Comic-Con minifigures

[purpleparadox]

AJFDLKSLKFJKSLD!

Seriously Lego, stop it! STOP IT! :(

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-York-Comic-Con-EXCLUSIVE-Lego-TMNT-Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles-Black-NYCC-/330808871719?pt=Building_Toys_US&hash=item4d05becb27

I hope there's some that are sold for a sane price... but I highly doubt it.

Actually, I think that's a GREAT idea for a Comic-Con figure! It's a kinda out-there variant (I mean, it's black, not green) so it won't hurt anyone's character collections if they don't get it. Thank you LEGO!

[Sam892]

AJFDLKSLKFJKSLD!

Seriously Lego, stop it! STOP IT! :(

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-York-Comic-Con-EXCLUSIVE-Lego-TMNT-Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles-Black-NYCC-/330808871719?pt=Building_Toys_US&hash=item4d05becb27

I hope there's some that are sold for a sane price... but I highly doubt it.

The figure hasn't been given out yet, its just some guy who got it early and is trying to make a load. This happened at SDCC this year. Before the figs were released there was one on eBay for $400. The price goes down but it affects all the other prices as others who put there's on eBay see the stupid price and think its correct. The only reason they pick a lower price is because they are undercutting each other.

On another note my Comic con Marvel figures came yesterday and I am very happy. Both figures are great.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Sam892

[BrickG]

These are going for more than the other exclusives!

Dark Turtle and Kraang are going for like $250-300 each and a lot have already sold! For the love of Legos...

[Legoroni]

I think Wondercon would be big enough for Lego to come to.

[Borex]

I think Lego needs to sell those exclusives on ebay themselves. They would make a nice dollar out of it for a dinner in a luxurious restaurant in San Diego.

[Esurient]

I think Lego needs to sell those exclusives on ebay themselves. They would make a nice dollar out of it for a dinner in a luxurious restaurant in San Diego.

who knows?

[SoupOrFishOil]

FBTB posted an article yesterday about how it seems LEGO has rigged the raffle.

[Spider-Man]

FBTB posted an article yesterday about how it seems LEGO has rigged the raffle.

I've read the article, and the corresponding story and comments on Brickset and all I can say is that it sounds like a lot of sour grapes. There is no hard evidence that anything was rigged and a lot of people that were actually there report having a different experience. And in the case it was rigged to give them out to kids then all I can say is, who cares? LEGO is first and foremost a kids toy and I would much rather have these figures go to kids that will play with them rather then to a scalper just looking to make a quick buck.

[Jargo]

Quite honestly, I think Lego need to go back to giving away printed bricks and posters. Something that would be exclusive to the event but not cause this widespread angst. Minifigures do bring in a lot of custom for Lego but at the end of the day they are a company making building blocks and that should be the focus.

As for the people who pay vast amounts of money for tiny little plastic figures, there's an old adage that rings true: "A fool and his money are soon parted". Said fools ruin it for everyone else. Thus proving that greed is not good. Greed is very, very bad. As is elitism. Which is often displayed by those who simply must be the first to have that product and crow about it in a nasty little video dressed up as a review.

There's a horrible dark shadow hanging over the world of Lego and it's adult shaped.Many people need to have a serious word with themselves.

[dgherko]

I wrote a letter to Lego and will wait for their response before posting, I will say to defeat the secondary market and not create a fire hazard on the florr of the convention center, Lego just needs to make thousands of the exclusive figures, sell them for five dollars each (one to each attendee) and sell the remainder to VIP

I was there on Thursday, and it was bad enough that they screwed up this give away again this year as they have the past several years, but the staff was "surley" to say the least. I paid for five plane tickets, admission fees, rental cars, hotel rooms and costumes for three teenage boys my wife and I. I just wanted to see their display, I was underwehlmed. The trip was a great success for my boys.

The only Lego I walked away with was a series three elf I found at the far end of the floor. The booth owner allow me to feel through the packaging and I paid five bucks for my 42nd Elf.

Edited July 30, 2013 by dgherko

[Sam892]

I've read the article, and the corresponding story and comments on Brickset and all I can say is that it sounds like a lot of sour grapes. There is no hard evidence that anything was rigged and a lot of people that were actually there report having a different experience. And in the case it was rigged to give them out to kids then all I can say is, who cares? LEGO is first and foremost a kids toy and I would much rather have these figures go to kids that will play with them rather then to a scalper just looking to make a quick buck.

I haven't decided whether it was rigged or not and I haven't seen enough evidence yet. However I understand why people would be angry if this is true.

First off if LEGO wants to give them to kids just put an age limit on the giveaway, I think the main problem is that LEGO has lied to people. If I had been told everyone had an equal chance and I didn't when compared to someone else I would be upset as well.

The second problem is that many people got back in the queue to try and win a Minifigure. Some people spent a lot of time trying to get a fig by joining the end of the line again and again. Now if they had nearly no chance of winning because of their age, then they have wasted precious time they could have used else where. At somewhere like SDCC there's lots of cool stuff going on and to miss some cool things because your trying to get, an cool Exculsive figure must be frustrating for many if its rigged.

[CopMike]

From TLG in the Ambassador forum:

We appreciate your concerns and thoughts on this.

We are aware of the perception that the article shares on the raffle and we have ensured that our colleagues in the US are or will become aware of it as well as soon as possible.

Thanks again for bringing this to our attention.

[Sam892]

After reading some more of the three articles FBTB has posted in regards to this, it does look very fishy. Hopefully LEGO will issue another statement in a few days stating whether it was or wasn't fixed. If it was I would rather LEGO tell us that it was. What is clear is that next LEGO need to improve a lot at SDCC.

[Aanchir]

I do not think TLG had bad intentions if they did in fact rig the raffle to give preference to kids. However, it is still ethically questionable to give adults who entered the raffle a false sense of hope. If TLG wanted to show preference to kids, which would be a very legitimate goal, they could have done something different. For instance, have two raffles—one for adults, one for kids—with a larger percentage of the prize pool offered through the kids' raffle than through the adults' raffle. That way any adult who enters the raffle knows what they're getting into.

I do not think this is any reason to eliminate exclusive minifigures entirely, though. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing wrong with exclusive minifigures. Not once have I read anything about an exclusive minifigure doing any kind of real harm to anyone. They're really just meant as souvenirs for visiting the LEGO booth at these kind of events, and I don't see anything wrong with that. It's not like they prevent similar figs from appearing in sets or do any harm to the current status of anyone's collection. Completionists may dislike them, but really if you're not willing and able to obtain the fig by any means you consider reasonable, then for all intents and purposes it doesn't make a difference to your collection that such a fig was ever created. Once it's in the aftermarket it's effectively no different than a fig created for TLG's internal use that got leaked to the public, like the George Lucas minifigure.

[Sam892]

I do not think TLG had bad intentions if they did in fact rig the raffle to give preference to kids. However, it is still ethically questionable to give adults who entered the raffle a false sense of hope. If TLG wanted to show preference to kids, which would be a very legitimate goal, they could have done something different. For instance, have two raffles—one for adults, one for kids—with a larger percentage of the prize pool offered through the kids' raffle than through the adults' raffle. That way any adult who enters the raffle knows what they're getting into.

I do not think this is any reason to eliminate exclusive minifigures entirely, though. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing wrong with exclusive minifigures. Not once have I read anything about an exclusive minifigure doing any kind of real harm to anyone. They're really just meant as souvenirs for visiting the LEGO booth at these kind of events, and I don't see anything wrong with that. It's not like they prevent similar figs from appearing in sets or do any harm to the current status of anyone's collection. Completionists may dislike them, but really if you're not willing and able to obtain the fig by any means you consider reasonable, then for all intents and purposes it doesn't make a difference to your collection that such a fig was ever created. Once it's in the aftermarket it's effectively no different than a fig created for TLG's internal use that got leaked to the public, like the George Lucas minifigure.

I don't have a problem with either Exclusives or giving them to kids but I feel that SDCC isn't the best place. Mainly because you have to be over 12 years old to go into the con. This isn't LEGOs main Age group still, and to me anyone between the ages of 12 and 20 is a teenager. Also making people wait in a line for a long period of time when they never had a chance to win is unacceptable really.

[Faefrost]

I think those articles illustrate pretty much everything that is ethically bad or unsound with the nature of these exclusives. It just illustrates that the Lego marketing people ave no idea what sort of venue it is hey are attending. They have no idea exactly who their exclusive figures are for, or who the actual target audience or customers is for these, or why doing it this way is essentially pissing on that target audience. They give these things to kids innocently, seeming to fail to realize that all they have done is rigged it so some folks get to exploit their kids for profits.

What exactly does this exclusivity of these figures gain Lego? What is the benefit to them? Yeah it drives foot traffic to their booth, but it overwhelms the products actually being presented. It pisses off heir real fans, who have no chance to get these, all for the apparent obscene benefit of questionable third party sleazy eBay merchants.

So once again, how does Lego benefit from this? There are some exclusives that work very well. The I Love NY Yoda is a great example. It's topical. It's special. But it's more of a soveneir. It's neat to have but the true fan or collector will not miss it if they don't have it. It is a unique variant, not a unique character. Lego would get much better attention, PR and goodwill by making these type figs more broadly available. In store or s@h bonus's. promo things like the chrome red key chain to VIPs, etc. spread the love around a bit so the fans feel it. Making only 1000 pieces that are given out in a single sweaty mercenary nerd fest is just stupid. It's poor business. Or rather it is putting a group of sleazy third parties business needs over yours.

[Navy Trooper Fenson]

And in the case it was rigged to give them out to kids then all I can say is, who cares? LEGO is first and foremost a kids toy and I would much rather have these figures go to kids that will play with them rather then to a scalper just looking to make a quick buck.

If they care about children getting those figures they should sell them.

Like in a set.

Make it available in toy stores and supermarkets.

Those exclusive figures aren´t exclusive variations that only neckbeards care about. Shazam, Phoenix, Spider-Woman, Amazing Spider-Man. Those are characters in their basic costumes. You can´t just make those important outfits a 1000 fig run and be done with it. Looking at Amazing Spider-Man it at least looks like the SDCC figs aren´t completely exclusive but more Pre-Releases of figs that can happen in the future. If that´s the case I don´t mind it. Make all the exclusive figs like Azog or NY Yoda. Either a pre-release or some variation that has no real bearing on the work it comes from. The aforementioned heroes are all vital to many stories and making them unattainable for most of the public, let alone most adult like on this years con, is just ruining your product line and making people angry.

And if LEGO really is trying to fight against aftermarket prices (as if they would actually care, looking at their current set style for licensed properties it looks more like they wallow in the misery that the aftermarket and the retards that push prices into those abnormal positions create) they have a problem with the inherent concept of a comic-con exclusive.

I think those articles illustrate pretty much everything that is ethically bad or unsound with the nature of these exclusives. It just illustrates that the Lego marketing people ave no idea what sort of venue it is hey are attending. They have no idea exactly who their exclusive figures are for, or who the actual target audience or customers is for these, or why doing it this way is essentially pissing on that target audience. They give these things to kids innocently, seeming to fail to realize that all they have done is rigged it so some folks get to exploit their kids for profits.

What exactly does this exclusivity of these figures gain Lego? What is the benefit to them? Yeah it drives foot traffic to their booth, but it overwhelms the products actually being presented. It pisses off heir real fans, who have no chance to get these, all for the apparent obscene benefit of questionable third party sleazy eBay merchants.

So once again, how does Lego benefit from this? There are some exclusives that work very well. The I Love NY Yoda is a great example. It's topical. It's special. But it's more of a soveneir. It's neat to have but the true fan or collector will not miss it if they don't have it. It is a unique variant, not a unique character. Lego would get much better attention, PR and goodwill by making these type figs more broadly available. In store or s@h bonus's. promo things like the chrome red key chain to VIPs, etc. spread the love around a bit so the fans feel it. Making only 1000 pieces that are given out in a single sweaty mercenary nerd fest is just stupid. It's poor business. Or rather it is putting a group of sleazy third parties business needs over yours.

This. Just this.

And my other gripe with the whole situation:

There were numerous Comic-Con figs available on Ebay days before their giveaways started. Some sellers had as much as TWENTY of each fig. I would like LEGO to search for the person that´s responsible and do something. Those people aren´t just scalpers and hypocrites but also thieves. This isn´t just regular malevolence but criminal behavior.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Navy Trooper Fenson

[Aanchir]

I think those articles illustrate pretty much everything that is ethically bad or unsound with the nature of these exclusives. It just illustrates that the Lego marketing people ave no idea what sort of venue it is hey are attending. They have no idea exactly who their exclusive figures are for, or who the actual target audience or customers is for these, or why doing it this way is essentially pissing on that target audience. They give these things to kids innocently, seeming to fail to realize that all they have done is rigged it so some folks get to exploit their kids for profits.

What exactly does this exclusivity of these figures gain Lego? What is the benefit to them? Yeah it drives foot traffic to their booth, but it overwhelms the products actually being presented. It pisses off heir real fans, who have no chance to get these, all for the apparent obscene benefit of questionable third party sleazy eBay merchants.

So once again, how does Lego benefit from this? There are some exclusives that work very well. The I Love NY Yoda is a great example. It's topical. It's special. But it's more of a soveneir. It's neat to have but the true fan or collector will not miss it if they don't have it. It is a unique variant, not a unique character. Lego would get much better attention, PR and goodwill by making these type figs more broadly available. In store or s@h bonus's. promo things like the chrome red key chain to VIPs, etc. spread the love around a bit so the fans feel it. Making only 1000 pieces that are given out in a single sweaty mercenary nerd fest is just stupid. It's poor business. Or rather it is putting a group of sleazy third parties business needs over yours.

The benefit is that it drives attention to their booth and ensures people who visit will remember what they saw there. It's not really connected in any way to TLG's more widespread methods of minifigure distribution. These are just figs that are produced in small batches for the event. Minifigures produced in the tens of thousands for sets or promotions for the general public are minifigures that TLG expects to be able to sell in those quantities.

I don't see what's poor business about doing something that improves media exposure but doesn't in any way harm collectors who can't make it to the event. And I imagine everyone in LEGO's core audience who knows about these figs will think "that's pretty cool", not "the LEGO Group doesn't care about me as much as the people at Comic-Con". After all, as a kid, not getting everything you want is an everyday reality, and having a complete collection is usually a lofty ideal, not the bare minimum for satisfaction. Otherwise things like Pokémon cards, which are made to be extremely difficult to collect, would not be so successful. I used to look at all the extremely exclusive promo cards in magazines, and my thought was never "man, this is so unfair that I can't get these", but rather "this is so cool; wouldn't it be amazing if I could be this lucky one day?"

I can't think of any other way to describe the bitterness I see over these promotional items in the AFOL community other than a sense of entitlement. And I highly doubt the average kid lets this kind of thing get under their skin. It certainly didn't happen in the BIONICLE community, where the extremely rare Kanohi masks given away as contest prizes and promotional items a cause not for complaints, but celebration. Even today, it seems every time another one of these rare masks is sold on eBay it brings out a wave of happy nostalgia among the members of BIONICLE fansites. Some complain that the aftermarket price is unreasonable and you'd have to be crazy to pay it, but nobody ever suggests that the aftermarket price is the LEGO Group's fault for coming out with those exclusive items in the first place, or that it's "unfair" that those items weren't made more widely available.

If they care about children getting those figures they should sell them.

Like in a set.

Make it available in toy stores and supermarkets.

But you don't understand. It's not a choice between "release these figures in sets" and "release these figures as exclusives". The figures will be released in sets if TLG decides there's demand. Most of the time, to generate demand, it has to either be a timeless and instantly-recognizable character like Batman or Superman, or a set that ties in with some franchise that's being heavily promoted already like The Avengers or Man of Steel. I'm confident TLG determines what characters to put in sets without giving any significant thought to what has previously been an exclusive or what might be an exclusive in the future, because sets are invariably FAR more important than these exclusives and set designers know better than to let a "freebie" from the past limit the minifigure production that is an actual, meaningful part of their business.

Obscure characters in their default costumes, or main characters in obscure costumes, are less reliable sellers than main characters in their default costumes. Shazam is a character I had never heard of growing up. Not once. I first learned about the character through Wikipedia. I can't say I had ever heard of Spider-Woman before Wikipedia either. But Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, and Wolverine are practically household names. Even Aquaman, despite being the butt of many jokes, is still less obscure than many of these characters, because he's a very familiar face from most television and comic book incarnations of the Justice League.

I did know of Venom through video game reviews and Spider-Man 3, and of Bizarro through Seinfeld. :P And as we saw, Venom DID end up in a set. Bizarro still might easily show up in a set if he appears prominently in a Superman movie or cartoon, or if TLG decides there's demand for a Superman set other than a specific tie-in and need to borrow a familiar foe of his other than Lex Luthor. The same is true of any of these characters, really. But to appear in sets, they have to effectively compete against the more mainstream characters' more familiar allies and foes. The more people recognize a character, the more that character will help boost the sales of a set they're in.

No matter what costume an "exclusive" fig appears in, they can still show up in that same costume in a set if TLG determines there's demand. After all, look at the Harry Potter theme. There are several outfits in that theme that are ostensibly derived from the same source material, but which have been re-imagined throughout the theme's lifespan according to changing minifigure design standards. Same goes for LEGO Star Wars. The original figs from the early 2000s have almost all been re-imagined into newer and fresher forms by now, without changing the costume they're supposed to represent. So there's no logic to the idea that making the figure's default costume into an exclusive fig precludes the possibility of it ever appearing in a non-exclusive fig. A minifigure is always an abstraction of a real person or character, and there's always more than one way to translate the same person or character into minifigure form, even without changing their costume one bit.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Aanchir

[Faefrost]

It's not a sense if entitlement. It is a failure to fully understand the nature of ones audience and customer base is, and what their own actual product is.

Here's the problem. The Super Heroes. The Comic Book based figs. This is really where most of the pure hate is coming from. And TBH it is not entirely unjustified. In the past year or two Lego has been releasing their highly successful Superhero lines. And yet the comic con figs rather clearly show that at a minimum their marketing people do not fully grasp what the allure is to this product line. In their previous licensed lines like Star Wars or Indiana Jones or PotC while important, and a major driving force of set sales, the individual characters were not really the core of the sets. Star Wars is ultimately all about the cool ships and scenes. And the actual pool of characters is somewhat limited. The characters are there to populate the sets.

But what the TLG marketing people rather clearly have totally failed to grasp is something that any fan of comics or superheroes could have told them. For Superheroes, this relationship flips. Rather drastically. While in SW and PotC the characters and Minifigs are there to populate the sets, in Superheroes the only purpose of the sets is to give the characters someplace to stand. The draw, the focus, the actual product is the unique and colorful characters. And they all have stories. Every single one of them has as much story as Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. And as such they all each have their fans. And they are what brings the fans out to buy the products. For the super hero lines the characters are never bonus materials. They are the core product, and the customers reasonably expect to be able to purchase them from the company. Even with or in spite of the draw of "collectibility". Restricting a portion of the core product in this manner is legitimately infuriating to this customer base.

If you were a SW fan, how would you feel if TLG put together and packaged up an absolutely perfect UCS AT-AT, and then handed out 100 of them at ComicCon, never to be seen or made again? How would the Harry Potter fans feel if only 1000 Ron figures were ever made and they would never have any chance to even see one? For Hobbit fans, what if the only way to complete your set of Dwarves was to get one of the lucky 1000 13th Dwarves handed out at a single nerd fest? What impact would that have on your desire to hand over money to the merchant to get the other 12?

The problem is not that they are doing convention exclusives. It is that they are using unique and in many cases fairly popular characters for those exclusives, thus eliminating any chance that they will be made in regular production mechanisms that the paying customers have access to. Using a variant or recolor for a con exclusive is fine. It creates a neat novel collectables. Using the only version of a character that will ever be available as a con exclusive is a marketing move on par with peeing on ones customers.

[GregoryBrick]

If you were a SW fan, how would you feel if TLG put together and packaged up an absolutely perfect UCS AT-AT, and then handed out 100 of them at ComicCon, never to be seen or made again? How would the Harry Potter fans feel if only 1000 Ron figures were ever made and they would never have any chance to even see one? For Hobbit fans, what if the only way to complete your set of Dwarves was to get one of the lucky 1000 13th Dwarves handed out at a single nerd fest? What impact would that have on your desire to hand over money to the merchant to get the other 12?

I don't know how much anecdotes will change your position, but would you believe me if my response is and would be 'Huh. Look at that, I guess I won't be able to get that set/figure/whatever. Oh well'? Because that's entirely my attitude.

EDIT: Why does the use of 'unique and fairly popular characters for these exclusives . . . eliminat[e] any chance that they will be made in regular production mechanisms'? Apologies if it was already explained in the thread and I missed it.

Edited July 31, 2013 by GregoryBrick

[Faefrost]

I don't know how much anecdotes will change your position, but would you believe me if my response is and would be 'Huh. Look at that, I guess I won't be able to get that set/figure/whatever. Oh well'? Because that's entirely my attitude.

EDIT: Why does the use of 'unique and fairly popular characters for these exclusives . . . eliminat[e] any chance that they will be made in regular production mechanisms'? Apologies if it was already explained in the thread and I missed it.

If Lego maintains their normal approach to exclusives, then it is simply that there really are no other variants to be made. Case in point Spider Woman. Now Lego can reverse previous policy and start producing these (which would cause an uproar in the collector speculator market) or they can leave them buried forever.

[Paul Boratko]

I can't wait to see how people lose their minds when Lego releases a Stan Lee Comic Con minifig...

[Sam892]

Reading a lot of these comment one point that keeps coming up is that it attracts attention to the LEGO both.

Here's where that isn't a good thing on the Thursday there were so many people pushing and shuving at the booth that Fights broke out. Due to this event organisers made LEGO stop Fridays giveaway. Here fans of LEGO trying to look at the new sets were bullied out of the booth by scalpers, how is this good?

After this the following 3 days the giveaway was held at a different location, it was on the next floor which meant that it didn't attract people to the LEGO booth. So anyone in line for these figs on those days didn't even have to go to the booth and look at the new sets.

[Paul Boratko]

Reading a lot of these comment one point that keeps coming up is that it attracts attention to the LEGO both.

Here's where that isn't a good thing on the Thursday there were so many people pushing and shuving at the booth that Fights broke out. Due to this event organisers made LEGO stop Fridays giveaway. Here fans of LEGO trying to look at the new sets were bullied out of the booth by scalpers, how is this good?

After this the following 3 days the giveaway was held at a different location, it was on the next floor which meant that it didn't attract people to the LEGO booth. So anyone in line for these figs on those days didn't even have to go to the booth and look at the new sets.

Yeah, that is just horrible... All these Comic Cons are about anymore is scalping products...

[Aanchir]

It's not a sense if entitlement. It is a failure to fully understand the nature of ones audience and customer base is, and what their own actual product is.

Here's the problem. The Super Heroes. The Comic Book based figs. This is really where most of the pure hate is coming from. And TBH it is not entirely unjustified. In the past year or two Lego has been releasing their highly successful Superhero lines. And yet the comic con figs rather clearly show that at a minimum their marketing people do not fully grasp what the allure is to this product line. In their previous licensed lines like Star Wars or Indiana Jones or PotC while important, and a major driving force of set sales, the individual characters were not really the core of the sets. Star Wars is ultimately all about the cool ships and scenes. And the actual pool of characters is somewhat limited. The characters are there to populate the sets.

But what the TLG marketing people rather clearly have totally failed to grasp is something that any fan of comics or superheroes could have told them. For Superheroes, this relationship flips. Rather drastically. While in SW and PotC the characters and Minifigs are there to populate the sets, in Superheroes the only purpose of the sets is to give the characters someplace to stand. The draw, the focus, the actual product is the unique and colorful characters. And they all have stories. Every single one of them has as much story as Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker. And as such they all each have their fans. And they are what brings the fans out to buy the products. For the super hero lines the characters are never bonus materials. They are the core product, and the customers reasonably expect to be able to purchase them from the company. Even with or in spite of the draw of "collectibility". Restricting a portion of the core product in this manner is legitimately infuriating to this customer base.

If you were a SW fan, how would you feel if TLG put together and packaged up an absolutely perfect UCS AT-AT, and then handed out 100 of them at ComicCon, never to be seen or made again? How would the Harry Potter fans feel if only 1000 Ron figures were ever made and they would never have any chance to even see one? For Hobbit fans, what if the only way to complete your set of Dwarves was to get one of the lucky 1000 13th Dwarves handed out at a single nerd fest? What impact would that have on your desire to hand over money to the merchant to get the other 12?

The problem is not that they are doing convention exclusives. It is that they are using unique and in many cases fairly popular characters for those exclusives, thus eliminating any chance that they will be made in regular production mechanisms that the paying customers have access to. Using a variant or recolor for a con exclusive is fine. It creates a neat novel collectables. Using the only version of a character that will ever be available as a con exclusive is a marketing move on par with peeing on ones customers.

But you seem to have missed a big part of my post. The part of your post I bolded is a huge and largely unfounded assumption. Creating a figure of a character as an exclusive does not stop TLG from creating a non-exclusive version of that character later on — even a non-exclusive version inspired by the same costume! TLG has only been producing and distributing exclusive figs at these kinds of events for a couple years now, but already people have figured that this is the only chance that there will ever be a Shazam figure, or a Bizarro figure, or a Jean Grey figure, or a Spider-Woman figure

Currently, TLG has not had an incredible incentive to produce thess sorts of figures for sets. There has only been one X-Men set, which already included a handful of well-known and popular figures. Likewise, there has only been one Superman set other than the ones inspired by Man of Steel, and it was filled out with three well-known characters. Shazam doesn't carry the same brand-name recognition as Batman or Superman, and may have to "team up" with one of them if he's ever going to appear in a set. Likewise, Spider-Woman will not likely appear in a set unless she's teamed up with Spider-Man, and I don't know if she's even appeared in the show the Spider-Man sets are inspired by. Any of these characters could potentially show up as a promotional polybag set, but pretty much all of those so far in the Super Heroes theme have been very specific video-game or movie tie-ins, so the characters would still need a little bit more notoriety.

I have no doubt that the decision to make these figures as exclusive giveaway figures was probably inspired by the fact that at the moment, they are not figures that are likely to appear in sets. But it's that at the moment thing that's critical. If any of these characters appeared prominently in a super hero movie or TV show that TLG was basing sets on, they'd put those characters into the sets in a heartbeat. And even if they don't, I am certain they might eventually get around to including them in sets as supporting characters for the more "mainstream" heroes and villains. They're just not necessarily on the "short list" like many more well-known characters like Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the Flash, Wolverine, or Doctor Doom.

So really, it has never been a choice between "release this figure as an exclusive" and "put this figure in a set". If these figures hadn't been released as exclusives, then chances are they wouldn't have appeared as official minifigures at all by this point in time. And yet there's still just as much of a possibility for them to appear in future sets — releasing the figures as exclusives hasn't reduced that possibility one bit. The circumstances just need to be right.