2025 HasLab Mos Eisley Cantina

[Dave]

Hasbro should have a pretty good read on the TVC market to know where these types of things are going to roughly end up, so they should be able to create an offering from the beginning that makes financial sense for them and offers enough value for consumers.

Sounds like you are saying that Hasbro should not be in the crowd-fund business then?

No, that's not what I'm saying.  I'm all for the crowd-funded business, especially for massive items like this that you can't sell at retail.

The point I was trying to make was that I think the bonus tiers are not an incentive for anyone.  They should just skip the tiers and have one offering (or a base and deluxe).  I just don't see how the extra three unlocked figures changes the equation for anyone.  Either include them or don't include them.  Heck, create a "Deluxe +" for another $60 and throw those three figures in there.  I would have gone for that.

[Muftak]

Also, we can't really 0say whether that surge was because it was the last minute (which seems to be a regular thing) or if it was because of the Yak Face. 

The Yakface was added on March 21st, and the campaign ended on April 3rd. If you look at Barge graphs, it was flat and had stalled out under 3,000 backers until Yakface, and from there it slopes upward and then gets a little bigger on the last day, but not the huge spike like more recent Haslabs have had.

It was definitely the addition of Yakface that sold the Barge.

[Rob]

Fair enough!  I can’t remember it at that level of detail.

[Muftak]

I had to look up the dates, but I remembered there were still weeks to go, because it seemed to me like they were poised to also add Klaatu if they needed to, but then didn't.

[Nicklab]

We're currently at 5.964.  I think we'll pass 6,000 today.  And it looks like a couple hundred new orders got added last night by some international retailer.

I think we can look at this situation as not all Haslab campaigns are sacrosanct.  Some campaigns have been extended - I know that happened with the Transformers Unicron campaign, and that was in the earliest days of Haslab.  More incentives have been added to campaigns while they were in progress.

I'm trying to remember about the Black Rancor campaign and the Luke Skywalker stretch goal.  Didn't that figure end up getting made in a slightly different rendition?  And then Hasbro was prepared to add Malakili.

Failures don't look good, and I think Hasbro will try to get this to succeed.  But they have been leaning heavily on the TVC online community to do a lot of the promotional work.  That's concerning to me.

[Jeff]

I'm sure this will be like the Barge where a huge surge at the end gets it made.

HasLabs these days have truly huge end spikes, though. Once it funds there will be a huge spike of the people with their heads on the sand who "need" a complete collection, but are currently hoping for the project to not fund so they don't have to drop $400 on 3 new figures

Bumping these #s up again since it's relevant... first week, middle weeks, last week (go back in the thread for a deeper dive on the math):

Barge - 1840 (21%), 1920 (22%), 5080 (57%)
Crest - 8990 (32%), 6290 (22%), 12830 (46%)
Ghost - 8770 (40%), 3330 (15%), 9665 (44%)

The Star Wars HasLabs seem to really skew towards the FOMO in the last week with a smaller middle and a larger last week (45-55% of backers coming in the last week).

Cantina - 4800, 1150 (and counting), ?? last week.  If this follows the same path as the others, we''re looking at an end of 11-12k.  I am hoping because this is OT that we'll get a larger than usual FOMO last minute push.

The point I was trying to make was that I think the bonus tiers are not an incentive for anyone. 

Yeah, I can see that.  I guess it's maybe a value issue and how you see those tiers.

When these crowd-fund things started, the idea was that the development cost is buried in the base backing level.  Once you get past that base level, you reward the buyers for helping get your product made.

So, the development cost for the Cantina, Wuher, Tonnikas should be buried in that $400 for 8k items.

If items 8k-11k are sold, there is more profit there since the development costs are covered in the first 8k units.  The idea is the company is using the extra profit from units 8k-11k to invest in something more for the buyers as a reward (ie the tooling for Greedo). 

Tiers are supposed to be your reward for believing in the product and helping to get it made.   Or at least that was the idea when these were started on kickstarter or indigogo or whatever.

[Diddly]

I'm trying to remember about the Black Rancor campaign and the Luke Skywalker stretch goal.  Didn't that figure end up getting made in a slightly different rendition?  And then Hasbro was prepared to add Malakili.

Those tiers were horrendous. First unlock was a Gamorrean Guard, a rerelease on a new card. Second unlock was a bunch of bone/skull props. 3rd tier was Salacious Crumb, another rerelease. Tier 4 was the new Luke based on Jabba's Palace, and I think the version they made for ROTJ40 was based on the Throne Room attire. But they already had also made a Luke based on Jabba's Palace as a Walmart Exclusive, so none of the figures were new.

[Nicklab]

Oh, I'm no disputing that the tier unlocks for the Rancor were bad.  I was mostly wondering if that Luke truly wound up being "exclusive", or if it made its way out in some form at a later date.

[Jeff]

I was mostly wondering if that Luke truly wound up being "exclusive", or if it made its way out in some form at a later date.

I am not a Black Series expert since I don't buy that line, but I think I recall some people speculating if parts from that unlocked Jedi Luke were repurposed for the BS6" Luke from The Mandalorian?

[Nicklab]

That's what I was thinking, too.

Evidently there was a Fan Site Q&A session yesterday.  But I don't think it was one that they were allowed to record and share on their social media channels.  Either that, or it has been embargoed to some degree.

The majority of the conversation centered on the Cantina - a breakdown of all of the accessories, the dimensions, how the base model vs the deluxe offering will ship, availability of the figures, etc.  The info is floating around pretty readily. 

What has irked me during this process is that Hasbro has not been offering up weekly promotional updates on the Cantina themselves.  They seem to be leaning on the collecting community in a big way to get the word out.  They plan to show it off at SDCC next month, but that seems kind of late considering the timeline of the campaign.  It almost makes me think that the effort is somewhat half-hearted on Hasbro's part.

The whole #ReturnToTatooine topic was discussed, also.  That will take on the far flung outer rim desert planet as seen in multiple films and shows, but won't be a focus of the SDCC presentation.  And as I mentioned elsewhere, they also announced Momaw Nadon as a TVC pipeline reveal.

[Jeff]

What has irked me during this process is that Hasbro has not been offering up weekly promotional updates on the Cantina themselves.

Yeah, it always feels like the Joe team or the Marvel team are way more invested in doing updates and promos during the campaign and the Star Wars team just leaves it to the fans.  Since the announcement they did, what, one video on how it would look on a shelf?  And I don't even know if the official Hasbro social accounts even reposted it.  Then the fan Q&A thing (which always seems so random who they invite or don't invite these days) but with haphazard coverage across various sites.

Is it so hard to do a weekly update on insta live or post a little video on Twitter/X?  I don't get it...

[McMetal]

For that matter, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a single update about the Ghost anywhere along the way. No emails, FB posts, Instagram, etc. I feel as though there was a lot more recurring communication with the Barge.

[GrandMoffNick]

Yeah I was just thinking the other day how weird it is they've given us close to nothing on what's up with The Ghost. It'd be nice to know something.

[Jeff]

If this follows the average SW trend of Razor Crest/Ghost (35%, 20%, 45%), then we'll see something like this:
---Cantina: 4800 (35%), 2740 (20%), 6175 (45%).    That would put us at 13,715 (no unlock for Tier 2/3 ).

If this follows closer to The Ghost, which had three known tiers (40%-15%-45%), then we'd see something like this:
---Cantina: 4800 (40%), 1800 (15%), 5400 (45%).  That would put us at 12,000 (no unlock for tier 2/3 ).

Neither of those projects takes into account though that the middle section of this campaign is only 2 weeks instead of 4. Will that cost us backers or will those backers just decide sooner or later and be part of the 1st/last week?

My best guestimate based on the data so far is 11k-13.5k for this one.  I have confidence that we'll get the Cantina funded and probably Greedo, but Tier 2/3 are really starting to worry me already.

Day 10 - 4979, 21+ days to go...
Day 17 - 5708, 14+ days to go...
Day 24 - 6458, 7+ days to go...

So, where are we at now?

4800 first week - 1650 (with one day left) - ? last week

Still looks like this is following along on the same style curve as The Ghost (40%-15%-45%).  We are a little under the projection for the middle (1800).  Hard to say if that is because the middle is two weeks shorter than usual or if it's something else.

Baring a much larger than usual last minute FOMO push for this one, the math still says this is likely to land around 11k-13k.  Not sure what impact not hitting tier 2/3 will have on backers. Will people cancel if it looks like we won't hit all tiers?  I'd hate to miss Tier 2/3 and then end up missing Tier 1/Greedo too due to late cancellations.

[Dave]

Not sure what impact not hitting tier 2/3 will have on backers. Will people cancel if it looks like we won't hit all tiers?  I'd hate to miss Tier 2/3 and then end up missing Tier 1/Greedo too due to late cancellations.

Maybe there are some hardcore carded figure collectors that these figures significantly factor in to the equation for them, but I just don't see all that much value in any of these bonus tiers.  I've said it before, but a tweaked Greedo is definitely not my jam.  I'd grumble about paying $18 for this via normal channels as I didn't feel like it was worth it.

I think if you're in on this the tiers at the back end are nothing but gravy and don't add much value.

If they really wanted to get fanboys going they should have added a 9000 Z001 landspeeder to place outside the cantina door as a Tier 2 reward.  They've still got a week to add that in, but I think that would get more people fired up to push this well past the mark than any of these figures.