Transformers Haslab Victory Saber Revealed! Crowdfunding Campaign Live!

Discussion in 'Transformers News and Rumors' started by Smokie, Aug 27, 2021.

  1. PloverNutter

    PloverNutter TFW2005: We're buying them but we don't like them.

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    Victory Saber is not so much the "high end collectible" side of HasLab but more the "niche collectible" aspect of it. The HeroQuest board game is a good example of this. It was not that expensive when compared to other HasLab projects but was for a board game and the main concern for Hasbro certainly was do enough people want a new version of a board game series from 20+ years ago? That is what Hasbro is doing with Victory Saber. By keeping it in line quality wise with WfC line (otherwise known as the mini-MP line) they can keep it cheap enough that more people are willing to buy it.
     
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  2. Foster

    Foster Haslab Victory Saber Backer #3 Veteran

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    Victory Saber is on pace to be funded, probably because it IS more affordable than Unicron, and also because it will be more playable than MP and will be more easily integrated into a Generations collection. It's not like this is going to do that nutso MP engineering that makes me want to put it on a shelf and never touch it again.
     
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  3. nobody1898

    nobody1898 Well-Known Member

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    This is a good point, and if the theory is true then we need this thing to do well
     
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  4. DutyBeforeAll

    DutyBeforeAll Well-Known Member

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    Maybe even open the doors to more Japanese G1, hmmmmm?
     
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  5. B-Fox

    B-Fox Well-Known Member

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    They could also do 90's Buckethead Thing, Pro-Wrestler Thing, and Pineapple Thing.

    Not to mention the long overdue Fantastic Bag-Man version of Spider-Man.
     
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  6. BreakY

    BreakY Well-Known Member

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    A critique.

    Star Saber is at 4,722 backers as of me typing this, and I was expecting HasLab to have learned from past mistakes with Unicron and the Star Wars Barge. Both of them were at risk of not meeting their goals, and if I recall, the deadline got extended or the fanbase really had to do a hard final push, or both. Either way, that's a fail in my books. These should have a lower initial goal. Nope. I saw that 11,000 and I sweated a bit. That's a pretty big number - it amounts to $1.98 million. The most successful Kickstarter for Action Figures was the Spawn 2020 remastered figure, and that was set for a $100,000 initial goal. The final number for that was ~$3.5 million. The initial goal for Saber is roughly 60% of the final total for Spawn, which is insane to me.

    Compare the two - One is a remastered toy of a famous comic character while the other is a relatively obscure character that is popular in Japan and a small section of the TF community (I owned the original Star Saber toy, btw). Famous comic character's crowdfunding was set to a reasonable amount of $100k. Obscure character's crowdfunding is set to nearly $2 million. Notice the facepalm-y irony? Setting it to $1 million, or 5,555 units as the initial goal would've worked much better. Or heck, lower it to a nice round number like 5000 units (or even lower, like 1,000) as a start goal.

    That 5,000 and 4,722 look so much more reachable than 11,000, and that's what needs to be done better - setting achievable goals with your fans. What makes these crowdfunding campaigns work is people knowing that there is a guarantee that the project will proceed based on the initial goal being fully funded, and extra money goes for more cool stuff. Right now, HasLab isn't even 50% to the initial goal, and most crowdfunds get the funding frenzy during the 1st 48 hours and the last 48 hours. Based on numbers now, I don't expect this project to go past the initial 11,000. I would be blown away if it hit 14,000 for the Tier 1 reward. HasLab is being way too ambitious here again, and that is frustrating.

    Also, share the tier 2 and 3 rewards already rather than make it mysterious since the cat is out of the bag. Give your fans more fuel to get excited and reach the stretch goals. Either say what it is, or do what Todd McFarlane did, and mention it when the campaign nears a stretch goal. It either makes for something to get hyped about with the former, or something to get blown away with by the latter. Hiding it with a "reach this impossibly high number to see what it is" just sucks the air out of the room.

    If a Hasbro rep is reading this, please look at how successful Kickstarters work, like the aforementioned Spawn Kickstarter. Todd McFarlane and his team know how to do it right. I think your company will be way more successful with these things if you pay attention to the way these success stories do them, especially the customer psychology aspect.
     
    Last edited: Aug 30, 2021
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  7. Jhund

    Jhund Screws>Pins

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    I kinda agree with that , but the way the blade seems to attach on the HasLab’s doesn't look all that great from the pic shown . Hope they’ll refine it further. But it’s definitely a smidge better than paddle whacking
     

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  8. Foster

    Foster Haslab Victory Saber Backer #3 Veteran

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    In the video they explained that they were upgrading the sword hilt from the prototype as it is now to be able to attach the blade either way, so toy-style and anime-style displays will both be possible.
     
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  9. Super Mecha Dad

    Super Mecha Dad Your mechanical father.

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    I will say this: Haslab is a weird bird where it functions like a crowdfunding site in the US/UK, but more like P-bandai elsewhere: taking a flat deposit and delivering a product at the end.

    Will Star Saber hit 14k or 20k from just Haslab backers? Maybe, maybe not. Will it hit 20k when you count it reservations from Zavvi in the EU, Robot Kingdom in HK, Oh My Primus in Singapore, Takara Tomy Mall in Japan? Absolutely. I wouldn't be shocked if it hit 11k just from TT Mall pre-orders.
     
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  10. Operative294

    Operative294 Well-Known Member

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    Don't forget about us too. EB Games/Zing for us Australia and New Zealand
     
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  11. PloverNutter

    PloverNutter TFW2005: We're buying them but we don't like them.

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    The Haslab Galactus had a goal of 14,000 backers at a price of $400 each, so a goal of $5,600,000. Up until last week it looked like it wouldn't make it. Today it is at 25,200 backers or $10,080,000 total on its last day essentially blowing Spawn out of the water. Hell, the Sentinel finished at 21,000 units or $7,350,000.

    Every HasLab project since the Barge and Unicron have surpassed 20,000 backers, where most of the backers come from international distributers/partners since Pulse is only in the US and UK. These international numbers don't get added to the total until the last week so the fact that Victory Saber is nearly 50% funded without counting any other markets than the US and UK is a very good sign. The reason the first 2 HasLab campaigns needed to be extended was becasue most people had no clue what HasLab was at that time and Hasbro hadn't quite figured out their partnerships for international distributers.
     
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  12. PloverNutter

    PloverNutter TFW2005: We're buying them but we don't like them.

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    I wouldn't be surprised if there were 11k orders just from TT Mall.
     
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  13. Sunbow Prime

    Sunbow Prime TFW2005 Supporter

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    Even if I wanted this I wouldn't trust them after what they did to Unicron. I'm guessing they didn't color it on the website so they can just do whatever they want with the coloring later.
     
  14. Kaynowa

    Kaynowa #MakeTransformersStupidAgain

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    One is an action figure with not a lot going into articulation and more going into paint, sculpt, and accessories. Victory Saber requires much more in depth tooling and engineering for the absurd partscount necessary for him to function as a transformer, thus a far higher budget. Also, those other projects (unicron at least, I'm not entirely knowledgable about RC) achieved their goals before the extension, that was just to go further and give the fans (who HOUNDED them for extensions) to get their banks in order and get even more sales. They werent at risk of failing nor is VS.
     
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  15. pegasusprime

    pegasusprime Well-Known Member

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    i wish hasbro have a payment plan like 3 payments i could do it that way ,but right now i cant sadly, i am thinking if maybe i could sell the mp and keep this one
     
  16. BreakY

    BreakY Well-Known Member

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    Do those pre-orders from other countries count towards the goals for this? Or is this just for US/UK crowdfunding numbers? If the reservations from other places count, then it's really not worth worrying about I guess. If its separate though, yikes? Actually, PloverNutter answers that question below.

    That's great to know, thanks for providing that info and context. I appreciate it. :)  Definitely not so worried now. Still wish HasLab did their crowdfunding a little differently though, for those like me that aren't as keen on the history like you are, so we know what to expect.
     
  17. Kaynowa

    Kaynowa #MakeTransformersStupidAgain

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    HasLab doesn't but I believe other 3p retailers do. I don't recall which off the top of my head but the option is present
     
  18. WolverineDragon

    WolverineDragon Banned

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    You are not accounting for international partners like in Asia. They alone might help get us to 11,000 backers since SS is popular in Japan. The question now becomes of how many tiers can we cross before the deadline.
     
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  19. Hoffman

    Hoffman Well-Known Member

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    This is a lot of knee-jerking for a campaign that's 4 days old.
     
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  20. Lincoln Tunnel

    Lincoln Tunnel Well-Known Member

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    Y'all are missing the REAL important question...








    With those butterfly joints, will Star Saber be able to dab?
     
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