Mattel WWE Design Team Q & A ANSWERS for 6/10!

Or right guster..So know ones allowed to voice there opinions apart from you having a go at people thinking your superior.

If I'm not happy/impressed I Will say so as that's my right.

Its good that you agree with every decision that Mattel makes but I don't.
With the latest news we have had in recently, the quality of Elite 10 and the amount of re-releases recently I want to voice my opinions and I hope Mattel hear them.

If Mattel decide to stop doing this because they don't like the questions/response's that's fine with me.
If they weren't prepared to get questions/response's they didn't like they shouldn't have bothered in the first place.

Lets hope the people answering these questions and listening to the response's understand what people are saying and try to improve or take the suggestions in to consideration.

or we could all act like you and not say a thing.

Edit: gusters they may be some spelling mistakes above maybe you can use those in your next post

I doubt people even knew of the Dudebusters, and I would imagine the majority of the audience wouldn't be able to name either one of them.


Yup. It's really a fruitless endeavour for Mattel to do these Q&As for us when a lot of members don't get that they're a company trying to make money with the line, and think that Mattel is just a charity that supplies wrestling figures to fans of the guys who wrestle on Superstars. Any time they give honest answers, it's bound to lead to more silly "WHY DO YOU KEEP MAKING CENAS, BARETTA WOULD SELL MORE" comments and so on. I imagine Mattel has to deal with this sort of unrealistic feedback in their other lines though, and the people who work there are probably used to it.

I wonder why these people think Mattel keep making Cena, Orton, Mysterio figures if they don't sell.

I think that sort of feedback is really unhelpful as far as improving the line as well. Amid all the silly cries for stuff that doesn't make any sense, the Mattel team might also ignore or miss the legitimate complaints, like the frequent errors with the loose ankles, stuck joints, warped limbs, messed up details etc.

That's down to WWE rather than Mattel. It's an issue that effects all merchandise, pay-per-view buyrates, TV ratings, ticket sales etc. How long are people still going to be interested in John Cena and Randy Orton? But until other wrestlers overtake Cena/Orton/Mysterio/Undertaker/HHH in the popularity stakes, those guys are going to be included the most in the figures.

I've hesitated to post in this thread based on some of the ludicrous statements I've seen, but got tired of sitting back. First, I think all of pc83uk's posts should be highlighted and read again by anyone who is somehow confused by Mattel's figure selection strategy. He and a few others (such as guster, AdamBomb) have hit the nail on the head; I won't try and repeat everything they've said, but, come on, some people really think Mattel would be better off making less Cenas and Ortons and spending their time and money on jobbers like Trent Baretta? Really?? I know we're all fan-boys on here, myself included, but come on. Some common sense would be nice. There's a reason Mattel makes tons of Cenas and Ortons, and will CONTINUE to make tons of Cenas and Ortons - they happen to be the two biggest guys in the WWE at the moment, like it or not. Because they're popular, more people will buy their merchandise. What a concept! This message board only makes up a small percentage of Mattel's target audience - I don't know, maybe 5 percent? We do not represent the entire fan base for figures, people.

Ugh. Now that I've gotten that off my chest, here's a few positive reactions to the Q and A from yesterday. As primarily a Legends collector, I wish there was more good news for that line, but understand why it's in rough shape. It's good news that we'll see the Rockers sometime soon, and that it looks like a Diesel is coming up in the near future. No matter how they decide to continue making Legends figures, they've said that there will be more in the future and will have some announcements at SDCC. Let's look on the positive side, for a change!

As a real quick sidenote, there's been a lot of posts lately wondering how Jakks could be "successful" selling mid-carders in their Legends line while Mattel is "not successful." Jakks is a much smaller company than Mattel, and until anyone knows what their profit margin was on those figures, who is to say that they were profitable for Jakks in the long run? For all we know, maybe Jakks didn't make a lot of money on those lines but continued to make them anyways. This has happened with other toy companies in the past (I fondly think of my Palisades Muppet collection, for starters). I really wish people would stop bringing that point up because unless someone has Jakks' financial statements from the CS line, you can't just say, "Well, Jakks did this and Mattel isn't!" Like it or not, Mattel isn't a dumb company - they're one of the top toy companies in the world - and there's plenty of logical, reasonable explanations for their ways of making toys.

Mark

im gonna be short, sweet, simple and to the point.......... I JUST AM GOING TO WAIT FOR SDCC! That will be the only way we can get the EXACT news.

In my opinion everyone currently active on the roster (that's an actual wrestler) should have at least 1 figure. It doesn't matter if it's Basic or Elite as long as they get one. You can still put in your Cena's, Orton's, Mysterio's but there's still a spot for guys like Barreta or Hawkins even if they are just one per case. I mean why cover like 95% of guys on the roster and than leave out a couple of them? That doesn't make any sense what so ever. If guys like The Uso's who are hardly ever on TV can get figures than so should everyone else.

My whole thing is this though, and not to sound like a broken record, but I feel as if there's this elephant in the room that they are deliberately ignoring and that bothers me. I know they will eventually address this, but c'mon, let's cut to the chase, no need to wait until SDCC or whatever.

I understand that it's a business and in a business you have competitors so they're not going to be able to answer every thing. Somethings obviously are being saved to showcase to you the consumer and other things they're still working on so they can't give you a definite answer. However, the elephant in the room has been a lingering question that hasn't gone away because they haven't addressed it despite the fact it's been many months since they have dropped hints like "more strategic". Do they really not know what's going on with the line? Is it being abolished?

I know they're afraid to lose some of their consumers by telling them what's going on, but so is avoiding answering certain questions. Why do I want to continue to purchase their products if the future of the Legends line is in doubt? They could clear the air, but instead are leaving us in limbo. Either reassure me that it's safe or tell me straight up that it's being canceled.

That's the first thing they should do, just be honest and forward.

Secondly, would be an explanation into why it would need to be canceled? I understand economics, but perhaps explain why smaller companies can make toy lines last for 10+ years and why a juggernaut toy company like Mattel can't make a legends like work in less than two years of releases?

Maybe they can't, perhaps that would be giving away too much information about how they operate. I do have my theories, but they'll continue to be theories until I can get an answer.

I think that's a very good point. I don't know if any more Legends figures are going to hit US retail between now and late July, but I assume they are. I think it's safe to say that the Legends line isn't continuing as it has been, otherwise they'd just come out and say it rather than "we will continue to offer Legends figures -- find out how at SDCC."


I don't think they'll give a specific answer for that for the reason you said, it'd give away too much about trade info. A possible reason that the line isn't working is that they just way overspent on it. We have no idea how much signing Macho Man cost. Warrior doesn't come cheap. Pretty much every Legends figure has had unique accessories and great detail and it all drives the cost up. All we do know is that the combination of character selection, availability and price hasn't been a winning formula at retail. We don't even know that they're losing money on it, all we've been told is that sales are terrible.

I'm with you, Zombie, and I hope you didn't take any offense at what I wrote, I just thought I'd share my opinion on that ... and I, too, have no idea how Jakks made some of those figures (never collected them, personally ... so don't get me wrong, I'm a Mattel guy all the way). I just think some other people have gone a little off the deep end lately around here. I'm sure we'll all be excited after SDCC.

Mark