In our continuing effort to stay on top of the latest geek culture trends, we spent 20 tax-deductible bucks on a Loot Crate. Check out our review of the subscription box service’s May 2014 crate featuring items from Adventure Time, Minecraft and The Legend of Zelda. This month the team at Loot Crate got a little help from Polaris including YouTubers Markiplier, Captain Sparklez and more.
This month’s Loot Crate happens to be my very first one ever. The crate cost $13.37 plus shipping and handling, totaling up to around $20. The sign up process for the subscription box service was simple enough and the staff quickly responded with friendly and appreciative emails.
Things got a little frustrating for me and many other Looters who didn’t receive shipping confirmation emails while others were already getting their crates. The team was very active on Facebook, quickly answering fans questions about the lack of shipping confirmations, and the lack of a physical Loot Crate magazine that is usually present in their boxes. However, the team could have saved themselves and Looters a lot of trouble had they just emailed this explanation instead of trying to answer every Facebook inquiry.
I received my confirmation email and my Loot Crate on the very same day. I was surprised at just how small the crate actually was. I had seen pictures of the box on line, but to actually hold it in your hand is really underwhelming. The box is barely big enough to hold a DVD case, and is about as thick as a Harry Potter book. ( Maybe a little bigger.)
The crate also included some exclusive stickers and tattoos from Maker Studios. The stickers featured this months five special guest curators. The curators included YouTubers, Markiplier ( a guy who gets drunk with his friends and plays video games...seriously this guy has like 2.2 million viewers) and CaptainSparklez, who made the “November Rain,” of Minecraft videos, “Take Back the Night.” The other three curators include, LDShadowLady, JoshJepson, and TheJWittz. The two highest viewed Youtubers got their very own sticker/tattoo sets, while the others were included on a group sticker sheet.
We spoke with a rep from Loot Crate about the curator selection process and the services they provide:
“We had been wanting to work more closely with Maker Studios and their gaming vertical, Polaris, for a while, since so many of our Looters watch YouTube and are huge fans of some of their curators. Since we knew we were including Minecraft, Zelda, and Adventure Time items, we wanted some cool people who are some of the top in YouTube and played those games or were very familiar with the franchises to be a part of it. Through our conversations with Maker, we agreed on those five curators.
"The YouTubers wanted to include something small of their own that they thought their fans would find cute and fun. That's how the idea for the stickers and tattoos came about! Polaris sent over some files that included art unique to the creators, and we had them turned into tattoo and sticker sheets for our Looters. We also showed them a wide range of items for May's crate, and they picked some of their favorites for us. Their input helped us curate the crate overall.”
That leads me to my biggest criticism of the box...The selected items felt lazy. Where the Zelda t-shirt and bottle opener were well chosen, however, the remaining items felt half-a**ed. The Adventure Time and Minecraft blind bag items feel like they were just picked up from the impulse buy section of a Barnes & Noble. The items themselves are kind of cool but don’t seem to justify the need for five specially selected curators to have picked them out. Any mom in need of a last minute stocking stuffer could have done just as good of a job. Note* My blind box Adventure Time toy was a Finn figure, which would of been really cool for my daughter to play with had his arm not popped off shortly after opening it. I am still waiting for a flower to grow in it’s place, but nothing has happened as of yet.
The sticker and tattoo sets felt more like self serving cross promotion, than any kind of fan service.
So is it worth it?
Monetarily...No question. The value of the items is far greater than the $20 cost. (Broken Finn notwithstanding.) The staff at Loot Crate seem very friendly and caring, but maybe a little overwhelmed with how fast the service is growing, and failed to effectefly communicate with sucribers about shipping confermations and the lack of a physical book. Looters between the age 18-24 may enjoy the CD and stickers. To this 31-year-old reporter, the soundtrack was little more than glorified video game music and the sticker set means nothing to anyone who not is already a fan of the YouTubers. A few Jake, Steve and Link stickers would have been nice for a wider range of Looters.
I wish the box was a little bigger to open up the possibilities for comics and or larger scale action figures in future crates. The non-exclusive items were really cool, but lacked any kind of creativity. If you are a geek between the ages of 18-24, than you will love the service. I will have to give the service a second chance before deciding if I have outgrown it or not.
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