are 'they' they abusing the popularity of steelbooks?

[Thwip]

In my humble opinion we may be reaching market saturation (I know it is getting close for me personally). I can understand the retailers and the studios wanting to make money, and I can appreciate them wanting to capitalize on the surging popularity of SteelBooks, but eventually everything like this hits a ceiling/breaking point.

I have seen it happen to something I enjoyed before (comic books in the late 90s). Supply was limited (theoretically for special issues), demand was high, and collecting was popular. The comic book publishers started pushing out more and more special editions, unique covers, multiple covers, etc.; before too long the "collectors editions" weren't so special, and the multiple variants became too difficult/expensive to keep up with...the popularity imploded.

In my opinion SteelBooks are walking dangerously close to this type of implosion now. The shear number being released seemed daunting to me (although I only collect Canadian releases). To me the most vivid (and personally reminiscent) sign that we are reaching a breaking point, is the pending multi-cover release of The Hunger Games by FS Canada. If that sort of thing takes off/continues, I know I am out.