That would be what $4-500? I would think a titan size haslab would have to be at least double the cost of vs

 

Are you actually arguing that of course a single purchase consumer LED costs less than a corporation buying them in bulk at wholesale and installing them with virtual slave labor?

If you think the ratio for Hasbro factory workers' wages to final product is anywhere near 40/250, I've got a Haslab(TM) bridge to sell you

 

I would say that God Ginrai would make a better one prior to Overlord since its an optimus and then Overlord similar to the Saber/Deathsaurus planning.

 

The lesson learned meetings for the marvel haslab team should be fun. It seems like when people see value in what's being offered, they're getting around 20-30k units sold and that's probably what they expected for gr, maybe they were ok with lower end of 20k, but to only get 5k is a huge failure.

Ghostbuster 19k
HISS 26k
VS 26k
Gal 30k
Sentinel 21k
Razor Crest 28k

 

Why would something the same size and I'd assume similar complexity cost more than double Deathsaurus? Am I missing something?

 

See now you sound just like the whiners. They got what they wanted and the Keeper was added with plenty of time for people who had asked for it to back the project. But they chose to make this about some kind of stupid "cause" rather than any sort of actual interest in the product and decided to shoot themselves in the foot.

So now Hasbro has no real motivation to ever listen to that particular branch of Star Wars fandom again because they've proven they're all talk. Why stick their necks out again?

 

They did say the car had like 20 LED during a livestream or interview. Not sure if that's the reason it cost a lot as I'm not expert on the Toy industry.

 

I'm just extrapolating. It will come down to plastic cost / parts count / weight etc. There's also going to be an inflation component. If they do something like that and its only 350, great, I just would think it might be more.

 

All this arguing about other Haslabs and I'm just like "omg Deathsaurus-kun is almost halfway o/////o "

 

LOL.

They weren't "expecting" 20-30k units. The project would have funded at 9k. That's all the bean-counters needed to see to consider the project viable enough to go in to production. They're not going to view Deathsaurus as a "failure" if it stops at 9001 backers.

It comes with 3 6" figures, the early bird, and the attachments because it was fully funded.

Hellcharger launched with the same promise as the HISS Tank. Base offering was a vehicle w/ LEDs and a single figure. Relatively speaking, it actually offered "more" since it included the civilian accessories right out of the gate. Had they hit the early bird, it would have included a second figure (same as HISS) and the three stretch goals were each 6" figures. So ultimately the model was VERY similar to the HISS Tank. Beyond the usual TOO EXPENSIVE! whiners, the real feeling coming out of the fandom was two fold:

1. Hasbro got hit with the Marvel tax, since they're just the ones doing the work for Disney/Marvel. Unlike HISS where the brand was in-house.

2. Robbie just wasn't the right character/vehicle pair.

But again, HasLabs are going to fail from time to time. That's why they're HasLabs and not retail products. Robbie and the Hellcharger were likely the best candidate to test high-end figure/vehicle pairings because Robbie isn't as popular as the original Ghost Rider and they've already done multiple motorcycle Ghost Rider vehicles at retail.

So it's something they could test out following the success of the HISS and now they know the next offering needs to find a way to be more affordable and/or be more widely recognized. That's why I was suggesting the Fantasticar. F4 is much more well known, will be having a movie coming soon, and ties back in to Galactus fairly well.

For all we know if Deathsaurus is popular enough (and Hasbro will know who's backing both it and Saber) they'll take that info and say "Yep, if we have a project that would tie back to a previously successful one it could get backing off that."

 

The thing people also underestimate with these marvel and star wars haslabs is the disney tax.
Disney really charges for their licenses

Look at kotobukiya, a 1:10 yugioh fig will cost you $80 but a marvel or star wars 1:10 will cost around $120-$150

 

9k was what it needed to fund, that's the minimum amount management was willing to commit to. That's not the same as what their internal expectations were for it. All those other items sold way more than the minimum funding. They most certainly were assuming more than 9k in their internal projections.

 

From OUR standpoint, sure, but not from Hasbro's.

 

I think you've hit the crux of the cost on Electronics in TFs, it's not the parts, it's the additional production costs in time and labour they incur, and it's pretty clear that the Electronic lights & SFX in Fort Max cost him some features/retooling budget-wise, for example the context cues in the moulding of the red section of Max's chest very strongly point to an intention to use the kinda-redundant for Max's transformation right arm bracket, and the well for it, as a feature in the final figure homaging the G1 original's "Jail Cell" that is vestigial at best in the final produced figure, with no internal TM footpegs inside the compartment, and no mentioning of the arm bracket's usage in his instructions.
And Fort Max's electronics were a simpler wiring job than his mould ancestor T30 'Plex to boot!

 

Yeah a project failing is a big deal internally. Its not just the cost of the campaign, its the lost revenue they were expecting.

 

That's an interesting approach I didn't consider. My thought process was Hasbro seems comfortable using the Titan class for *big* boys even if they aren't immediately recognizable. Overlord is a relative nobody but he turns in to a big ol' base and splits in to a tank and giant (which would be pretty big given the available budget).

In that regard, I feel like Titan could pull it off well enough to fit within Titan without needing the boost of a HasLab. I'm on Team Liokaiser for the next one because we've seen them do a "big boi" (Unicron) we've seen them do the "powered up boi" (Victory Saber) and now they're testing out the "big with accessories" model with Saurus.

Liokaiser would be a good test of what you could do with a combiner without the retail pricepoint constraints. Especially with regard to the Breastmasters and engineering needed to make a stable torso between Leozack and Jarugar.

 

Literally what?!

They weren't "expecting" anything beyond the initial investment in the campaign. And that's just part of what is effectively HasLab's "R&D" budget. You wouldn't "expect" anything from a process who's entire existence is predicated on the possibility a project may fail.

I mean sure if you want to just start pulling stuff out of your ass this makes sense. If they couldn't afford to run the project if it "only" hit goal they'd set either set the goal higher or simply not run the project.

Like, there are people who's job is to crunch the numbers as to what the sweet spot to price a HasLab is so the backer count isn't seen as insurmountable but the price isn't a turnoff. They'd be fired if the number they set as the goal for ssomething to go in to production was such that it'd still lose money.

 

Corporations have finance teams that run projections. They don't just use the minimum values when doing their multi-year projections. The minimum funding was the low end of their projection, but they most certainly had higher end projections assuming full funding, all tiers, plus more as they've gotten on several of their past haslabs. They aren't just running financial projections assuming 9k units and management sure as hell wasn't assuming they would only get 9k units sold. 9k gets it made, but that would still have probably been looked on as a failure internally after selling 20k+ on both Sentinel and Galactus, both more than double their minimum funding.

 

5 370… let’s go. I’m predicting a spike in backers when the coloured pictures are shown. I also suspect we’ll see the first round of international orders added in a week or two.

 

This. It's too easy to be on the outside looking in and not really understand what goes into cost and pricing. While some would flinch at the $250, and claim there are only $40 worth of materials, they are failing to understand there is: HR staff, Accounting staff, management, benefits, overhead (office space, lights, office supplies), and marketing folks all of whom have to be covered in that $250.
I'm surprised, but shouldn't be, at how few understand the cost of getting work, the cost in managing the work, and cost in maintaining a professional staff which qualifies you for the work in the first place - and none of these are the actual project work one might be hired to complete.
It's no different for toys or any other product out there.