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Post by muuk76 on Jul 29, 2023 1:20:44 GMT -5
When there is a high cost, people won't back it.
The cost for international buyers was high.
The tiers were too far apart and the included figures didn't generate the interest needed.
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Post by kirk815 on Jul 29, 2023 5:41:11 GMT -5
The three main issues were the price tag for international buyers, the figure selection, and payment options (including payment plans).
1. I don't know why they started charging everything up front for intl buyers, maybe they got burned on the new gen with people not paying the taxes/fees/dues or whatever.
On top of that, the size of the stage played a part. The price tag for intl/U.S. collectors to buy something they might not even be able to display permanently played a part.
Being able to scale back the stage should have been one of the highlighted features when it was announced instead of an afterthought.
2. Figure selection has been discussed ad nauseam. I'll never understand picking some of these looks/attires for people that get a lot of figures released.
It's like Mattel was afraid it wouldn't get funded so they went with the most bland/uninspired attires they could since they have a self imposed rule to punish us if it doesn't get funded (we won't get these figures if it fails).
It was a missing a cool figure that will most likely never get an UE (like Doink). None of these figures had that "can't miss out" urgency like Doink or the WM Macho, especially when we have had better releases as ultimates or will have better releases (Steiner/DDP).
There was enough time between crowdfunds for WWE to sign just one new WCW alumni (Glacier, Mortis, Disco Inferno, Yeti, Buff Bagwell, etc.) to fill that Doink spot.
3. Payment options/plans - I saw a lot of people complain about this, but I dont think it was as big of an issue as the first two.
Giving people a year to pay for this kind of defeats the purpose of a crowdfund (and you are going to have X amount of people that don't pay for it in full. I'm sure Mattel doesn't want to deal with that whole issue and additional costs of bill collectors).
Payment options also cost money - different companies charge different fees (most credit cards take 3%) so I get why they don't offer 500 different options, especially since some charge more.
I do think this whole punish us/take it out on us attitude is wrong. I wasn't around during the Legends line first run.
When I started in like 2015, Mattel was still salty about it failing and used to ref that and Matty collector as reasons for Flashbacks not being a bigger priority.
With all of the issues, we still only missed it by 1000 backers (1750 if Mattel did really buy the 3 sets of 250). There is obviously a market for it if they can find a solution for some of the issues brought up.
So if they want to blame us (instead of holding themselves accountable for it being a failure) and we never get another stage crowdfund (I wouldnt mind a scaled down version of the Raw stage they showed) or even another WWE crowdfund, then so be it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2023 6:57:15 GMT -5
Many users on this board were cringe-worthy insulting towards AFA Steve during the whole "Nitro Stage Crowdfund" Era. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if he was taking some time away from this forum. But overall he seems to love his job so I doubt he's "moved on". I certainly wouldn't walk away from a dream-job over one failure. SDCC is likely one of his busiest times of the year.... and I would be surprised if he didn't take some much-deserved Vacation Time once it's over! This. People need to keep in mind that any interaction he does here is his own time. He answers questions because he is a fan too. Remember Bill got chased out of here before, let's not have that happen again. Bill "got chased out" because he got his feelings hurt over a Sting toy he designed when a poster here called him out on it. Could it have been more constructive? Probably. Was it anything out of the line? Nope. It's the same stuff we regurgitate every year when they release hot garbage like UE Eddie and Kurt. Bill has the ability to knock these figures out of the park. Sometimes he does. But most of the time he over thinks the easiest of slam dunks. He comes off like he's designing figures for he and he alone. Just because he likes the way something looks, well that means we all are to like it. And if we don't, Bill goes and cries about it on here and gives us the classic "Bye, I am deleting my account" post that a lot of former members would post. They'll listen to praise ad nauseum. But when it comes to criticism, they don't wanna hear it. And they'll just block you on here. Example, Cody's tights. They have yet to acknowledge how they screwed that one up, knowing full well they did. You have AFA coming in to say "Hey I'm not saying it's correct or incorrect but I'm going to provide 4 pics of Cody from the event to show you that his tights look different in all angles, but I won't acknowledge that none of the pics I provided look anything like the figure." |
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Post by kirk815 on Jul 29, 2023 7:35:11 GMT -5
This. People need to keep in mind that any interaction he does here is his own time. He answers questions because he is a fan too. Remember Bill got chased out of here before, let's not have that happen again. Bill "got chased out" because he got his feelings hurt over a Sting toy he designed when a poster here called him out on it. Could it have been more constructive? Probably. Was it anything out of the line? Nope. It's the same stuff we regurgitate every year when they release hot garbage like UE Eddie and Kurt. Bill has the ability to knock these figures out of the park. Sometimes he does. But most of the time he over thinks the easiest of slam dunks. He comes off like he's designing figures for he and he alone. Just because he likes the way something looks, well that means we all are to like it. And if we don't, Bill goes and cries about it on here and gives us the classic "Bye, I am deleting my account" post that a lot of former members would post. They'll listen to praise ad nauseum. But when it comes to criticism, they don't wanna hear it. And they'll just block you on here. Example, Cody's tights. They have yet to acknowledge how they screwed that one up, knowing full well they did. You have AFA coming in to say "Hey I'm not saying it's correct or incorrect but I'm going to provide 4 pics of Cody from the event to show you that his tights look different in all angles, but I won't acknowledge that none of the pics I provided look anything like the figure." Regarding it being out of line, I think that is up for debate/in the eye of the beholder. IIRC the thing that upset him the most was people were questioning his work ethic. We can be upset and share constructive feedback, but I personally think it is out of line to question someone's work ethic, especially when we aren't working with the person. We don't know anything about Bill's job - I would imagine he works a lot of OT and seems to be passionate about his job. I would be upset too if some stranger on a message board that has rules (where we are supposed to treat other people with respect) was going overboard like that. The OP ended up buying the figure and admitted that it wasn't as bad as he made it out to be. We also aren't privy to all of the other factors that go into these decisions that we scrutinize (budgets, profit, WWE/wrestler input, etc.). A lot of people here don't even understand how budgets work ("hey, cancel the basic line and put the budget to the elite line") or that Mattel can't sign their own deals with wrestlers. With that being said, I don't think Bill had the right type of personality to deal with this board (not a knock on him - I don't think most people here would be able to deal with the negativity/criticism everyday if they worked for Mattel). I was disappointed with how he treated one of the mods here though - he had a meltdown that they posted pics from AMAZON of the attitude era collection before they were able to announce it (I think it was right before SDCC or some reveal). He was acting like the Mod posted pics of stolen figures from the factory or something when the source was one of their retailers that posted the pics too soon. That happened after the Sting thread and I think he has only posted a handful of times since then. |
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Deleted
Joined on: Nov 25, 2024 0:29:58 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2023 7:45:09 GMT -5
Bill "got chased out" because he got his feelings hurt over a Sting toy he designed when a poster here called him out on it. Could it have been more constructive? Probably. Was it anything out of the line? Nope. It's the same stuff we regurgitate every year when they release hot garbage like UE Eddie and Kurt. Bill has the ability to knock these figures out of the park. Sometimes he does. But most of the time he over thinks the easiest of slam dunks. He comes off like he's designing figures for he and he alone. Just because he likes the way something looks, well that means we all are to like it. And if we don't, Bill goes and cries about it on here and gives us the classic "Bye, I am deleting my account" post that a lot of former members would post. They'll listen to praise ad nauseum. But when it comes to criticism, they don't wanna hear it. And they'll just block you on here. Example, Cody's tights. They have yet to acknowledge how they screwed that one up, knowing full well they did. You have AFA coming in to say "Hey I'm not saying it's correct or incorrect but I'm going to provide 4 pics of Cody from the event to show you that his tights look different in all angles, but I won't acknowledge that none of the pics I provided look anything like the figure." Regarding it being out of line, I think that is up for debate/in the eye of the beholder. IIRC the thing that upset him the most was people were questioning his work ethic. We can be upset and share constructive feedback, but I personally think it is out of line to question someone's work ethic, especially when we aren't working with the person. We don't know anything about Bill's job - I would imagine he works a lot of OT and seems to be passionate about his job. I would be upset too if some stranger on a message board that has rules (where we are supposed to treat other people with respect) was going overboard like that. The OP ended up buying the figure and admitted that it wasn't as bad as he made it out to be. We also aren't privy to all of the other factors that go into these decisions that we scrutinize (budgets, profit, WWE/wrestler input, etc.). A lot of people here don't even understand how budgets work ("hey, cancel the basic line and put the budget to the elite line") or that Mattel can't sign their own deals with wrestlers. With that being said, I don't think Bill had the right type of personality to deal with this board (not a knock on him - I don't think most people here would be able to deal with the negativity/criticism everyday if they worked for Mattel). I was disappointed with how he treated one of the mods here though - he had a meltdown that they posted pics from AMAZON of the attitude era collection before they were able to announce it (I think it was right before SDCC or some reveal). He was acting like the Mod posted pics of stolen figures from the factory or something when the source was one of their retailers that posted the pics too soon. That happened after the Sting thread and I think he has only posted a handful of times since then. Calling for someone's job on a toy forum is absurd. I'll give you that. And yes he did treat the mod like he stole those images (did he ever apologize for this?). And Bill is passionate...about certain things. And pig-headed about others. And I will say just because people buy these toys, it doesn't give them the right to go full on  you about other aspects of the hobby. But it should afford us the opportunity to CONSTRUCTIVELY criticize. Now, the problem is people's definition of constructive criticism wildly differ. From the person doing the criticizing to the person receiving it. If you aren't on the same wavelength, of course it'll come off as an attack. |
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Post by Back to the Codyverse on Jul 29, 2023 7:46:24 GMT -5
Regarding it being out of line, I think that is up for debate/in the eye of the beholder. IIRC the thing that upset him the most was people were questioning his work ethic. We can be upset and share constructive feedback, but I personally think it is out of line to question someone's work ethic, especially when we aren't working with the person. We don't know anything about Bill's job - I would imagine he works a lot of OT and seems to be passionate about his job. I would be upset too if some stranger on a message board that has rules (where we are supposed to treat other people with respect) was going overboard like that. The OP ended up buying the figure and admitted that it wasn't as bad as he made it out to be. We also aren't privy to all of the other factors that go into these decisions that we scrutinize (budgets, profit, WWE/wrestler input, etc.). A lot of people here don't even understand how budgets work ("hey, cancel the basic line and put the budget to the elite line") or that Mattel can't sign their own deals with wrestlers. With that being said, I don't think Bill had the right type of personality to deal with this board (not a knock on him - I don't think most people here would be able to deal with the negativity/criticism everyday if they worked for Mattel). I was disappointed with how he treated one of the mods here though - he had a meltdown that they posted pics from AMAZON of the attitude era collection before they were able to announce it (I think it was right before SDCC or some reveal). He was acting like the Mod posted pics of stolen figures from the factory or something when the source was one of their retailers that posted the pics too soon. That happened after the Sting thread and I think he has only posted a handful of times since then. Calling for someone's job on a toy forum is absurd. I'll give you that. And yes he did treat the mod like he stole those images (did he ever apologize for this?). And Bill is passionate...about certain things. And pig-headed about others. And I will say just because people buy these toys, it doesn't give them the right to go full on you about other aspects of the hobby. But it should afford us the opportunity to CONSTRUCTIVELY criticize. Now, the problem is people's definition of constructive criticism wildly differ. From the person doing the criticizing to the person receiving it. If you aren't on the same wavelength, of course it'll come off as an attack. Like telling someone their tshirt sucks? |
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Deleted
Joined on: Nov 25, 2024 0:29:58 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jul 29, 2023 7:47:59 GMT -5
Calling for someone's job on a toy forum is absurd. I'll give you that. And yes he did treat the mod like he stole those images (did he ever apologize for this?). And Bill is passionate...about certain things. And pig-headed about others. And I will say just because people buy these toys, it doesn't give them the right to go full on you about other aspects of the hobby. But it should afford us the opportunity to CONSTRUCTIVELY criticize. Now, the problem is people's definition of constructive criticism wildly differ. From the person doing the criticizing to the person receiving it. If you aren't on the same wavelength, of course it'll come off as an attack. Like telling someone their tshirt sucks? Exactly. Calling em a turd, too. |
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Post by punksnotdead on Jul 29, 2023 8:08:05 GMT -5
Guys... the Haslab Ghost just got backed in 3 days at 8k and it cost $500. And there are definitely more wrestling fans than Star Wars Rebels fans. The demand was there for the Nitro stage. If the international shipping situation would have been solved, it would have accounted for the 1000 backers we needed. The Nitro stage was absolutely beautiful. I would have easily paid $300 retail for just the stage with no figures. The GI Joe Dragonfly got backed before people even knew the tiers. I think we just have to look at ourselves as a community and say we can't spend/won't spend the way other popular fanbases will. And that's ok, but Mattel has to shift their strategy because of it imo. In retrospect, it's pretty baffling we even got the New Gen ring backed.
That said, the Jurassic gates are a totally different issue. I collect those toys, and I backed that gate. But it was way over priced, and the tiers were laughable. We had all that stuff already. The jeep and Timmy set has been $25 multiple times at Target for like 2 years. Mattel tried to repackage it with the gate and upcharge people $150. The situations just aren't comparable. Yes, Mattel could have picked better attires or characters for the Nitro stage figures, but the stage itself was an absolutely incredible piece. The Jurassic gates feel like something that should go directly to retail for like $100. The box would have absolutely been smaller than the brachiosaurus. So the shelf space excuse doesn't work on that one. The Jurassic crowdfund was very similar to the Haslab Rancor. The community was pissed and they squashed it. That's not what happened with the Nitro stage.
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originaloutsider
Mid-Carder
Right Back Atcha HBK!
Joined on: Jul 15, 2016 20:06:10 GMT -5
Posts: 467
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Post by originaloutsider on Jul 29, 2023 9:38:05 GMT -5
Jurassic Park didn't even make it so safe to say no
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zen411
Main Eventer
Joined on: Apr 18, 2019 21:20:38 GMT -5
Posts: 2,608
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Post by zen411 on Jul 29, 2023 10:11:10 GMT -5
It never felt like fun to me. The new Gen arena felt like a community and like we were all in on a cool thing for macho man and doink especially. Imagining 11000 would pay 400 plus shipping for a jeans ultimate warrior was ludicrous.
I never liked the way they pitched it and sam roberts involvement. It was a big ask for a big set of something that was cool 25 years ago.
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Post by cableV on Jul 31, 2023 6:27:17 GMT -5
The $650($750 w/shipping) ThunderCats' Lair funded and hit it's early bird bonus last night. It's 36" tall and 53" wide when open. The early bird bonus wasn't even a figure, it was a 4" key. I hope Mattel Creations can figure out their crowdfunds, all these other lines are getting cool stuff. The WWE line is a popular line, there has to be something they can do.
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Post by SteveHulk on Jul 31, 2023 6:51:34 GMT -5
It never felt like fun to me. The new Gen arena felt like a community and like we were all in on a cool thing for macho man and doink especially. Imagining 11000 would pay 400 plus shipping for a jeans ultimate warrior was ludicrous. I never liked the way they pitched it and sam roberts involvement. It was a big ask for a big set of something that was cool 25 years ago. That's just it though - people bought it/were hyped for the figures... very few seemed excited (or AS excited) by the actual ring and entrance thing. Same with the Nitro stage... while the stage alone appealed to a few people, most were talking about the figures and what was right or wrong with them. That's why I think most crowd-funding wrestling items are probably destined to fail... it's a FIGURE based hobby/community. And anything outside of the actual figures has a very limited appeal. |
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Post by Fighter Hayabusa on Jul 31, 2023 7:10:59 GMT -5
It never felt like fun to me. The new Gen arena felt like a community and like we were all in on a cool thing for macho man and doink especially. Imagining 11000 would pay 400 plus shipping for a jeans ultimate warrior was ludicrous. I never liked the way they pitched it and sam roberts involvement. It was a big ask for a big set of something that was cool 25 years ago. But I also think a lot of people are looking at New Gen through rose colored lenses. Yeah the last couple days of the early bird were great but the 3 weeks prior to that was the same negativity and pessimism seen with Nitro. “We don’t need another scale ring.” “Diesel wasnt the face of New Gen. Shoulda been Bret or HBK.” “Doink is cool but no way he’s getting unlocked.” “Who asked for that entrance? Shoulda been RAW letters.” “Even Macho can’t help this. It got a little bump when he was announced but I doubt it gets to 5000.” |
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