On Option Sets

The concept of weapon and accessory packs for Gunpla is hardly new, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, they tend to be squarely in the “nice to have” category. The only people who really need them are:

• Completionists who want the option of equipping their mobile suit with every single weapon it ever possibly used.
• People who are really into customization, who want to equip their models with nonstandard weapons and gear.
• People who do complex dioramas, where maybe you have a squad of suits that need to have different loadouts appropriate for the scene.

For everyone else, they’re not strictly necessary (though some of them are cheap enough, and come with enough accessories, that you can amass a nice mini arsenal just by buying a couple).

Having said all that, it is also my (admittedly limited) experience that the Option Sets made for the Iron Blooded Orphans line of High Grade kits turned the idea of accessory packs into something a lot more cynical and capitalistic.

I think it is patently obvious that the whole line of High Grade IBO kits was built from the ground up to encourage the sale of Option Sets. Exhibit A is that the models were designed to be highly modular, using a standard set of hands, attachment points, etc. This means that that they can easily swap body parts, armor, and weapons. This makes it extremely easy to customize and kitbash, and indeed, Bandai very much encouraged you to do so in their marketing materials.

Exhibit B can be found within the Iron Blooded Orphans TV show. If you’ve seen it, then you will know that the one thing that remains constant is change. Mobile Suits in IBO can and will change armor, body parts, and weapons (sometimes slowly, and sometimes very frequently).

And now we get to Exhibit C. Bandai decided to put most of the IBO High Grade model kits on the low end of the price spectrum. We’re talking multiple kits in the sub-$20 range, with quite a few in the sub-$15 range.

Of course, in order to get them into this price range, a lot of these kits are missing things. For example, the HG Barbatos comes with its mace and sword, but not it’s Smooth Bore Gun. It also comes with the parts needed to build its 1st and 4th forms, but not it’s 2nd or 3rd (or 5th or 6th).

Start with mobile suit designs that have a lot of stuff that can be missed, then create model kits with lots of stuff that is missing, and top it off by encouraging customization. You’ve now created the perfect situation for selling Option Sets.

Ahh yes, the Iron Blooded Arms Option Sets. Bandai released nine of them over the course of two seasons of Iron Blooded Orphans, and each one contains a combination of weapons, shields, special holding hands, and adapters. And it’s not any old arbitrary gear. It’s all stuff you can see in the show. For example, Option Set 1 (shown above) comse with Barbatos’ Smooth Bore Gun:

The Graze’s shield:

And the Schwalbe Graze’s lance:

This is just one example, but every single Option Set is like this. They each contain “important” weapons - and they’re the only way you can get them. This isn’t like, say, Universal Century model kits, where if one kit is missing a particular weapon, you might be able to steal it from another. If you opt not to buy the Option Sets, then there is certain gear you’re just going to have to live without.

This exclusive bundling of canonical weapons is not something that all - or perhaps even most - accessory sets dabble in. For example, many of the accessory packs made for Gundam Build Fighters contain stuff that isn’t intended for any particular model, but rather is meant for you to use with whatever and whoever you want:

They really are just there if you want them. It’s not like you need to buy the pack pictured above in order to get the Zaku II’s bazooka or something. The fact that the IBO sets prey on fan’s completionist and tendendies and fear of FOMO feels different. And predatory.

But it gets worse. When the Option Sets were first released, they were deliberately staggered to coincide with the broadcase of the show. Basically, an IBO model kit wouldn’t be released until the mobile suit appeared in an episode¹, but also (in what is one of the stupidest cases of Spoiler Culture), each kit couldn’t come with any weapons that hadn’t yet been seen on TV. Instead, there would be an Option Set released a month or two later, which collected up all the weapons revealed in the most recent block of episodes.

Now because of the way Season 2 plays out, that means that if you want all of the weapons used by the Barbatos Lupus, you need to buy Option Sets 5, 6, 7, and 8:

I mean, come the hell on. There is absolutely no reason why they couldn’t have just:

1. Made themed weapon packs (Barbatos pack, Graze Pack, Brewers Pack) of different sizes and prices
2. Released them right away, or at the end of the show, or between seasons, or whatever

I think this approach would be much more consumer friendly. If you’re the kind of person who builds one Barbatos, you’re likely to want to build them all. Same for all the Graze variants, etc. If they made packs containing all the stuff for a related family of mobile suits, builders would be much more likely to use everything in the box.

Instead, by basing Option Sets on how things are introduced in the show, builders more likely to be let with stuff meant for mobile suits they don’t have (or want), and which you may or may not want to use for customizations².

The only reason to split them up like this is because Bandai knew that a captive audience (one that hates spoilers) would fall for this scheme hook, line, and sinker.

But you know what? It gets even worse.

Most of the IBO Option Sets are made out of a single color of plastic, meaning none of the gear is color accurate³. And if you can’t (or don’t like to) paint them, well, I hope you like monochrome accessories that don’t match your models!

I don’t get this at all. One of the (alleged) reasons for relegating accessories to Option Sets was to keep down the price of the model kits, so that they could be sold to fans who are more price sensitive. That implies, then, that you don’t expect those same fans to buy Option Sets. So why then make the Option Sets monochrome in order to keep their price down? If they are meant for those super dedicated fans, then those same fans will be willing to shell out more for higher quality stuff!

But if we think about it just a bit, we’ll realize that this isn’t actually an oxymoron. They want the price sensitive fans to buy the kits, and they want them to buy the Option Sets. Remember the power of FOMO - a $10 Option Set on top of a $13 model kit is not going to break the bank quite as much as a $13 kit and, say, a $20 accessory pack. This is all by design.

“But wait”, you’re thinking. _“Someone with a limited hobby budget is unlikely to have the money to buy the paints, markers, and airbrushes needed to make these parts color accurate. Why put them within that market’s cost range if they’re unlikely to be able to make them look good?”

My 100% honest answer? - I think Bandai counted on duping those people with false advertising. There’s nothing on the box that makes it obvious that the accessories are unpainted⁴, but by the time an unsuspecting builder finds out the hard way, it’ll be too late. Bandai will have your money already, and if I know Geek culture as well as I think I do, anyone who gets burned in this manner is more likely than not to buy yet another Option Set and let it happen to them again (and I think Bandai knows that as well).

There is an argument - one that I almost put forth myself - that Bandai’s approach with the IBO Optoin Sets was smart. This argument points out that it kept prices down on the base kits, and let the super passionate fans expand on them if they wanted to. This argument also claims that it saves on unused plastic, since they almost certainly print/reprint fewer Option Sets than model kits, so they aren’t molding extra parts for every kit.

This all sounds good and fine, but I don’t buy it. There’s just too much about the IBO Option Sets that smells fishy. The lack of color separation on the accessories, the way that the parts for a single mobile suit are spread out among multiple sets, and the basic fact that most of the weapons aren’t really optional … all of this makes the business model feel sketchy. It’s confusing, arguably misleading, and psychologically manipulative. I just don’t feel good about it.

I hate how corporations have become so good at being anti-consumer, while also being able to convince us that they aren’t. And I hate how hard it is to ignore these practices, because I (like many, many others) still struggle to fight back against desires to be rampant consumers. That’s right - for everything I just wrote, I still want some of these Option Sets. And I hate that.

I feel like I need a drink. Or a cold shower. Or for someone to knock some sense into me.