Unless they actually update the listing (half the photos are the old Lair because I don't call them Cretins for fuck all), that thing is never selling at £335. And the tiers are the dumbest shit they could have tried.

@sketchyskeletor Agreed, the tiers aren't necessary here at all. They should keep that approach for behemoth projects instead. Incidentally, I would have thought it obvious that the Rattle Snake vehicle would be chosen as one of these baits – another opportunity to call them what you love doing so much (lol).

Posted by: @onlyoneskeletor

↑

@sketchyskeletor Agreed, the tiers aren't necessary here at all. They should keep that approach for behemoth projects instead. Incidentally, I would have thought it obvious that the Rattle Snake vehicle would be chosen as one of these baits – another opportunity to call them what you love doing so much (lol).

It's not even worth the money with everything included. They finally fixed the photos but the price is still the same!

https://creations.mattel.com/en-gb/products/masters-of-the-universe-origins-snake-lair-playset-crowdfund

Does anyone else feel like Mattel is hella greedy?

Posted by: @disneyboy

↑

Does anyone else feel like Mattel is hella greedy?

When all the comments beneath a Pixel Dan video find 300 bucks laughable, you're not the only one!

@disneyboy Mattel is a business. Making money is the whole point.

I’m very excited about Cartoon Collection Swift Wind. I hope the set won’t be too expensive though. Once again, it’s a bit more than we need… most of us have a She-are already. I suppose the cloth caps will be helpful for riding..

I ordered Megatron, after first being a bit disappointed. But he looks cool enough. From Battle Armor to Megatron Armor? I can be on board. Bit expensive tho.

I’ll also get Porcupine-Man, ofc!

Snake Lair– ouff! Way too much money.

One of the secondary criticisms w/ the 1st design was that it’s too much stuff, driving up the price.

And now, despite looking better etc, it’s again so much stuff in it, driving up the price! Or isn’t it possible to crowdfund playsets for a decent price??

I can't stop thinking about the Lair lmao.

There's simply no way for Mattel to right that ship now. Almost to an individual comment it's a 'How much!?'. 

They either let the clock run down and watch it fail*, or pull it for a second time. Minimum they need to include the tiers as standard, have a payment plan AND throw in something else. It's not likely, is it?

*International buyers will be like rocking horse shit, and Americans clearly don't want it for that much money. 

That video with PD- how much were they planning on charging for the first version of this turd?  Absolutely brain dead, charging that much for something that has no nostalgia for an ORIGINS line. Then $300 for this one?  They be smoking snakemen dung.

You can tell it still pisses them off, that most of us didnt want that. Probably not gonna be happy in a month either. 

I don't mean to attack them personally - all companies are trying to turn a profit - but the bottom line here is that they're asking for as much as they think they can get.

This isn't going to go well. It's nice idea for a playset but they're overestimating how much fans want it. 

@disneyboy I don't think its a matter of them getting as much as they can, but profit margins and production cost and MOQ... it's all very complicated.

Posted by: @disneyboy

↑

Does anyone else feel like Mattel is hella greedy?

Today I pre-ordered the Megatron Skeletor as soon as I could.

The grand total of $33 including shipping and tax is rounded up to $45. The most I've ever spent on a single MOTU Origins figure beating out my Faker figure I bought off eBay three months ago for a $35 total cost.

Isn't inflation great?  🙂 

While were on the subject of lamenting of the lack of more She-Ra 40th stuff, does anyone remember that as far back as December of last year, they've been heavily teasing a Scorpia figure?

First there was a trademark renewal and the fact that she's hinted on packaging artwork of both the Masterverse and CC Leech figures. I know at this point it's probably very unlikely with all the announcements from today, but could it be possible we'll get just one more as of now unannounced wave of Filmation CC figures in say late November-December to close off the year before 2026 goes all in on stuff like Thundercats wave 3, the big amount of 200x stuff and potential 2026 movie synergy somehow (Goat Man?)?

There's also the facts that:

- Confirmation of more Filmation characters on the way.

- As of now we have no confirmed release window for the first 200x figures. It is possible the first wave could be this November-December, but it's probably wiser they hold off as the first 2026 wave to make 200x the year's major theme. (2023 = Snake Men. 2024 = CC He-Man. 2025 = CC She-Ra.)

- Main waves usually have a release gap of around 2-3 months. The upcoming Shadow Weaver, Bow and Whiplash wave is set for September/October according to retailers, though some people on youtube are somehow getting these guys early this past week, which may leave that holiday season spot open.

If I had to choose two more figures for this possible Scorpia wave, they would be Glimmer, they have to do her and Entrapta. 2018 bias and I wanna display her sweetly with Hordak.

The way I see it is, 6000 must be the minimum amt that they can sell it at $300 and make profit, because they aren't gonna sell at a loss, period. So anything above that, the unlockable tier numbers, is that much more profit.

But it's at the cost of irritating fans and probably NOT selling more units

So why not lower the price to, let's say, $200 total, no tiers just include EVERYTHING for standard, but then raise the funding goal to make it to 10000? Sure, a minimum of 10000 might look like a more unachievable goal than 6000, but at a lower price with more guaranteed stuff, you're probably more likely to reach 10000 than doing it the way they've chosen to. 

Posted by: @evilwarrior

↑

The way I see it is, 6000 must be the minimum amt that they can sell it at $300 and make profit, because they aren't gonna sell at a loss, period. So anything above that, the unlockable tier numbers, is that much more profit.

But it's at the cost of irritating fans and probably NOT selling more units

So why not lower the price to, let's say, $200 total, no tiers just include EVERYTHING for standard, but then raise the funding goal to make it to 10000? Sure, a minimum of 10000 might look like a more unachievable goal than 6000, but at a lower price with more guaranteed stuff, you're probably more likely to reach 10000 than doing it the way they've chosen to. 

Basically it's a calculation so as to earn interest on millions sitting in a high interest account before you're obliged to provide the item. All the risk is put onto the customer, the tiers are bonuses for the company at that point, not us. 

@slycooperastroboy51 I’d like that, but somehow stuff always comes earlier than expected. The announced “New” Origins / CC refresh usually comes already during that year, no?

It’s still possible they squeeze in some more Filmation CC at retail… and afterwards, at Creations (like the Swiftwind set). CC might become another thing they will try to continue on Creations, hopefully not to the detriment of more Vintage style offerings…

While Eternia was pricier, it was also bigger and more nostalgic. You got your money’s worth more-so than with the Lair pricing. It failed to get to 10,000. No way the Snake Lair is getting to 10,000. Like why even set it up for failure so bad?  It’s probably not even going to fund at $300. After striking out last year with their first attempt, you’d think they would have tried harder to get an accurate pulse of the fandom. The current price and tier structure is absurd. 

And sadly, when this fails, I doubt there’ll be more MOTU crowdfunds. It would have been nice to get something that is more fitting for a crowdfund. A large Eternos palace, a large Filmation Grayskull or Snake Mountain or Fright Zone, etc. 

Posted by: @grayskullguardsman

↑

While Eternia was pricier, it was also bigger and more nostalgic. You got your money’s worth more-so than with the Lair pricing. It failed to get to 10,000. No way the Snake Lair is getting to 10,000. Like why even set it up for failure so bad?  It’s probably not even going to fund at $300. After striking out last year with their first attempt, you’d think they would have tried harder to get an accurate pulse of the fandom. The current price and tier structure is absurd. 

And sadly, when this fails, I doubt there’ll be more MOTU crowdfunds. It would have been nice to get something that is more fitting for a crowdfund. A large Eternos palace, a large Filmation Grayskull or Snake Mountain or Fright Zone, etc. 

 

I agree, only there will definitely be more crowdfunds. There's way too much money to be made. They profit from the item AND the interest holding a couple of million in the bank brings. Mattel is also in desperate need of hype for this brand. The mixture of short term greed (just dumping stock wherever as one example) and incompetence from top to bottom has been practically fatal. 

I mean they outright said the Cartoon Collection will 'continue in many forms' and one look on here suggests few believe Filmation has long left because 200x is the new thing. The brand is needlessly weak because Mattel is.

Posted by: @sketchyskeletor

↑

I mean they outright said the Cartoon Collection will 'continue in many forms' and one look on here suggests few believe Filmation has long left because 200x is the new thing. The brand is needlessly weak because Mattel is.

There are AT LEAST three videos where Mattel people say that Filmation and She-Ra are not done. The lack of belief is due to an inability to accept what they are being told.

My thoughts on the MOTU panel:

Fake-ass moderator Trisha and her awful voice need to go. She makes me cringe and wanna scratch myself. 

If the She-Ra/Swifty render is what we actually get I'll be over the moon.

People really need to stop with 'Let's go!' and 'iconic'. They've lost all heft and context and this isn't Twitter ffs.

The Transformer stats on the boxes are a neat touch.

Cartoon Collection will continue in different forms, specifically Filmation in both forms and 200x, but presumably New Adventures too. They need to realise that people need to see that stuff yesterday though, absolutely nobody trusts them to truly finish a subline at this point. I completely understand why you'd stretch out vintage but it was obvious from the get-go Filmation and New Adventures should have been mixed into waves. Years ago.

If anybody missed it they confirmed the 200x deluxes (you could have guessed anyway) - Ram Man, Roboto, Clawful and Beastman. I can't help wondering what even standard figures will cost though, the sculpting is quite a few steps beyond Filmation and the plans are WAY advanced compared to what we normally see.

The Eternian language business needs all the Easter eggs in future otherwise it's pointless. 

I only just realised how silly another Lady Slither is whilst watching the panel. Why do they think a dead version is some sorta lure? Nobody gives a crap about the Preternia angle because they've paywalled almost every bit of it!

Pythonus should never have been paywalled, now he'll never exist unless they break their own rules. Same with Chimera. They could have easily made them a set on Cretins and made direct bank.

@sketchyskeletor

While I agree with your criticisms, I mean if they were so incompetent, they would all be fired by now. I know we’re all smarter than all the “professionals”, but c’mon

I wouldn’t say there’s no hype for MOTU. A lot going on.

Of course, the goals / measure of competence / success is different for a big corporation, than for the individual fan, which sucks for us ofc.

Posted by: @cosmic

↑

@sketchyskeletor

While I agree with your criticisms, I mean if they were so incompetent, they would all be fired by now. I know we’re all smarter than all the “professionals”, but c’mon

I wouldn’t say there’s no hype for MOTU. A lot going on.

Of course, the goals / measure of competence / success is different for a big corporation, than for the individual fan, which sucks for us ofc.

But they provably are is my take - MOTU in the nostalgia age should have been a billion dollar brand again but it's distribution sucked from day one with Origins and never truly recovered. Masterverse was better but suffered horribly because it was wildly overproduced on the basis of a show that wasn't what they sold it as. Now Masterverse shipments are a disaster. 

The CGI show figures were godawful and internationally the pricing was insane. They're still sitting in warehouses all around the world.

They can't even crowdfund or just run a small website with any sort of consistency. 

I was actually thinking about this yesterday. From what I gather, and going right back to the original line, the marketing team has all the juice. If that's true it's them who need replaced. Promote whoever is left that has organised the crossovers because at least they can negotiate and understand the need for genuine hype that reaches beyond the fanbase. 

Posted by: @sketchyskeletor

↑

The Transformer stats on the boxes are a neat touch.

 

I think they said the stats were in the box, maybe like the cards they've been doing for the deluxe figures?