JediDefender.com Forums
Collectibles => Past Hasbro 3.75" Lines => Original Trilogy Collection => Topic started by: Jim on January 5, 2005, 07:42 AM
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So with all these Clonetrooper Packs appearing at EE, what are the chances that more will follow? I think this may be testing the market for future packs. Although the price may give Hasbro the wrong idea when not as many are sold because of the inflated price. Hopefully more will show up in local retail as exclusives at a much cheaper price.
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At this stage...
I don't know if I want more if they cost this much. Seriously.
They do them for $20-$25 a set (not a penny more), then perhaps... I'm even all for them only being done after the figure for within them is done and put out in the basic line ona single card...
SA (insert army builder name here) figure goes to basic line, then gets mass release in a 4-pack for $25 or less... That'd be kick ass, but with this precedent being set forth by Entertainment Earth and Hasbro, then I'm skeptical if it's such a good idea anymore.
Something, possibly even THE thing, I've always wanted was pretty much destroyed compeltely by severe price gouging. To say I'm disappointed this day in collecting is a major understatement.
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I'm just pissed at the price. I still orderd a 16-pk though.
:P
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At this stage...
I don't know if I want more if they cost this much. Seriously.
What if they were VOTC stormies in a plain box mailer? What would you pay for those? Would $34.99 be outrageous for a four pack of those? It would be below retail, though admitedly, perhaps not low enough given the lack of fancy VOTC packaging.
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I've firmly believed that VOTC was $5 worth of packaging (stretched of course... I don't believe it literally was $5 worth of packaging per se, but I can buy into it being a legitimate reason for costs higher than $5 per figure), and a $5 figure.
That was my take on VOTC though... I think Super poseable figures are $5 - $6 figures irregardless, especially army builders, and I'm "accepting" (not fond) of the packaging excuse. Given what it was, it wasn't simple, it wasn't produced in quantities as high as some basic product, and so I can bite on it...
So with that said, 4 VOTC Stormies in a white mailer box are a $20-$25 set to me as far as personal value goes, and I'd say that overall cost in producing that # would be reasonable at that price while still making lots of profit in my view, since its larger fixed costs would be steadily depreciating and increasing its margin of return then on each unit sold...
If it got to be more than that price though, I'd have to start considering its worth to me personally, and like with the Clones I'd be less likely to pay the higher price.
However it's classic so it'd draw me in a little more as far as my interest went, but that's personal opinion of value rather than anything based on precedent or whatnot.
I was willing to buy $10 VOTC Stormies though... If I'd run into them in droves I wouldn't have bought tons, but I did trade and pick up some from people online though.
At $20 - $25 I'd buy lots of sets. At more than that (dependant on price) I'd get 1 or 2 sets... At $10 per figure, or $9.50 or so, I'd likely be going with 1 or 2 sets... Maybe only 1 since I do have some VOTC's here already.
Edited because I wanted to fix a couple thoughts and misspellings
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That's fair. Next question: Are plain figures like Stormie's cheaper to produce than more colorful figures such as Boba Fett? I'm sure over the run of a piece the costs become minimal, but isn't a straight white and black figure pretty much as cheap as you can get?
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Anyone notice these are ATOC clones vs. ROTS clones? I've checked out of army building based on George's modification of base troopers.
I liked that Kenner stormies didn't fall out of favor as the OT progressed. Sure, a specialized trooper was introduced for Hoth and Endor (and the Royal Guard), but the imperial uniform, whether trooper or officer generally didn't dramatically mod over the trilogy.
The red battle droid evolution annoyed me - sure, more time elapsed between EP1 and EP2 than between any of the OT (and they were on Geonosis with the Trade Union), but the exclusion of plain BD's in the arena doesn't fit for me, didn't the Nemoidians bring their army to the party? I liked that Stormtroomers were used throughout ESB and ROTJ, and that we even saw Stormtroopers on Endor with biker scouts. They weren't exclusive of one another... Especially during the Emporer's arrival on the DS2.
I miss the OT days. I feel like the ATOC clones and ROTS clones won't even belong on the same shelf.
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And mine are kept on separate shelves. OT on one, one third for each movie's figures, same for PT - one shelf, divided in thirds.
I spent the longest time telling myself not to army build with clones and I did pretty well. Canadian distribution helped, I only ever found four preview white clones at retail. Lots of red clones arrived, but an army of higher ranking soldiers over few grunts kept me from doing much.
I tend to always accept army builders in trading lists, so I just proceeded to add then to lists whenever it occurred. Then I stumbled across some folks selling loose clones for relatively cheap ($2 a piece) so I bought them. Then I added the clone three packs to my list when they came out. Then the bonus packs with the clone wars figures came along. Next thing I knew I had, quite without open intent, built an army of about 40 clone troopers.
At that point I essentially threw in the towel and away we go. Big army of white, but hey, maybe Lucas will go back and modify the Emperor's arrival scene in ROTJ to include clones, then I'll be set :P
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I think the battle droids were red in AOTC because they weren't painted yet. That's my take at least
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I think the battle droids were red in AOTC because they weren't painted yet. That's my take at least
Or they are made that way to match against the red Geonosis landscape. We'll be seeing the beige Battle Droids in ROTS though. I think the reason there are different colors is also because several different organizations own them and manufacture them, not just one government like the Empire.
As for the Clones - I wish they were all white like the Stormtroopers. I don't mind the evolution of the helmets, but do like the the OT ones the most. Next I like the ROTS "evolution" ones, and the AOTC ones are last. Still ok though.
For future 4-pks, I too wish they would sell them for $20.00... but for VOTC Stormtroopers I'd pay the EE price.
:P
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For VOTC Stormtroopers, I'd be willing to buy a couple at the $35 price, since that is cheaper than what four at retail were. Plus I'm more willing to own more Stormtroopers than Clone Troopers.
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Nothing to do with the topic of army building here, I just wanted to give my opinion on the "red" battle droid topic. ;D
I always assumed that the droids on Geonosis were red because of the environment. By that I don't mean that they paint them different colors because of where they were manufactured, but I always assumed that they weren't "finished" , like Scott mentioned, but I figured that instead of not being painted, they were just rough and attracted the red dust of the planet. Plus you could also make the argument that, like the older technology on Tatooine, they are obsolete and less care went into them aesthetically, since the Techno Union was pushing the Super Battle Droids and Destroyer Droids. Kind of like a car salesman who wants you to buy the best model they have, but he's still willing to set them next to the crappy used car to either A) sell a used car or B) to make the new cars look better in comparison.
It's all about salesmanship, I think, and Wat Tambor is the SW equivalent of Crazy Eddie.
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That is an interesting and well thought out idea DoctorPadawan.
:P
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On the issue of cost... I think it's a pretty safe bet that, in general, a mostly solid colored figure who is cast in his primary color costs less... Paint aps are generally a lesser cost though in the grand scheme too... Depends on the # of colors, the complexity, etc...
Like, for instances, there's camo paintjobs on some figures I buy... Some are complex, others aren't so much, but the complex ones probably cost more. Decals are another thing to think of too, like for instance the emblems on an X-Wing pilot's helmet which aren't necessarilly a paint application so much as a decal that's set into the figure.
I think paint's pretty negligible as far as it being an individual cost goes though. Production overall is a lot of little costs though, which are what add up... With a few big ones. The big ones usually stay fixed though, and wind up being littler costs when spread over a whole products run.
Like, for the 1:18 military line(s) I collect, they have a real fine balance as far as what planes to make. They have to figure how many units will SURELY sell and things... There's a huge debate raging right now because they're dumping the Jap. Zero, which fans want but the company says all the new toolings would be tough to justify what they feel what be limited sales... Especially because they rely heavily on repainting the vehicles, which works AOK most of the time, but with the Zero it wouldn't since there really weren't a ton of paint variations of it. It kinda came one color and that was that.
Anyway, that's that... I'd say Stormies are pretty simple paintjobs (little detail work on those helmets though), but in the end paint aps aren't the costliest production factor in and of themselves anyway.
And on the red battledroid issue...
I dunno. I thought EU was claiming they had a few different sort of generic colors for sort of generic placement of them. Green for one terrain, tan for another, red for another... I'm not sure about that of course, I just recall seeing those 3 colors in one of those Holo-Net News reports in Insider once.
I know in the production scenes of Battledroids in AOTC, you can see them being sprayed with something that's covering them... What it is, I dunno. They do match the coloring of geonosis though so it seems like it could easily be some vague attempt at making them tougher to spot.
That's been my thought on the paintjobs, but I don't know that anything has taken any great length to give it an official LFL explanation either... Anyone?
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Another idea I was thinking...
When armor rolls off the assembly line, or when it did in the past anyway (I'm not always familiar with modern stuff), it came in pretty standard, "base" colors.
Perhaps this is the same with battledroids. They are just another piece of weaponry afterall, so perhaps you can order them in base colors as per your most likely intended useage? I dunno.
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I tend to think that the battledroids in AOTC are red because that is the color chosen by the Techno Union, the group producing the battledroids on Geonosis. In TPM, I believe the battledroids there were produced by the Trade Federation. So the color denotes the group that produces them I think. Also I vaguely recall the shot Jesse is referencing to showing up in the background of AOTC, perhaps during the scene where 3PO swaps heads with a battledroid
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Yeah, it's definitely when 3PO's sequence plays. You can see droids lined up getting a spray of something that is set in a framework that encompasses a completely built droid.
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I figured that the red was the color of the (iron?) ore used to build them, since Geonosis had a lot of red pretty much everywhere.
That's just my theory. :P
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All are good theories I think.
So, what other 4-pks would you guys be in favor of?
Would anyone want a Battle Droid 4-pk for $35.00? Just kidding. A Battle Droid 10-pk for $35.00 would be more like it.
:P
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I don't think I'd buy any more Battle Droids. I might buy one on the ROTS card, just to see if it's any better than previous attempts, but I doubt I'll be getting many more of them.
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I would say if they did more army builder sets like the Fan Club did, I would be interested in VOTC Stormtroopers & VOTC-esque Snowtroopers, but not sure what if anything else would be good for it unless they did do all new sculpts on the various rebel troops.
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Everybody is talking army builders but which one can and will they do. We have to think variety and use EE's exclusive as a bar. For one, I heard that EE wouldn't take the non-articulated color clones in a multipack and insisted that Hasbro utilize the SA Clone. So basically all Hasbro did was through a little paint on the SA Clone. There is nothing new about them so don't expect anything new about any future multipack exclusives.
-Battle Droids (POTJ version red, yellow, blue, plain) Yes
-Snowtrooper (no color ranks, not very articulated and already dirty ) Nope
-Stormtrooper (battle damage) Yes
-Sandtrooper (color ranks but recently done, Hasbro may put forth the efort to pull out the old pauldrons and pop them onto the VOTC Stormtrooper) Doubtful
Any troops other than Imperials would require Hasbro to do some work with head sculpts and i'm not sure they will do it.
Just my thoughts.
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Hmmm... good thoughts... VOTC Stormtroopers w/ battle damage would be very nice indeed. I'd pay $35 for a 4-pk of those. And for VOTC Sandtroopers as well.
As for Battle Droids, I love them. But not at $10 a pop. The ideal way I would want them made is like in the Clone Wars 3-pks - how about three versions with all Battle Droids?
Version 1 - three beige Battle Droids
Version 2 - OOM-9 and two red Security Droids
Version 3 - three red Battle Droids
I would like for these to be made of a sturdier plastic, and if this limited their articulation, so be it. They would all be in slightly different stances, like the Clone 3-pks - (but none lying down). This would be awesome at $10.00 a set.
:P
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I liked the idea for $35 for a 10 pack of bd's though.
I'd buy that in a heartbeat, so long as the droids were able to stand (didn't fall under their own weight), and were at least as articulated as teh AOTC version.
If half the set were red, and half white, that'd be ok... Not sure how much I care on the colors at this point.
But Clones do need someone to shoot, so why not, ya know?
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I agree that although the BD are good sculpts, the material makes them crap. You would have to at least offer 8 for the same price. Id be happy with Scout Troopers if they offered better articulation than the current issue ones. I think Protocol droids and R2 units could be passed off fairly well and quite simple, but I am not sure how human characters like Imperial Officers, Naboo Guards, etc would sell.
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Anything Imperial-esque would probably be a safe bet in terms of sales.
Scout Troopers - well I think they could make a much better version. Something more articulated and with a more accurate size helmet.
:P
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I think Protocol droids and R2 units could be passed off fairly well and quite simple
they most certainly would. hasbro could do a variety of multipacks utilizing the R-3PO and K-3PO sculpts for protocol droids and the various R2, R3, R4, & R5 (Star Tours) for astromechs. any combination of droids would work so long as no two sets had the same colored droid in it. imagine these 4 packs:
1.) 2x 3PO units, 1 R2, 1 R4
2.) 1 3PO unit, 1 R3, 1 R2, 1 R5
3.) 1 R2, 1 R3, 1 R4, 1 R5
4.) 2x 3PO units, 1 R3, 1 R5
that would so totally rock!
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I thought about scout troopers, but I don't believe Hasbro would make a brand new sculpt for troop builder set when an already good one exists. When have they ever offered a new, articulated sculpt with a troop builder set?
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I would like some Royal Guard packs done nicely like these sets.
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I would like some Royal Guard packs done nicely like these sets.
If done with cloth robes I would be all over these. The vintage versions are still so much more superior IMO.
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nothing is to say they WON'T do new sculpts and then do the army builder packs. Remember, Hasbro said they're realizing the potential from army builder figures now back at SDCC I believe, and so we may see some good things here.
I'm anxious to see what they do AFTER ROTS now.
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Exactly. I think that's pretty much the holdup to doing troop builder packs right, and ones that sell. I'd rather be patient and get troop builders of better figures instead of cramming inadequate sculpts into a box.
For example, the existing Biker Scout sucks, IMHO. I don't want more than the few I have now, because they're preposed in an awkward stance, and since the SA figures, are just all the lamer. They can do an SA version, sell it on a card, sell it on a card as a dirty version, and then put it in an army builder set, and I'll be happy.
So for now, the only things I feel can be slammed into a box (and be acceptable at today's standards) are the BDs and the VOTC Stormies.
nothing is to say they WON'T do new sculpts and then do the army builder packs. Remember, Hasbro said they're realizing the potential from army builder figures now back at SDCC I believe, and so we may see some good things here.
I'm anxious to see what they do AFTER ROTS now.
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I agree on the scout. Attrocious.
I'd actually like to see a DELUXE SA Scout come out with a NEW to-scale bike, (no features or anything, just a bike), and a clear stand it sits on for a hovering effect. That'd be an ideal new item I think, but I'm not counting on it. Just a wish. I'd go up $5 on that one even I think.
I'd rather not see a 4-pack fo the POTJ sculpt... Just like I'd rather not have seen a 4-pack of the Endor Rebel (POTF2 or Saga), or of the RFT (any head variant of it), etc.
If they dump out new sculpts in the regular line, and if they adhere to super articulating them (or coming damn close), then I think they are fair game for army building. And at this point I think anything's fair game for a resculpt. I'm not counting on it, but even the RFT, the Hoth Soldier, the Snowtrooper, and the Biker Scout are all potential to get new sculpts.
The 4-packs are just gravy for Hasbro then... They're almost pure profit considering the primary costs will have dwindled, and only running production costs (which are generally minimal) would remain... That's what's so extra irking about the Clones too. They're almost pure profit. They could sell for LESS than retail.
It's the same reason you get those 4-packs at Toys R Us, and when you break down the costs that are involved, they're pure profit... Simple, easy to make, molds are there, you just put more out and the profit margin on every unit sold increases by a percentage.
Yet the SA Clone is being sold for $10-ish a figure unless you're in on a case. It's not like they WOULDN'T profit off it at $20 per 4-pack, they just are sticking us thinking it will work to their benefit. Will it? That remains to be seen, and I can't say we'll ever truly know, because there's a lot of "Well what if they'd sold (x) ammount at $20-$25 a set insteady of (y) ammount at $30-$35 a set?", ya know?
Factoring costing on all levels to make sure you're doing what is ideal and most profitable is not a black and white job, believe me I know this all too well because it's an area of work I've enjoyed in the past, and I think Hasbro's missing the broader picture on this army builder set IMO. They'll profit off it (They wouldn't produce any if they didn't have guaranteed sales that benefited them), but they could've done so much better I believe.
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For example, the existing Biker Scout sucks, IMHO. I don't want more than the few I have now, because they're preposed in an awkward stance, and since the SA figures, are just all the lamer. They can do an SA version, sell it on a card, sell it on a card as a dirty version, and then put it in an army builder set, and I'll be happy.
Hrmmm... do you do lotto numbers too?