If no other "actual sport" weren't scripted college football bowl games wouldn't look they do this year.
You might not be happy with the selections or the process (which is fubar b/c of covid), but that's all very different than fixing outcomes. In no way is NCAAF comparable to scripted wrestling. Now you're just being silly. So what do we know currently about mega's CoD plans? Aside from a couple of figure packs and singles, it's been nearly two years since we got any real sets. I'm hoping that (virtual) toyfair will have some new CoD sets that are tied into Cold War. That's prime territory for some new sets that wouldn't be boring rehashes. It seems the game has been pretty well received, so fingers crossed.
Shoe horning Notre Dame into a game for ratings seems kinda rigged to me. There has been no news of new products outside what is already been known about. That's where the whole, "why are complaining about all the Halo talk when there's nothing else to talk about?" comes from. The Hot Wheels sets are shipping from Amazon and the CoD Desert care package I ordered was indeed that item when it arrived. They don't want to admit it but I think CoD is all but dead for them. They need to abandon the license and just make their own collector series military toyline. They've already proven they have no fear of recycling pieces into other brands. I don't think there's anyone here or on their forums that won't buy a good tank, jet or helicopter without the brand recognition. Of course, they'll have to push their way back onto WalMart store shelves again if the ones around here are anything to gauge by. I stopped by a second WalMart yesterday, the MotU stuff has been crammed into the smallest section possible and there is no place for Halo sets anymore.
I agree A&M was more worthy than ND, but I'm not going to go so far as to call the playoffs "rigged" or "scripted". Agree with the selections or not, they still have to earn it on the field against top competition. No one is telling them to take a dive b/c the script says so. Those college kids aren't play-acting or pretending. They're playing their guts out trying to win. To suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest... no matter how much you may not like the committee's selections. I have no problem with the Halo talk. I only buy halo sets for parts, but we talk about what exists. It is what it is. And I don't want to have to check another thread to find out about the 17th shade of blue/purple skeletor is being released in. Clearly CoD has been on the backburner for a while, but I have a faint hope that a hit new game in the franchise would prompt Mega to see an opportunity for a new push. I know it sounds crazy. The vexing part is that presumably the license fees for CoD are a sunk cost that's being paid whether they release sets or not. I know CoD doesn't sell as well as Halo, but it's hard to imagine that it sells so poorly that Mega is better off just eating the license fees and releasing nothing. The more they sit on their thumbs, the more I'm buying from china. They have some pretty awesome military sets of american/chinese/russian/german hardware if you have the patience to wait 2-3 months to get them.
And that's why I say that they don't need a licensed game to make military sets. They just need to put the effort into making the sets good for the collectors. Why they would rather sink money into licensed properties is beyond my understanding of their marketing strategy. If it's to appeal to the stores, I'd argue they are still failing as stores are, once again, not providing them with shelf space. What's odd to me is the sporadic nature of the distribution still in play. WalMart.ca getting sets that WalMart.com doesn't seems silly. And I watched a video where a guy in Mexico bought three Mantis Mechs for around twelve bucks because the store had what appeared to be a dozen of them still. ToyWiz is once again scalping sets that BBTS and EE aren't even offering for preorder. Is it the stores doing this or Mattel?
Again, don’t want to get into it too much but players can play as hard as they want. The outcome can still be rigged through many other factors. For MCX, got me and my wife the big GOT dragon for Christmas. Should be fun.
I understand how licensed properties could be lucrative, you know, if you make them and stores actually sell them. A hot property can sell orders of magnitude more than generic bricks. On the flip-side, almost all licenses lose money when you don't make the products, go figure. Lego makes a mint licensing properties for bricks. However, Lego isn't owned by a larger toy company that owns a host of other IPs. Lego has never been an IP-farm type company. I agree Mega should be able to leverage other mattel properties or create their own. Instead of generic military bricks, why couldn't mega they come up with their own GIJoe-esque original property with code-names and bad guys? I've never understood why Mattel in general never made a real effort to carve out part of hasbro's soldier and robot markets with their own properties. It's like they have an unspoken agreement that Mattel won't do soldiers and robots if Hasbro won't do diecast cars. I'm thoroughly convinced that Mega got a hot injection of Mattel stupidity when they were purchased, and they've never been quite the same. Imagine if Hasbro had the forethought to buy mega instead... we wouldn't have gotten those Kre-o abominations, and we'd probably have a much more robust Mega output today.
Lego makes a mint on licensed properties propelled by movies and media that's constantly injected into pop culture with the help of their parent companies. And since most of those are owned by Disney now, there's pretty much a bottomless budget of indirect marketing to support Lego products. Another significant portion are backed by Time-Warner. There's no way Mega can compete with it. That all said, I don't think anyone buying would complain if Mega offered their own characters to help give any house property line they decided to create personality. So long as the sculpts, articulation and kit builds were good. They can even lean on other existing properties like everyone else does. After all, what was Legends of Chima if not a repackaged Battle Beasts?
Since Lego hates constraction, Mega would be wise to attempt a spiritual successor to Bionicle. Lego has no interest, and it could do quite well if the world building was there.
Speaking of other Mattel properties, they've recently had some movement on one that I'd love to see get some Mega sets.
My main concern with this property is, what exactly would be "built"? Do we just build the Armor on top of Dino "Figures", or everything is built? If the Dinosaurs are built, do they end up looking like MCx invention Dino/GoT Dragons, or like Breakout Beasts/MotU Cats. And is there a line drawn between how small the dinos are before they aren't builds but just figures?
In my mind I saw it like Breakout Beasts, at least for the smaller dinos, building some armor on top of them. Then the main sets would be structures. The baddies obviously need dino pens and somewhere to set up their mind control devices. I think the larger dinos would make decent looking building sets. Jurassic World had a pretty decent t-rex set.
Given a proper use of bricks and formed parts, Mega could do a decent dinosaur. And given that they don't cheap out on articulation. My hope, however, for a Dino Rider concept would be that the armor is optional. A giant blok built set that requires the shin be grey and have saw blades in it because those are what the lowest part of the leg is. I think also that I would want the character figure sculpts to be more like the original toys and not the whatever is going on with these new designs. On other news, I stopped by two more WalMarts, the bulk of the Mega stuff was moved to discount. For the sets like the Warthog and Rotons, it was 97 cents off.
Managed to get the entirety of Series 13 at Wal-Mart today along with 5 Infinite bags. Bags are, in no specific order: - Grunt - Marine - Pelican - Mk VII - Gungnir
That white trailblazer is great. Has a real stormtrooper feel. And I just realized the word is spelled incorrectly on the card. Regardless, I want many. My Ghosts shipped today.
Really? That may explain some things I have been seeing around here then. Edit: Well, the only Mega I found near the other Halo stuff was a Dutch/Predator set hanging on a peg with the GI Joe 1:64 figures. Did get the Queen Alien for fourteen bucks. Not much of a discount but still five bucks off. In other news, the Ghosts I ordered from Amazon shipped out of Texas. Guess the states out West are seeing stuff.
