Why doesn’t Mattel just do a preorder for the goggles like they did the hoverboard? If I remember correctly, there was a minimum order they needed to go into production and they flew way past that number in only a few days!! So in the end, if they wouldn’t have done the preorder and just took a chance, they would have produced their minimum amount and sold out. But because there was all these extra preorders then what they might have expected… they are now making even more profit.
thanks Gareee, nice to read some info from an insider!
You have to take into account the amount of money they pay the Four Horsemen for the initial sculpts, cost to make moulds for the actual figures, moulds and set up for the plastic packaging, printing costs for the cards, inventory management through DRI, etc.
Bottom line is if it was such a golden goose profit maker for them, then they would have kept it up. You need strong sales on the figures that were kit bashed together with already sculpted parts to pay for the unique moulds and this collector line in no way shape or form had the sale volume production of a retail line.
The props on the other hand have become immensely profitable, hence the continuation of them. If they weren’t making money, they wouldn’t make them… end of story!
Regardless of what anyone thinks, and the fact that this is a ghostbusters fan site clouds A LOT of judgement, the line in itself is a risk for Mattel, so if profits decline of course it will be axed. In the end they are a business first, fan service second, and yes there sales model is failing. But all you need to do is look at the retro figures and the GB2 4 pack to realize these things do terribly in bricks and mortar stores as well, just ask Toys R Us.
Until there is new media to get the average public paying attention to GB toys rather than just die hard collectors the line won’t be profitable, no matter how you slice it, and hence no figures will get made.
Not so much an insider, but someone who’s collected toys for more than 30 years. You pick up info along the way, just like any other hobby, and its just common sense if Matty isn’t splitting profits with anyone else, they are sucking them up themselves.
Wha?! Rational thinking in a matty gbline thread?
I don’t see their subscriptions failing motu. Maybe it’ll help watchmen. Thing is everyone just blatantly ignores is heman has more characters and vehicles. Dc has more characters. Gb has what? 8-maybe 10 movie characters and props. You can only get so many costume changes of the same before they cease to make sense and you all complain about that.
Do you all unbiasedly believe the line would be substantial if they’re moving into obscure costumes like the prison scene or the zener cards/library scene or dana wipes age off a painting? Is it really worth it? No. It’s not. It was meant to end at some point. Use your heads.
Now the goggles. So the “ways” around presales is to talk with someone that has a sub? That’s lame. It sounded like there was another way.
"While the Horsemen did some work on the original bodies for the 4 main Ghostbusters, the current 2011 figures are done by Mattel’s in-house sculpting department! "
This from poe Ghostal a year or two ago.
As far as mold? Lets see… reused molds for all four main guys AND rookie, reused molds for all courtroom figures (from the batman movie masters line, I believe), reused molds for all commercial “believe you” pack figures, reused mold for slimer, reused molds for gb2 4 pack, reused head molds on all 4 main guys across all figures.
Yes, they have a few unique figures, but even the accessories for the most part were reused from figure to figure. This was a dream moneymaking line for Mattel.
Sculpting and mold cost? Um, notsomuch.
As far as the packaging, they did one main card, and reused it with insert text changes for 3 years. it took someone a few hours in photoshop for the cad backs. (Someone hourly at Mattel for that matter.)
The total cost per figure I presented inculded the packaging costs.
Keep in mind, Mattel is HUGE, and has been making toys now for more than 60 years
I’m sure the marketing strategy was make as much as possible with as little effort as possible, price it as high as the market would bear, milk it out in hopes that GB3 comes out and if not, release as little as possible once it dries up, hanging onto the license until a new movie enables mass market rereleases of the entire line, with new movie centric additions.
Thats just big corporation thinking we’e seen in dozens of things over the years, no surprise.
To further illustrate actual toy cost, I’ll use that monster high doll example. Most MH dolls sell from $14 -$20. They must cost a lot to make, right?
Keeping in mind walmart wants to make 50% or more on toy sales, they had a spring promotion with one doll for $5.44.
So. if Mattel can sell a doll for $5.44 (That they usually sell for $14-$20) AND make money on that, and walmart was ALSO making money on it, you have to wonder how low the actual cost to make them are.
McFarlane mentioned years ago the cost of materials (including packaging) in a figure release was about 30 cents, and the rest of the cost is all manufacture/developement/distribution/advertisement.
(I was good freinds with Steve the Victim, the head of product developement, and Chet the Toyguy for many years.)
Thats why I just cherry picked whatever I liked from the matty line, and then most were bought in thier sales. I don’t think I ever paid more than $10 a figure for the 6" figs. thats all they were worth to me.
Matty doesn’t care if its fair or not to customers… they only care about bottom line, and if they can sell a few extra MOTU subscriptions for customers who want to speculate on them, thats fine.
Its just big business decision making, thats all.
RIP gb line
If the MOTU line, which stems from an 80s cartoon, does so well. Why not try their hand at making newer versions of the RGB figures? There’s a lot more figures to go with from there too. Tons of ghosts, the 4 main guys in busting gear, casualwear, sleeping attire. Then you have the big name ghosts like Boogieman, Sam Hain, Grundel, Killawatt, hell even Cthulu. I’d subscribe to an RGB line in a heartbeat. Wont ever happen, huh? 
Because stupid ToyGuru is given way too much final say into what gets made. He is not a fan of the Ghostbusters, he is a fan of the MOTU.
Also they dont have the rights for 6 inch rgb figures, which is why we ended up with the mego style ones
I’m guessing nobody does, if anyone knew out of curiosity does any toy company have the rights to make 6" The Real Ghostbusters figures? I know Mattel pretty much didn’t have any interest in making non Mego style RGB figures.
Mattel is being so greedy, but I want more - give me more, more, more, more, more! (If I’ve read the thread correctly)?
that sounds about right
This was just on MTV Geek:
<I>*He-Man and The Masters of the Universe Classics Need Your Help to Save (Club) Eternia!
Posted 2 hours ago by Lemonjuice McGee in Mattel, News, Toys
It’s the end of world as we know it.
Well, that might not necessarily be true, but you wouldn’t know it by the outcry of despair flowing from Twitter recently with the announcement that 2013’s Club Eternia subscription, for Mattel’s Masters of the Universe Classics toy line, might not have enough support to continue. What would this mean to all you casual readers? Absolutely nothing. However, for toy fans it harkens the possible end of regularly released collector-based He-Man figures, and the incredibly sculpted stylings of the Four Horsemen on the property. Granted, the Horsemen are currently hard at work on the upcoming DC Comics-based figures, but it’s just not the same! So, how can you help to save Masters of the Universe Classics from falling to the evil forces of Cancellation? Read on, Heroic Warriors for all the info straight from Scott Neitlich, a.k.a. Toy Guru, the MOTUC brand manager!
MOTUC has always been a love letter to the fans. It was created to be an all-inclusive line that would incorporate the greatest number of characters in the MOTU world ranging from Princess of Power to New Adventures to Filmation and mini comics. We’ve always said we can only make this line as long as there is an audience to buy it and that one day it might cost more to make these figures then fans are willing to pay.
We have absorbed dramatic cost increases every year but after 5 years we simply can’t charge the same 2008 prices anymore. This is why in 2013 we needed to go from 20.00 to 25.00 for a figure. We understand this is more expensive for some fans, but keep in mind, back in 2008, 20.00 seemed very high. If you go to retail now, a 6” figure will cost between 15 and 20.00 (vs 9.99 in 2008) and a 3 3 ¾” figure is over 10.00 now (vs 5.99 in 2008). We’re not lining or pockets here. These figures are very expensive to produce, especially at such a low run. The lower the run, the most expensive they are to make. This is why we need the min number of sub holders to keep the line going.
We understand there are “cherry pickers” who only want one type of figure or another, and I wish a line like MOTUC or DCUC could work for this type of consumer. But with rising costs and lower runs, the only way we can keep this love letter line going is with fan support. The only way to do fully tool’d figures like Ram Man is to bank him with a robust full year line. If we only did 4-6 figs a year they would be way more expensive and would not include as much tooling.
That is why we need your support!
We’ve heard fans loud and clear that 25.00 is a little high per figure. I wish it cost less to make these, but in the end, raw material and labor have skyrocketed over the last few years (just look at retail lines in the examples above). Fans often ask “what can I do to support MOTU?”. Simply. Buy a sub. That is it. Heck, buy 2.
If we don’t sell in the bare min of subs, the line will head towards taking a close. It is not a line that pays Mattel’s bills. We have Batman and WWE and Barbie and Hot Wheels for that. This is a very small line done out of respect for the fan base. But we can only keep making these if there are fans to buy them.
So if you have no renewed for 2013, please rethink your sub. All we need is for all sub holders from either 2010, 2011 or 2012 to renew. If we get that we are golden!
We are also going to rework 2014 (if we can get to a 2014 line) to ensure we hit as many fan demanded slots as possible and wrap this up quicker then our original 2016 road map. We wish we could have seen this steep cost to produce coming, but really no one did. We are doing all we can to get more MOTUC figures out to fans but without the min number of subscribers it will be hard for me to get the resources to keep this line going.
This is your chance He-Man fans! Sub up ! Do it for your fellow fans and don’t let MOTUC die an early toy death. We’ll do all we can to keep crankin these out, but we can only do that with the min number of sub holders.
Scott
To lend your support to He-Man, or Skeletor for that matter (we won’t judge!), head over to the Matty Collector website and sign up for a subscription before the deadline hits on August 6th!
Stay tuned to MTV Geek for all your Mattel and Masters of the Universe Classics coverage!
Related Posts:
Geoff Johns Creates New Masters Of The Universe Character In DC Digital Comic!
Review: Thunder-Punch He-Man Isn’t Your Ordinary Master Of The Universe
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Follow @MTVGeek on Twitter and be sure to “like” us on Facebook for the best geek news about comics, toys, gaming and more! And don’t forget to also follow our resident toy addict @LemonjuiceMcGee*
From this I guess the MOTU subs aren’t selling to hot this year as well. It will be interesting to see what happens on Aug. 6th.
I think as the economy has worstened (of just sustained being bad) people finally started looking at how much they were actually spending a year on this stuff, and evaluating what it was really worth to them.
There are also several “collector” factors at play going on.
When you look at 3 years worth of figures and the $1500 they cost you, you start to re evaluate how much these items are really worth to you. If you only have one interest, it isn’t bad. But when you have several interests, and you look at the combined amount of stuff you accumulate (and how much it all cost you) it really adds up.
Some people also bought them partially as speculation, and they are now finding out because of the high initial cost, that they aren’t making much money on them on ebay or craiglist.
And the more you have, them more shelf space you need. Just our Ghostbuster stuff alone takes a ton of display space now, and we have moe ■■■■ here than I can even remember anymore.
When figures cost just a few bucks a pop, it was easy to justify impulse buys and satisfaction VS what effort and money you spent.
When they became harder to obtain and more costly, that lowered the satisfaction levels, and people are finally acting on that.
Regular priced figures raised retail prices to match collector figure prices(figureing that they could make more on the collectors), and then collector figure prices raised prices above regular retail seeing the market would bear higher standard figure costs.
This has happened now several times over, to the point where customer numbers are starting to dwindle. (Some of the “deluxe” arkham asylum figures now run almost $50 a pop… for a 8-9" figure!)
Like the collectable card market, the collectable figure market is starting to crash. The upside is 3 years from now, you’ll be able to buy any of this stuff for pennies on the dollar.
Matty has been just playing this game and milking it out for far too long.
Have you seen the caliber of the Square Enix Play Arts Kai figures? Shit, Id pay $50 bucks a pop if we could be so lucky to get figures like that in the GB line. I have all the Arkham figures and plan on getting the Dark Knight Rises ones and I can tell you, they know how to make figures.
Aren’t they suppose to lie to me and kiss my butt?
yes they should lol
so the DC and MOTUC 2013 subs have been saved according to ToyGuru… they can all eat shit as far as Im concerned. after Ray/Tony I wish Matty would bow down gracefully and hand off the license to a company that can do it some real justice.
+1 for Joghostbuster Scott Toy Poser Guru saved the Masters of the universe toyline because he loves the Masters of the Universe. Mattel can kiss my French Argintinian ass!!!