I could see that

 

I went with choseprime because the amount of reward points you'll get with such a large purchase would easily be enough for around $30 in CP gift cards. That way I get to pay it off over time and get a basically free voyager figure. And I'd bet that Galvatron seen on the Earthrise boxart will be available in the last part of the WFC trilogy, just in time for Unicron's release. People said they wanted a voyager Galvatron as a bonus for the crowdfund, guess that's the way to do it!

 

His production is a massive undertaking that they won't want to do constantly or possibly ever again depending how it turns out. It's not impossible he sees some kind of second release, but I'd be shocked if it was any time soon. At this point based on what I'm seeing his aftermarket prices are going to go through the roof but I hope I'm wrong as I'd like as many people to be able to enjoy him as possible.

 

I got lucky with paying for Unicron. I went into my Iron Man/Godzilla collection and found a few high end items and threw 'em on eBay.
I had him paid off before I even gave them my CC info. That's how I collect tho. My co-workers used to think I was horrible with money(truthfully I'm not that great) until they saw how much I sell as well. I see something shiny, I go into the ol collection and see who can go. Otherwise I couldn't afford squat

 

That’s a fine anecdotal argument, but a stronger argument would be one that can point to a comparable situation as evidence to support it. What kind of evidence could exist that Hasbro management would dictate a re-release of a HasLab project simply because it could make them money, regardless of the impact it would have on future Pulse projects when backers see you don’t have to back a project to get it from Hasbro?

if only there were other existing HasLab projects that were hugely successful, of which the market demand after the HasLab release continues to exist...oh, wait, there is. The Barge.

Hasbro management is so focused on profit, without regard for undermining HasLab, that there are ZERO rumblings of a second release of the Barge.

at this point there is zero evidence Hasbro management would undermine HasLab simply to chase additional profits by re-releasing the HasLab projects. Obviously this isn’t overwhelming evidence by itself, but it’s more evidence in support of the argument saying they won’t than evidence that says they will.

 

In addition to that, there was 2 months to order Unicron, anyone who was willing to pay the cost and could (in addition to delaying payment via 3p vendors) and also read the fine print of it being made to order have already ordered it. There's every probability that they would lose money on a 2nd production run or that a 2nd production run would not meet the necessary orders to move forward

 

Is unicron their first haslab production, or have their been others?

 

Jabbas Sail Barge for Star Wars was the first one

 

It's the second project after the Star Wars Barge, so their first Transformers project.

It could have been the third project, but nobody wanted Cookie Monster...

 

And therein lies the question; despite the fact that demand will exist, is it enough demand to warrant a second production run? 8,000 plus backers is a huge amount of consumers; are we to believe another 8,000 exist that will buy it at an undoubtedly higher price who passed o it initially to warrant producing a second patch...on speculation.

I know people will argue...but the molds have been paid for, they don’t have to account for that in the price so they can make it cheaper! That’s a meritless argument. Again, are there comparative re-releases by Hasbro of existing molds that have ever been re-released cheaper than the original release? No! In fact, Hasbro’s practice is that the price of re-releases for big items increases, so that is all the evidence we need to argue that even if they re-released Unicron, it would be significantly more expensive.

 

That is a good point to bring up as well

 

Unicron is far from low hanging fruit. He's a huge box with a large price tag and takes up a ton of retail space and a LOT of labor to build. No way any retailer will take on that burden. While the fine print of the campaign gives Hasbro permission to use the Unicron molds after the campaign for whatever they want to do, an actual retail release is probably the least feasible.

I can see variants possibly released for conventions or limited edition for milestones/contests, but this won't be on heavy rotation at Target, Walmart, or Amazon.

 

Yes, honestly even though the initial run paid for the molds the setup fees, print costs etc they may need to have over 3000 orders, say, to even break even, is that level of support there? I could see a few hundred but not thousands.

 

...a lot of the initial campaign's demand was from the secondary market, too: if hasbro were to water that down with reissues they'd undermine their credibility for future build-to-order campaigns and face a significantly greater challenge meeting their crowdfunding targets...

...i think folks will find that natural demand for a $650+ figure is much less than the twelve thousand units already being produced...

 

I can see future limited runs for conventions and specialty giveaways. But they will never be the same deco as the initial run that the backers' bought; it would demolish the value they hold and would be a slap in the faces' of the backers. I can see a possible future Armada recolor but it will most likely be a limited run for a convention if they do it. I would love to see if they would be willing to do a retool and give us a 1:1 scale Primus to Unicron. Instead of the rings we would get the moons.

 

The slap to the face is a Hasbro specialty. They might change the color, but if they do, it'll be MORE accurate so as to piss off the haslab backers. They are doing that with Marvel Build-A-Figures. While it's not the same price range, it's a legitimate "issue". I've seen several crowdfunded items "go live" in the marketplace and the original backers were butthurt because they thought they were some special "exclusive" deal. no one reads the fine print.

 

I think a lot of folks do fail to understand just how large a number of units that twelve thousand is. Orders of magnitude more plentiful than any BotCon exclusive. More than probably any club exclusive, too. If you can get any of those for a reasonable price ("reasonable" must be understood in relation to the original cost here, so no complaints about how you can't get a Deluxe for only $10), the same should also be true of Unicron, which will be much more plentiful.

 

If a min of 8000 cost $575, the price of a limited con version of, what, 1000 would be beyond a price that would make it even rational to consider. Con figures already get up charged for the limited value, couple that with the fact that the price would increase for the smaller production run, and that Hasbro simply increases prices for products to be relevant to the existing market timeframe (if a figure class was released at one point at x price, and five years later their prices have increased 20%, Hasbro simply increases the price 20% for the re-used mold, that price increase isn’t dependent on whether it’s a new figure or not.

Because nothing is a certainty, I won’t say there’s no chance in hell, but the likelihood of a con exclusive Unicron re-do is so unlikely based on existing market practices by Hasbro it can’t reasonably be argued to be a realistic possibility.

 

That's a smart way to go about it.
I have 259 saved. I need to save 12.50 a week and I'll have the cash for it. Which is great because it wont break us.

 

12,000 is the same production size as TRU RID Scourge.

Everybody in the world who wants a TRU RID Scourge either already owns one or could purchase one online today.