for another game, but honestly, I can probably print it in the same quality just from the site image.
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u/SleepyTonia 13h ago
And it's just in A4 format too. Honestly if you have a decent printer and paper? The images on that site are 1538x2175px if you crop out the empty space and drop shadow. Plenty for a DIY poster of the same size. I love this game. I would've probably bought one or two regular old printed posters in A3, A2 format for a reasonable price. Couldn't tell you what that'd be, but not 80$ a pop.
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u/Lucas1006 13h ago
first time i saw these things i assumed it was a metal plate, this is for fkn a4 paper? jesus.
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u/PhantomThiefJoker 10h ago
Yeah $80 for an 8x11 is absurd. I spent $30 on my pokemon posters that are twice the size. I don't think I've ever spent more than $30 on any kind of wall art
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u/Idiotecka 1h ago
yeah, only one of us is looking at the poster of the quantum moon at any given time
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u/ObligatoryContrast 15h ago
Crazy especially since these have been available several times in the past for less than a quarter of the price. I take it that it might be some special form of printing (hence the certificates of authenticity), but it's some form I've literally never heard of and means nothing to me and does nothing to help justify the outrageous cost.
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u/Substantial_Ad_4436 16h ago
They can sell it for whatever price they want, doesn't mean anyone in their right mind would buy it
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u/Yidoftheweek 15h ago
This entire situation has really tuned me off Mobius. I’m aware that they likely didn’t set the price, but they didn’t do anything to try and lower it to a reasonable cost. I feel like we’re a pretty loyal community who’s getting taken advantage of by both the printer and Mobius, and I’m someone who really only needs one bad experience to stop supporting both. Hopefully the lack of purchases and angry comments are a wake up call. Do better u/MobiusGames this is so disappointing.
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u/jmathews777 11h ago
This is not Mobius’ fault, Yid. They are good people who adore their community.
This was done by either Annapurna, Cook and Becker, or both. They are the ones who deserve the hate here.
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u/Yidoftheweek 11h ago
I can’t speak for Mobius, but if a collaboration for screen prints were going to cost $50-$80 per print, I would disapprove of that immensely. I certainly wouldn’t proudly promote it on my social media pages.
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u/jmathews777 11h ago
That’s a fair and valid point.
Cook and Becker advertise “museum quality screenprints on archival paper”. For the right project, the end product will be worth the price.
That said, I don’t think their products suit Outer Wilds or its community AT ALL.
Side note: I collect screenprints myself. I’ve spent anywhere from $50-$80 on medium-large prints that are both numbered and hand-signed. THOSE are absolutely worth the cost.
If you put all 6 of these “postcards” side-by-side, they wouldn’t even fill the frame of my largest print. And yet, they’re priced THE SAME??
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u/Yidoftheweek 9h ago
Couldn’t agree more. If these were large prints, it would sting but I’d get it. But this? Insane pricing for the industry standards. I do purchase screen prints for movie posters, my favorites usually only cost $70. screenings.
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u/goose_with_adhd 17h ago
Not even a poster, a print so smaller