Hasbro Pulse has just taken to their Twitter to announce that a Premium Fanstream will be taking place on Thursday, October 27th at 5pm ET. They promise to have reveals, giveaways, and preorders:
“#HASBROPULSE PREMIUM MEMBERS! You’re invited to the 1027 Hasbro Pulse Premium Fanstream happening Oct. 27th at 5pm ET! This event is for YOU, ft new product reveals, giveaways, and access to pre-orders! Not a Premium member yet? Sign up today on http://HasbroPulse.com!”
Let us know what you’re hoping to see on the boards!
Optimalprimal
I like your use of the word sacrifice. That's what HasLab allows that folks aren't getting. Yes, like in POTP, you can get a PMOP for $45, but look at what got left off. A commander class Deathsaurus with a shared profit retail model would be fairly hollow and missing a lot of the wow we got last night.
cynw32618
I’ve been really impressed with the Transformer / GI Joe HasLabs so far, and I think you hit the nail on the head with them.
For me it’s for figured you would either struggle to see at retail and / or toys you’d struggle to see them do justice to at retail these days.
Figures like Victory Saber or Unicron could have probably been released at retail, but the sacrifices you’d have to make to the toys (either with scale, paint job and/or accessories) to get them at the expected price points now would honestly have left them nowhere near having justice done to them.
It wouldn’t surprise me in the next few years if Hasbro make a much bigger push for many more figures in the Core / Legends scale because of rising costs.
At least that way you could do a Legends scale Star Saber (maybe at a higher price point) for those who missed out and not affect the HasLab crowd.
I know they rereleased the T30 Metroplex a few years back, but I don’t see a brand new G1 style one being made as a Titan now due to costs & rising prices, not in a way to do him justice anyway.
I’m curious to see where the next Transformers HasLab goes now, do they stick with Victory a third time for Liokaiser (a definite hit, but if you’ve missed out on both VS & Deszaras, would some go for this?) or vary it around?
Maybe they’d go with a new Fort Max, Metroplex or even something from another part of the franchise like Rail Racer, RiD Megatron or the Bayverse?
Dilbertron
I took a screenshot of 2500 backers at 7:51pm ET. Just because I thought it was neat I caught it at a nice round number.
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Mr. Chaos
That works for me!
Effigy
I made this post 1 hour after it opened. It was 164 away at that point. so I think you can conservatively say it hit 25% in 1 1/2 hours.
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T-Hybrid
Another reason they should call them "stretch goals." "Tiers" give people the impression they should be included in the base project. Where as "stretch goals" communicate that these are exactly that: A stretch. The fewer units get made the tighter the profit margin and the fewer things they can include.
The bean-counters at HasLab decided that 17k was the number of backers they needed to make that full package profitable, and then they worked with the TF team to figure out what the "base" offering should be in order to hit the sweet spot of price and backer count.
I'm sure there was a brief discussion about making the two Chestmasters their own stretch goal. Just like there was probably some discussion as to if Victory Leo could be a stretch goal. In which case you'd likely have had the TF team push back that those were core elements that would make the figure far less desirable even if meant a lower initial backer goal (and possibly even price).
It's why the V Lock cannon was a stretch goal instead of an inclusion. Yes, it was a core part of the original toy release…but by taking it out they likely were able to hit what the HasLab team felt was a much more viable goal/price. And from there the stretch goals were items that, while interesting, weren't anything that would make the initial figure seem incomplete.
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With regard to the Rancor, I wonder if the initial concern with Keeper and Oola as stretch (or even included) was they saw both as viable figures for a retail release and didn't want to get backed in to a corner where the project failed to reach those goals. Because now you have a situation where you can't really release Oola and Keeper at retail without making it look like HasLab's aren't "make or break" moments.
Saber and Deathsaurus aren't really in the same boat. If the projects falter….it doesn't mean we'll never see them. It just likely means if we ever did it'd be scaled back to fit in to retail releases. You can't "scale back" a Rancor or Engine of Vegence when the whole point was making them in the Black Series/Marvel Legends scale.
Engine will now be an interesting case study. Do they eventually release the three figures they've revealed as stretches? But if they do that, does it hurt future stretch goals as people will assume (rightly or not) that they'd just wind up at retail anyway?
TF Hot Rod
It was the lack of the Rancor keeper, no Oola, and just the tiers in general.
T-Hybrid
I'll say it again, though. One of the biggest complaints about Rancor was the lack of a Keeper in either the base project or stretch goals. But once they added that to the base project most of those same people changed their tune and still didn't back it anyway.
In short, the fans spoke, Hasbro listened, and then the fans didn't keep their end of the bargain. So don't expect HasLabs to stick their neck out like that much going forward.
Mr. Chaos
I found all my other updates as I only did it up to 50%. Here is how Deathsaurus stacks up again Victory
25% Backed- 6 hours for Victory/1.5 hours for Deathsaurus (I missed when it hit 25)
38% Backed- 28 to 32 hours for Victory/16 Hours for Deathsaurus
40% Backed- 49.5 hours for Victory
45% Backed- 72 Hours for Victory
50% Backed- Samara climbing out of the well for Victory
Optimalprimal
Dang. TF team for the marketing win. Revising my hitting 11,000 estimate of "by Sunday" to midday Saturday.
T-Hybrid
Why yes, that is why HasLab exists in the first place. Glad you get it.
HasLab is it's own team. We've heard the design teams for various brands refer to working with "the HasLab team" because it is, effectively, the R&D department for Hasbro. Or, at least, HasLab is the public facing side of it.
There are likely meetings between the HasLab team and the various brand teams where they discuss ideas, budgets, etc, and then the bean-counters do the math to figure out the cost/backer ratio and take it back to the brand team. There's also probably been projects pitched that have, at least for now, been rejected or shelved without even going to a campaign.
Failed HasLab's don't really hurt anything in that regard. The successes and failures are considered en masse and adjustments are made to the campaigns across the board. That's why you've seen them try different types of Early Bird unlocks, and a few projects even had Pulse Premium exclusive items included. I think Deathsaurus is also one of the first (if not the first) project to show all of the stretch goals up front. (And honestly, they should refer to them as "stretch goals" rather than "tiers" because the former better represents what they actually are.
A successful project is funded and turns a profit, a failed project is written off as an R&D cost and the team factors in lessons learned for future projects.
The only time you'd see any major shake-ups with HasLab is if they started having a TON of failures. At which point there'd likely be internal changes that we wouldn't be privy to in an attempt to right the ship and remain profitable. Because you don't really shutter R&D, you just change who's R'ing and D'ing.
Mr. Chaos
I'm looking right now because even though I didn't actually back VS I DID keep posting updates.
Deathsaurus hit 38 in only 16 hours
Robogeek28
*Twiddles fingers*
Autobot N
Gotta wait for @TranslucentBag's Super Funding Graph to know for sure
Autobot Burnout
Okay, I see what you mean and yes, that would have helped. Certainly, a smarter plan than what they went with in real life, at least.
Mr. Chaos
I should be clear… by timing I mean that had Rancor come out AFTER Book of Boba Fett the unlocks could have been connected to that show and hit when the iron was hot. Do Tier 1 be the Rancor Keeper from ROTJ. Tier 2 though is a boba fett figure but he also comes with a saddle and reins to ride the rancor. Their 3 could have been a character from the show who didn't get a figure. Release it in time with the final episode and it would have been backed.
BUT… I bet something happened and Disney said "We don't want spoilers so just do it before hand!" and Hasbro was in trouble.
Robogeek28
Isn't this guy funding faster than Victory Saber did so far?
T-Hybrid
5k would be almost half the initial goal (which, again, is the only goal that really matters in the long run). And that's only *one* country. If it gets 5k from Japan alone I feel pretty good the rest of the world could add another 6.
A better way to look at it is if even half the Star Saber backers decided to get this guy to go with it…. it's funded no issue.
I think it can pull that number.
Autobot Burnout
The Rancor really shouldn't have failed since it's an iconic monster from the original trilogy.
Why it failed largely was due to the absolutely absurd price ($350) and the fact everything else that came with it was downright insulting, including the unlocks. A cardboard backdrop, a few plastic skull set pieces, that pig guard who was identical to an already produced mass release figure, a Luke Skywalker with a retooled face that probably would see release as part of another anniversary line, and a third figure who I don't even remember.
Compare that to the base Victory Saber or Deathsarus packages, which the combined price of is only slightly more expensive than the Rancor and both are extremely more complex endeavors – and the value just keeps going up with unique exclusive accessories like the shield for VS that only appeared in one episode, or Deathsarus having a gargantuan throne which is going to have a lot of Megatrons sitting in it in the future I can already tell.
For $350 the Rancor should have come with an actual pit playset instead of a cardboard backdrop and the only unlock tiers being things collectors already owned or were so minimally different that it just didn't justify the price. Hell, they didn't even include the Twi'lek chick who gets fed to the Rancor – absolute insanity to not include the character whose sole purpose was to illustrate that yes, this thing is going to fucking eat you.
Optimalprimal
Totally agree. Like you said, notice that it's primarily the licensed products seem to suffer. For me, I think it impacts the SW team more, as the Marvel HasLabs don't seem to tie as obviously to media launches as SW. My question is, how much control does Hasbro have in choosing? Razorcrest made sense and worked. Rancor, like you said, could've been bad timing, though how they did the tier roll out didn't help. Reva's lightsaber was a new character that just didn't have the fans yet. So did Disney say do this particular thing, or did they say do something from this show? Changes everything.
For example, if the SW team could just pick anything, then choosing Reva's lightsaber over say a generic Inquisitors saber is bad marketing and is on them.
Again, I'm not a Disney hater. I love Disney, and honestly, their track record versus Lucasfilm on Star Wars as a whole is roughly the same. However, it would be interesting to see the level of direction coming from them versus what the design team can do.