Author Topic: Is the line a Success?  (Read 65889 times)

Offline evenflow

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #75 on: August 17, 2008, 09:01 AM »
It sucks that the "new figure" i wanted the most won't ever be made...Marcus Brody. I think at this point we will be lucky if the Toht wave comes out.
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Offline Darth_Anton

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #76 on: August 17, 2008, 10:07 AM »

Uh, my impression is that the only collector base you have for this line is the collectors rather than the kids.  Am I wrong about this, or are they seemingly totally out to lunch? 


You might be on to something, and it's an interesting note to all the SW collectors out there who believe that collectors are the main driving force of a line.

It's a shame too. The figures are very nice. However, since I've only picked up one figure, I'm contributing to it's demise.
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Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #77 on: August 17, 2008, 10:41 AM »
I think at this point, the only reason we've seen the second RotLA wave is 'cause even though it's slated for "early 2009" that really means "holiday season 2008" so that wave should be hitting in December which is why some retailers are picking it up as a last ditch effort to see if the line sells.

If Hasbro didn't have any sales for that second RotLA wave, then we wouldn't have seen them at SDCC.

If you take their answer re: the card back art for TLC Wave #2 back when those figures were supposed to be part of TAC and the fact that they don't want to show it simply because it will never be used (which just seems crazy to me, you already paid the artist, why not sell a set of cardbacks for these figures?) - so no purchases  from retailers for RotLA Wave #2 = that slide getting deleted from the SDCC PPT deck.

It's also the same thing with the coins for the Force Unleashed figures - you already made the tools for them. Take pre-orders for a set of Force Unleashed figure coins on HasbroToyShop.com for a couple of months, use it to gauge interest, if you get enough sales of them, produce them, if not cancel everyone's pre-orders. But I doubt that product costs more than tooling so why not just make as many sets as you presell. Same thing with the cardbacks for the TLC Wave #2 figures. But anyway, I digress...

The four different Indy figures and two different Mutt figures are what really hurt this line. They could have cut the numbers for both characters in half, slotted in some more characters up-front like Toht or the German Mechanic or Marcus Brody (for the RotLA) and Marion or Oxley or Mac (for the KotCS wave) and then collectors would have probably bought MORE figures. Let me explain....

As it stands now, if you get one of each you got:
Indy w/Fertility Idol
Indy (Streets of Cairo) w/Whip Action
Indy w/Bazooka
Indy w/Crystal Skull
Mutt w/Sword
Mutt w/Snake

That's a total of six figures.

If instead they had used those same six slots to release:
Indy w/Removeable Hat, Jacket, satchel, working holster, fertility Idol, whip clip, 2-whip versions & gun from RotLA
Toht
Indy w/Removeable Hat, (no jacket torso), satchel, working holster, Crystal Skull, whip clip on belt, 2-whip versions, bazooka & gun from KotCS
Oxley
Mutt w/Cloth "Leather Jacket", sword and switch-blade
Marion w/Snake ('cause she was in that scene too)

That's still six figures, but if they took the time and made the heads swapable between the two Indys, that would mean a total of EIGHT figures sold.

The Indy w/Bazooka figure would work JUST FINE if you wanted to make a streets of Cairo version of Indy if you could just pop the head from the RotLA Indy onto that body. But you can't 'cause the heads are not compatible. Same thing with making a Jacketed Indy figure from KotCS. Just take the spare body you have now and combine it with the older Indy head, now you have a KotCS version of Indy in full garb. They would have doubly sold each Indy figure.

Now before you start saying "but they saved on tooling by having four Indy figures" - sure they did, but not by much. The Streets of Cairo Indy figure has a mechanism that had to be tooled and does not share any parts from other Indy figures. It's head isn't even compatible with the Fertility Idol Indy figure. Sure the legs on the two KotCS Indy figures and the Fertility Idol Indy are the same and the two Jacketed versions share the same arms (although they did give us a second left hand for the KotCS Indy - I would have much rather had a handless version of the crystal skull) - the Jacket piece that goes over the torso is DIFFERENT between the two Jacketed figures only because the RotLA Indy has a working over-sized holster and the KotCS Indy has a smaller non-working holster. They should have just gone with a a holster that was somewhere in between - working but not oversized to accomodate the flap and "button".

Collectors also have the ability to "pass" on certain versions of the same character so even if you aren't like me and would have been compelled to buy two of each Indy figure so you could perform a head-swap. If you're collecting purely based on one of each character, you loose the liability of the jacket-less Mutt and then gain the extra sales of the Toht, Oxley and Marion figures.

Some other things that they could have done? Skip the Marion & Cairo Thug 2-pack - just released two versions of the Cairo Thug 2-pack, right off the bat.

They appear to have no problem shipping the Toht figure with a second head INSIDE THE PACKAGE (which is something they say they'll never do with a Star Wars figure) - so why not package variant heads of Dovchenko, Irina, the German Soldier and Russian Solider in their packages? How many people are going to buy TWO Toht figures (if he comes out) anyway? I know I am, one to display with one head and one to display with the second head. If they had packaged a Irina w/Glasses second head in the package with her, I would have happily bought two of that figure. Same thing with Dovchenko - he has his hat on like once in the movie - each time he's fighting with Indy he's got no hat on, so why not make a version of his head w/o the hat. The variant Russian and German solider heads would have helped that sell even MORE than they did as well.

I really hope that the lack of retailer interest in the line for these last two waves ToD and RotLA #2 just means that they will easily be picked up from HTS. Which brings me to my next point. Start taking PRE-ORDERS for six-packs of the RotLA #2 wave - one of each figure except two of Toht. I know if it meant I was guaranteed all of the figures I need from that wave, I would happily place a pre-order for that six-pack of figures. Heck start offering a pre-order for a six-pack of the ToD figures too. Then also offer a pre-order for say a three-pack of Thugee soldiers too.

The tools are made for these figures, why not just try as many avenues as possible to get them sold?

One more thing - why are they saying "no" to stuff to readily? HTS seems to have no problem selling Cobra Commander in a Suit as a SDCC exclusive so why not give me a Professor Indiana Jones in a suit figure? Or a Donovan in Suit figure? Or a Colonel Dietrich figure? If they feel that collectors are the only driving force for the line, just keep offering one-off figures each year as SDCC exclusives. How hard could that be?
« Last Edit: August 17, 2008, 12:52 PM by Pete_Fett »
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Offline David

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #78 on: August 17, 2008, 01:03 PM »
Uh, my impression is that the only collector base you have for this line is the collectors rather than the kids.  Am I wrong about this, or are they seemingly totally out to lunch? 

**snip**

Killing a line because of crappy distribution/case ratios on your part is a lack of kids/collectors interest?  Bah, ridiculous.

That confused me too. ???
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Offline Ben

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #79 on: August 17, 2008, 07:15 PM »
This fits in with the discussion here.

Mutt Williams kind of reminds me of Jar Jar Binks. Hasbro produced too many of his first action figures too, expecting his character to be a hit.

I would think Hasbro would offer credit to retailers for all the stuff that isn't selling in an attempt to give the line another chance, but it seems like they'd rather pull the plug. That just seems insane.
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Offline Reid

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #80 on: August 17, 2008, 08:12 PM »
Stinks to hear that this line is likely toast after 2009. Hopefully the Toht wave will see retail, now if only the damn TLC wave could hit retail in my area! Sucks about Dietrich, I was looking forward to him.

Offline speedermike

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #81 on: August 17, 2008, 11:46 PM »
Guys, as much as we love them we've gotta be realsitic.  Look at how few of us are actually on these boards...there's very little interest here, and in a way, I'm surprised by the product we did get! The only characters I'll really miss are

Ox
Mac
Marion (KS)
Altar Priest
Indy in Tux
Shanghia Gangster
Marion Nepal
and Nepal Goon

oh...and the friggin sidecar!!  That one kills me because I suspect that it was designed with the German Bike.

And a Minecar!

And a Tank!

Man...
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Offline Pete_Fett

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #82 on: August 18, 2008, 01:33 AM »
Since there is a socket hole in the side of the German Motorcycle, I can guarantee that tools were produced for mass production of a side car at some point in the future.

This is another excellent candidate for release via HTS shipped in a plain white mailer box.

There are plenty of German Solider on Motorcycle sets out there right now. It would entice folks to buy a second Indy w/Horse too (granted the Indy is wrong, but it's the best Indy to put on the motorcycle).

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Offline Morgbug

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #83 on: August 18, 2008, 11:47 AM »
I would happily order from HTS.com if this were the only retailer making these things available.  I'd have no problem having to order complete waves, like at BBTS, either, to get some of these figures made.  If they all ended up being HTS exclusives as Pete suggests, I'd be fully supportive.  White mailers, regular packaging, whatever for me as an an opener.  The only thing I wouldn't want to see is continued screwups in case counts and then sell them singly.  It's been a long time since Henry Sr. was in stock at HTS. 

And I agree that interest is lower overall.  But how much of that was fostered by poor case packs?  Pete's post about the way things could have been done is much better.  I think for collectors it would have really helped but even with the kids it would have worked better too.  I still think this line should have been geared to collectors all along - I just don't know that many kids that were into the original IJ movies anyway. 
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Offline Brian

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #84 on: August 18, 2008, 02:37 PM »
Yeah, this latest batch of Q and A's seems to continue the thoughts that this line is on its last legs.  Heck, at this point it almost sounds like we'll be lucky to see that 2nd Raiders wave.  Like it was mentioned earlier in this thread, I could see that wave hitting around Christmas - and then maybe Indy not being on the "post-holiday reset" at the retail outlets.  I really like this line too, and like others, I'd continue to support it via HTS or wherever.  They can just stick them in white mailer boxes as far as I'm concerned too, but it would be nice to at least get another wave or two to finish out some of the most requested figures.  I never figured this would be a real long lasting line, but I thought longer than 2008.  Like others have said though, I really think the kid interest in this line - especially at this point - is very low.  Even collectors has to be a fraction of a line like Star Wars.  I don't think stores around here have moved much of anything lately (or gotten anything new in, naturally), and I don't know that the DVD release will do a whole lot to push anything else (especially if its still the same old stuff on the pegs).  I'll definitely be preordering the rest that comes online, just to be safe.

Offline evenflow

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #85 on: August 21, 2008, 10:25 AM »
I was thinking about the line today and got annoyed for the little things that we won't be getting. We are not getting any Sankara stones for this scale because they had something planned for next year, no more ark ghost which may have meant a much better ark with poles and everything, no side car, no marcus, and possibly not a completion of the vintage figures being redone. Its too bad.  :-\
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Offline Brian

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #86 on: August 21, 2008, 10:46 AM »
I was thinking about the line today and got annoyed for the little things that we won't be getting. We are not getting any Sankara stones for this scale because they had something planned for next year, no more ark ghost which may have meant a much better ark with poles and everything, no side car, no marcus, and possibly not a completion of the vintage figures being redone. Its too bad.  :-\

Yeah, if the end is near (and it appears that it might be), there is a lot of nice stuff that we're still missing.  I think many of us were anticipating the "Club Obi-Wan" wave of figures, not to mention characters like Marcus Brody (who I was really hoping for).  I was also realizing, even though the reviews were mixed, we really (counting the mail away) only got 10 or so figures from the new Indy movie.  Kind of surprising, and there's really a lot more characters (particularly "name" characters) that could have been done there as well.

Offline CHEWIE

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #87 on: August 21, 2008, 01:50 PM »
Hasbro has nobody to blame but themselves for the way the line has been handled. 

Offline Morgbug

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #88 on: August 21, 2008, 04:54 PM »
Hasbro has nobody to blame but themselves for the way the line has been handled. 

I agree and that's part of what is so baffling.  Look, they screwed up and hurt retailer interest.  Be pragmatic about your subsequent orders and pay attention to the collectors who for the most part supported the line as expected.  The line was a dud with the kids.  Ok, fair enough.  "How do we proceed" should be what they're asking.  They've done exclusive releases through HTS.  They've had exclusive figure sets with Entertainment Earth.  Why not follow one of those options for the line?  Yeah, there are some toolings that would have to be entirely new, but I gotta think through restricted distribution there'd be enough sales to justify those costs, wouldn't there?  Bundle them as sets if you need to, by wave, in single packages (boxes) be they glossy or manila, window or not.  Wouldn't they get the sales anyway? 

Sad to see them essentially give up due to their own error. 
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Offline Scott

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Re: Is the line a Success?
« Reply #89 on: August 21, 2008, 05:27 PM »
Weigh that though with how much they would have to charge to offset tooling, oil, plastic making, painting and the licensing fee though...yeah they could do it but at such small production numbers, we could be talking $20-30 figures (a piece) sort of like the new He-man figures (which don't have the licensing fees) and are $20