You know, obscure references are great and all when you want to reach a small target audience. There have been a number of days recently where sales average around 500. If you want to sell 2000 - 3000 shirts, you need to pander to a larger audience.
I 2nd that !
I get you do what sells… I mean who doesn’t want to have a hot seller on their hands… but part of me is also like you can only have so many Zelda shirts before you want something like BURGERTIME or JOUST… wait… don’t take that. runs off
Serious though, it would be nice to see some more of the open ended derbies back everyone once and awhile with a ban on the pop. I’m not saying all the time, I get that’s how Woot makes it money but I miss some of the oddball and weird shirts I used to get off the site.
Although supposedly one of my fav shirts is also one of the worst selling Woot has had… so move along I guess. LOL!
I totally understand and respect your point. I also like the quirky non run of the mill type shirts. The harsh reality is when you look at what’s in the fog every week, and it’s mario, zelda and doctor who… it’s hard to not want to be in that position. I have never seen doctor who but I’ve put a tardis on a t-shirt design because people love that thing. I agree that some derbies should continue to be pop culture free… or even just ban certain overused pop culture…otherwise the reckoning would be 20 similar shirts… I’m probably defending pop culture heavily tonight just because I know I have a mario shirt going up tomorrow… lol.
I had a few ideas for a Myst shirt, but a few hours into it and I can’t make them work. On top of that I have to leave in the afternoon to house sit for the weekend, so I need my sleep. Good luck to you all!
Easy joke pop culture can supplement revenues to allow for low selling “creative” designs. That’s currently not the case since neither are doing well.
Super Mario RPG away!
I haven’t seen so many designs pop up in the first 5 mins of the derby in forever. Or maybe I just stopped paying attention. shrug
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not restricting the prompt. If Mario wins, its because Mario is good. If Mario is more popular and more likable than some obscure character, so be it. If it allows for more creativity and spins, then it deserves to be used as a design concept. There are a lot of Mario references and poses - the designs should be extremely well done.
That being said, goodness gracious, the flood of submissions is amazing.
I agree. I’m tired of mario/zelda shirts. Not particularly original.
Perhaps this is an attempt to get more artists to submit…and it seems to be working.
Or, a few are submitting a lot more…hard to say. I suspect the first round of rejections will cull a lot that don’t seem to have any parody, just ‘hey, here is a video game scene’.
Vote! For agony!!!
My submission:
http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/ab1404de-6075-4d7f-8b39-38730c4e17e6.jpg
The game:
[youtube=bqc41yjedg4][/youtube]
The company logo:
http://www.psygnosis.org/artifacts/owl.jpg
I will agree as well. There are a plethora of amazing games out there that get almost no attention.
vote for my entry:
Came for the Myst shirt.
Leaving disappointed
8[
EDIt: Scratch that, leave it to the ever awesome ochopika to deliver! http://shirt.woot.com/derby/entry/72968/strangers-arrival
Was out of town till today- hope I’m not too late! 
I have a myst design all ready to go! I just can’t submit it yet, and I have to leave soon.
a new rule needs to be no mashups!!! there are a lot of designs that is a mashup of movies and video games and the video games are hardly recognizable… some of them i have no idea what game it is suposta be, all i know its a major movie and wouldn’t even know it was a video game reference unless someone told me
Based on the shirts in the fog this week, I think I’ll take a pass. Already have enough Mario and Zelda shirts.
No love for Sonic. =(
I mean, lots of quality entries out there… vote for some! Maybe they won’t win, but still, you never know!
Yeah, I don’t get it. Looking at the fog, it’s like the top entries are the exact opposite of the derby theme (which specifically calls out Mario and Oregon Trail).
Well I get it ($$$), but you’d think Woot would at least make some sort of effort to address this and keep this derby on point.
This derby is anything but on-point. It’s littered with designs that are all over the internet already.