Gauntlet101010 wrote:Eh, it's good enough to get a good sense of what it'll look like. The only really iffy factor is that the greens will be different shades. But I think I can live with it.
Honestly, I'd rather they release these over the course of a year or two and make a quality product than rush things and making one of these guys half assed.
"Different shades"? NOOOOOOOOO!!!
From what I've seen, I think it's safe to say that all figures will be approximately the same size. I had kinda hoped that they could release two packs and sell for $100/pack. Well, throw that hope out the Frank'n window.
I think it's a safe assumption that CD, FansProject, TFClub, etc are operating to market to a "limited mass retail". I mean, they aren't selling limited edition of 50 items, but they aren't (and probably couldn't) selling their products as widescale as Hasbro. So I wonder if they take into consideration some of these prices and the effect it will have on fans.
An idea which could help bring down the costs to manufacture, which might end up bringing down the retail cost, would be to follow suit with Takara/Hasbro. Take advantage of repaints, and get better contracts with the production companies. I'm sure there are more than a few people out there that would love to get a Yellow Hercules, but that into the contract to produce more figures and negotiate down the costs to do business. As just one example, FP got extra bang for their buck by reusing the basic molds for Explorer/Ammunitioner, and did a few adjustments for the Causality figures. That should've saved them some time and money. But the price for the Causality was almost the same as when i purchased Bruticus parts, but I didn't get all those nifty weapons and attachments. Trickle that down to your active purchasers!
I'm sure these "companies" don't have an extreme amount of spending capabilities, but it seems by now that they could better negotiate prices, and less expensive figures should sell to more people than what they are currently selling. There's already a fan-base for these "companies", take that into consideration that you can sell at least X amount of product, pack on another 500 to that and negotiate a cheaper price.
I like a lot of the products that 3rd parties release, but I'm unable to show my support (ie- purchase) for these new figures if they all come out between $50 - 100, and I believe a lot of the fans are in the same boat. You can even find posts on Seibertron from fans who can't afford just 1 $100, much less a line of figures at that price.
Is it really worth having a stock of figures you can't sell because it's cost-prohibited, or to sell out figures at more affordable prices?
*more of my mind than i anticipated on sharing*