And on top of all of the that...saying that we had the opportunity to buy the case from a few vendors during that short window, so it's our fault that we didn't, and now too late and too bad. And then drawing parallels to an Nvidia GPU launch, whom of course everyone loathes and despises now. It just feels ridiculous waiting all these years for the launch of this case, and then almost immediately after, having to scour the internet for any remaining stock with the only cases left being marked up and scalped. Not to pile on, but it really does feel like a slap on the face for someone who's been recommending Dan Cases incessantly since the A4.
I thought the whole idea of being boutique is to be small and limited? I can only imagine if he did open up another V1 run, just to appease the masses, there would be so many angry purchases involved. Like screw this guy...but also, here's my money. That says something.
I do agree, comms could have been better about the exclusivity of it all but I'm just going to play devil's advocate here. Dan, if you want to be the Yeezy of dope ITX drops, you do you man and I'm all for it. I just got done with the Slate Case run and they only made around 200 units before going back to the drawing board for V2. That's boutique.
This MF'er produces and squeezes 1,500 - 2,000 units in a container for a first run and sells all of them. If you only want to do designs and improve upon them, keep designing. They have exclusive releases for keyboards so why not cases. V2 could be hideous and you know what, it'd probably sell out at this point especially if it outperforms or does more than v1. Keep at it you beautiful bastard.
Yes, this is what the SFF community really needs...artificial scarcity for the sake of clout chasing and exclusivity. Spend years building up hype on the internet through forums, discord channels, and youtube influencers. And then at the right moment, launch only 1 small limited edition run where demand far exceeds supply (but don't tell anybody when, or how many units). The small percentage of people who are blessed with the opportunity to own such rare ingots from being skilled enough to set up bots can buy most of the stock to scalp, profiting off the peons who are too weak to process their Apple Pay in time. We want Instagram Live unboxings of limited edition, private-run colorways. We want google form raffles and F&F VIP lists. We need that hypebeast culture to cross over to PC cases so we can feel special about ourselves and so we can sleep at night with a smug grin on our faces, knowing that sitting on top of our desks is the culmination of all that is boutique and bespoke.
Mind you, 1 of the main reasons for the scarcity of many of those high-demand "exclusive" keyboards that you mention, are the consequences of tiny companies (many times only 1 person) having to QC at their capacity, and having to deliver a nearly perfect product to a certain amount of people within a reasonable time frame. The few of them who do it merely for building up some type of clout/hype empire are simply put, wankers. Very different than Dan Case with a company like Lian Li helming production.