-Kanrabat- wrote:Emerje wrote:Mattel really has a lot of trouble with their crowdfunds. Eternia had a little bit of a struggle but it did fairly well, but since then it's been pretty rough.
Emerje
Eternia was a given for a crowdfunding project. But this? Mattel should do better research about what the public really want.
Oh, no doubt, but this is their third crowd fund, the one after Eternia was a light up
WCW stage and some $20 figures for $400, it only got to 78% funded. I put it in the same category as the JP gate, it isn't a playset like Eternia, it's a backdrop and nothing else.
Tyrannacon wrote:They probably went with the Gates primarily because of them being so iconic primarily. It may not have been the best choice as many have said. I personally disagree, I feel like the gates are massively cool and I feel like they're worth it because of the motor and engineering involved in it, the problem is I think they're too sophisticated. They should've gone with like a Visitor Center or "Command Compound" update from the Kenner line or even the trailers from The Lost World with characters like Eddie, Nick, and Kelly along with the Buck.
I do think they should've offered these in price-based tiers instead of backer-based tiers, with the top price tier offering everything - including the bonus they had. Outside of that, I do have concerns that the money people at Mattel will see this as evidence the brand is "unprofitable" and they force Mattel in cancelling the toy line or at least force the team working on it to start pairing down. From what it sounded like though from the Mattel panel at SDCC is that the design team is still going to go ahead and do more to either court or bring in more collectors for the series with additional offerings. Sort of a "If it's there, we're going to entice, if it isn't we're going to build it!" type of thought. So the future isn't as dark as I had thought, but it does become a bit harder. I do hope they offer the Hammond Collection Buck T-Rex outside of this set as an individual release in the future though. It'd probably not have the scars sculpted into it, but then it could still too. The Buck Rex from the 2nd film is my favorite dinosaur character of the series.
The reason they can't do tiers like that is MOQ, minimum order quantity. If they did it like you described then what happens if 5K people go for the lowest tier but only 100 go for the highest, they'd lose money producing tooling just for 100 people. Initial goals are always the minimum number needed to put everything into production, the stretch goals are spaced by what it would cost to add them to the production. For example Hasbro often goes with 10K to produce the initial piece and 3K for each additional figure rather than another 10K because the more they make of the initial item the less it costs them to make so it helps partially absorb the cost of the add on. For Mattel they still need that 5K regardless of what they include because those massive gates are the bulk of the cost, everything else is just added value. Personally, I think the gates are probably priced right for what they need to produce them, but that doesn't mean it has any real value to fans as something they'd want.
I wouldn't be too worried about Mattel looking at the campaign as a measure of the line's popularity, they have a whole franchise worth of data for that and they definitely understand that those gates would only be bought by adults when the majority of the toys are bought for kids.
Emerje
"Decepticons! Transform and Rise Up!" 
