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TF-fan kev777 wrote:

Bumblevivisector wrote:Just backed it, but a tad disappointed that no extra stretch goals popped up like with Deathsaurus.

If I remember correctly Deathsaurus extra bonus didn't show up until after the window for backing closed and they blew way past the target. Too early to know for this one yet.

The bonuses (like Boater) were announced during the campaign’s backing window

I broke down and ordered. I'm a G1 guy that has watched every series as they aired. I don't care about RID (except Scourge and Sky byte) but I really like how this turned out. I also like supporting these. If they keep doing well they'll continue.

Talon523 wrote:I broke down and ordered. I'm a G1 guy that has watched every series as they aired. I don't care about RID (except Scourge and Sky byte) but I really like how this turned out. I also like supporting these. If they keep doing well they'll continue.

In Japan, he is a G1 guy.

TF-fan kev777 wrote:

Bumblevivisector wrote:Just backed it, but a tad disappointed that no extra stretch goals popped up like with Deathsaurus.

If I remember correctly Deathsaurus extra bonus didn't show up until after the window for backing closed and they blew way past the target. Too early to know for this one yet.

If they're planning an extra bonus then we've probably already hit that threshold. The team seemed genuinely excited in today's livestream that it had surpassed their expectations at 20K. They're currently nearing 24K.

Emerje

It's just smart to add a extra bonus after it ends.

It just makes sense from a marketing standpoint.

That way people in the future would speculate on the hidden stretch goal on all future haslabs.

A stretch goal you already know of and don't really care for adds little to motivate, but a mystery goal could be anything, even a thing that you didn't know you needed.

The bonus is just that, a bonus, a way of saying thanks for making the campaign such a success. It isn't meant to be an incentive. And that's assuming there even is one. They did announce the extra missiles last week so that may be all we see.

Emerje

We've surpassed 28K in the final minutes! We'll have our final tally later. Currently sitting at 28,230.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:We've surpassed 28K in the final minutes! We'll have our final tally later. Currently sitting at 28,230.

Emerje

Can we say, "Most successful Transformers HasLab of them all"?

Sabrblade wrote:

Emerje wrote:We've surpassed 28K in the final minutes! We'll have our final tally later. Currently sitting at 28,230.

Emerje

Can we say, "Most successful Transformers HasLab of them all"?

By about 800....sure.

An impressive support this time around to be certain. But honestly. I think it backed faster, not so much because it was wildly more popular than the last 2 TF Haslabs, but because Hasbro's ability to count backers, And their own Pulse website has more availability in more countries than with the previous 2 campaigns. In the end, I'm guessing there is a large percentage of fans and retailers that have gone all in on the past 3 based on the numbers being relatively close.

Still I would not be surprised if sometime very soon a congratulatory note of some sort came out announcing a"Thank you" bonus if some type.

It did also just pass the Razorcrest by 100 to be the 2nd highest supported Haslab of all ( still not quite 30K plus Galactus levels but impressive nonetheless).

This is an easy pass. I only got Deathasurus because I had Star Saber. It was not worth the price.

Wow.. I cynically doubt Car Robots fanbase is large enough in 2024 to fund this on their own. Literally people throw money at anything with an Optimus face on it.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:Wow.. I cynically doubt Car Robots fanbase is large enough in 2024 to fund this on their own. Literally people throw money at anything with an Optimus face on it.

Robots in Disguise did sow the seed for a Transformers revival, plus Optimus Prime hasn't combined (Brave-style) like that before. It also aired during a period in which anime slowly became big business.

As a toyline, Robots in Disguise did much better than Car Robots if the non-show redecos (that would lead into Universe 2003) is any indication.

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:Robots in Disguise did sow the seed for a Transformers revival

That's a little disingenuous. A stop gap series bridging the end of the (acclaimed) Beast Era and the beginning of UT.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote:

Jelze Bunnycat wrote:Robots in Disguise did sow the seed for a Transformers revival

That's a little disingenuous. A stop gap series bridging the end of the (acclaimed) Beast Era and the beginning of UT.

I wouldn't downplay it that much. I feel like it gave a Transformers-hungry populace something different before we were introduced to the Unicron Trilogy. It was fuel to keep the fire going, not neccessarily a spark to reignite it. By the time the Beast Ear ended, the interest was clearly starting to spike.

Don't get me wrong. I thought Car Robots (not the RiD dub) was great. I would have preferred season two over UT, in hindsight. But you can count it's original characters/figures with fingers and not run out. Even said cast thematically transitions from Beasts to Vehicles. Passing that baton backwards. It isn't a highly acclaimed masterpiece whose legacy and impact is fondly remembered. Outside of outlier weirdos like me.

AllNewSuperRobot wrote: Outside of outlier weirdos like me.

In this fandom, there are no outlier weirdos. We're ALL effing weird.

I believe (as often is the case) the truth is somewhere in the middle. I believe there are some (few), who are genuine Car Robot/RiD fans. Some are just "Optimus Prime" fans... But most, I figure, just see this as a great toy and wanted it.

I've told this story as nauseum, so sorry if you've heard it before... But I really like Car Robots (even though i didn't back this...go figure) . At Botcon 2000 I traded the BC exclusives Apelinq & Shockaract for Baldigus & JRX straight up ( I don't have them anymore either, but Id do it all over again if I could).

But when those toys first came out, we as western fans knew NOTHING about the coming RiD Dub. Afterall BWII and Neo came and went without a western import, why would CR be any different? When it did show up on Fox kids however it was a huge surprise. Unfortunately 9/11 messed up its broadcast at least in the U.S., but years later that matters little since BOTH versions (original and English dub) are easily accessible on YouTube.

Honestly Armada was weird. because even with the Internet, there was very little Advertising or build up. I remember the summer of 2002 quite fondly. Aside from getting married . I was all in on the then current MOTU 2002. (still the best iteration IMHO). I was getting the toys, and had high hopes for the series. When watching CN, I was really confused when seeing ads for Armada. There were no toys (yet) . Was this a continuation of Rid? Or something totally new? Even the fans online weren't sure.

The fact is, in REAL time. Car Robots/RiD wasnt a "stopgap" or "filler" leading up to the Unicron Trilogy. It was just a different direction. If not for certain world events, there certainly could have been more CR/RiD. Cartoon Network played the heck out of Armada on weekdays, and weekends. Constant re-runs to solidify its popularity with kids. Seemingly, without explanation, the wheels on the bus seemed to fall off with Energon & Cybertron, having very erratic broadcast schedules, and random marathons. I did not see them all proper until their DVD releases from Rhino (although I had been torrenting SuperLink to see them even before Energon broadcasts on CN).

There is also the simple fact that, unlike Victory Saber and Deathsaurus, this HasLab was a set of characters who actually appeared on television in Hasbro's main markets, on a channel that every single American household had at the time (because the FOX network is part of terrestrial television). You can bet your left kidney that more people have seen either Car Robots or Robots in Disguise 2001 than those who have seen Victory, and therefore have a stronger sense of familiarity with and/or nostalgia for it than Victory.

And there's the fact that the strained relationship between these two brothers was basically the only part of the whole show that was actually played dramatically instead of comedically, so it actually stands out as a memorable story arc in a show that largely built its likeability on lighthearted humor.

Maybe people like cool toys? Omega Prime has always been a very cool toy all on his own. OP and UM are popular characters, even if these aren't the G1 versions.

But I gotta agree that RiD was really accessible to international audiences. Even if I didn't back this, I'm glad it did well. I'm sure the recognition factor played a role. JG1 is really nice coming at a time when the franchise was dying. RiD was at a time when the franchise was at an upswing. I can see people being into this version. And peopele do want RiD for RiD. They want a modern Skybyte and Scourse all the time.

I think, since Unicron, Haslab has gotten better and better at keeping track of their backers too. When Unicron was backed it seemed like they honestly didn't know the store numbers until the last days of the project. That definitely isn't the case now.

CR/RID was the first real vehicle based series we'd had since G2, it was a very big deal. Stopgaps don't get 39 episode runs (3 whole TV seasons/cours in Japan). Armada hadn't really been conceived yet when CR was being produced, in fact it was the popularity of CR/RID as Hasbro's first Japanese import show that would make the two companies working together on Armada go so much smoother. Yes, the CR toys did use a lot of old molds, but many of them were ones Japan hadn't used before. They did get 10(?) new molds and some got multiple recolors in Japan (the car brothers got 3 each). And the new molds were all VERY elaborate compared to figures done in past. Unexpected success? Sure, but not a stopgap. Machine Wars was a stopgap, Classics was a stopgap, Power Core Combiners was a stopgap, not CR/RID.

Incidentally does anyone remember the earliest rumors for Armada, way before anything was ever hinted at? They said there would be a massive space battle featuring "armadas" of different Transformers generations at war. G1, G2, Beast Wars and so on. Sounds cool, but that ended up basically being Universe 2003 which ran along the Unicron Trilogy. It's just funny how rumors get twisted like that. That kind of rumor was pretty rare back then.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:CR/RID was the first real vehicle based series we'd had since G2, it was a very big deal. Stopgaps don't get 39 episode runs (3 whole TV seasons/cours in Japan).

Though Fox Kids apparently only ordered 36 episodes originally, having dropped the three clip shows from the original Car Robots episode count (but then 9/11 banned three of the non-clip episodes and led Saban to create three new ones to return the count back to 36; then the banned ones aired the following year in Canada and the UK).

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I think, since Unicron, Haslab has gotten better and better at keeping track of their backers too. When Unicron was backed it seemed like they honestly didn't know the store numbers until the last days of the project. That definitely isn't the case now.

During Unicron they were only taking order on Pulse which was only available in North America. It wasn't until they realized it was going to fail that they started looking at options in other countries including Japan. Because everything was so thrown together they weren't really setup for real time updates so they just calculated everything all at once at the end (those added countries ended earlier than Pulse). Since then, they've been able to do things closer to real time, or at least more frequently. They did add around 5K at the end, I'm guessing that was Takara Tomy's orders since they probably aren't ordering directly off the pulse store like other venders did.

Emerje

Emerje wrote:

Gauntlet101010 wrote:I think, since Unicron, Haslab has gotten better and better at keeping track of their backers too. When Unicron was backed it seemed like they honestly didn't know the store numbers until the last days of the project. That definitely isn't the case now.

During Unicron they were only taking order on Pulse which was only available in North America. It wasn't until they realized it was going to fail that they started looking at options in other countries including Japan. Because everything was so thrown together they weren't really setup for real time updates so they just calculated everything all at once at the end (those added countries ended earlier than Pulse). Since then, they've been able to do things closer to real time, or at least more frequently. They did add around 5K at the end, I'm guessing that was Takara Tomy's orders since they probably aren't ordering directly off the pulse store like other venders did.

Emerje

https://tformers.com/haslab-unicron-to- ... /news.html
https://www.seibertron.com/transformers ... 019/43864/
https://tformers.com/haslab-unicron-get ... /news.html

It was available in Japan in July (which was right away I think) and extended in August. After that it was made available in Europe officially, so maybe that's what you're thinking of.

I get the sense they weren't very good at it at the time. The store updates are much better now. I wonder if Unicron actually needed that extension to succeed or if it was just to absolutely ensure success and profit. There's a difference between just squeaking through the finish line and blowing past it. After the iffy start I was surprised at seeing the numbers shoot up like they did.

Gauntlet101010 wrote:It was available in Japan in July (which was right away I think) and extended in August. After that it was made available in Europe officially, so maybe that's what you're thinking of.

Yeah, I might have accidentally included Japan in there, though that doesn't really change my point. Broadening their reach is something they should have done from the start and it was done in such a rush that they probably didn't have a great system going. Things clearly improved by the time we got to Star Saber.

Emerje

I also remember some technical problems with Unicron's crowdfunding; I waited until the last minute, and it wouldn't let me back it for some reason. I'm in the U.S., but probably wouldn't have been able to order one without that extension.

Emerje wrote:Incidentally does anyone remember the earliest rumors for Armada, way before anything was ever hinted at? They said there would be a massive space battle featuring "armadas" of different Transformers generations at war. G1, G2, Beast Wars and so on. Sounds cool, but that ended up basically being Universe 2003 which ran along the Unicron Trilogy. It's just funny how rumors get twisted like that. That kind of rumor was pretty rare back then.

Emerje

The earliest I heard of Armada was an article in Toyfare Magazine that must have been early spring 2002. IIRC, it claimed "Armada" referred to the single ship used to get the Minicons off Cybertron and out of harm's way, or that was possibly made out of Minicons, though no official fiction posited that idea, did it?

Obviously not everyone reads that mag, so it hadn't occurred to me that there might not have been much advertising for Armada prior to that Dreamwave preview comic, since I already knew what to expect.

Though it may be a coincidence, in hindsight, I always wanted to believe the name ARMADA was a cryptic hint that the toyline would give us that first Unicron toy, since his original TFU profile describes him as, "capable of swatting armadas to dust".

But getting back on topic, part of what made the R.I.D. toyline seem like a stopgap in hindsight was the fact that Hasbro never ended up giving us Brave Max after he flunked the drop test, and Scourge ended up being a last-minute TRU exclusive, then once Armada was on the shelves the line continued with all those repaints and Beast-era + G2 leftovers, making it feel like Hasbro saw RID as less of an adaptation of Car Robots than a dumping ground for anything they couldn't fit in their mainline.

Hmm, that also kind of ended up being the essence of the first Universe toyline, didn't it?