Nah, it’s Haslab Unicron, not Haslab Everything from Transformers: the Movie. I’ve already made my case for why what we are already getting is worth $600 (to me anyway).

Haslab Unicron

Outside of my (admittedly subjective and unapologetic) love for the size and design, I think the price makes sense just from a total materials and free-shipping perspective when compared with prior Hasbro and Takara releases. And if you want a Unicron but not this one, you have the option to pay half the price for a fourth of the toy. Everybody wins!

 

Just so you don't freak out more, it's up by two now. The numbers really don't matter until near the end. People are either switching to Zeta only, leaving due to funds needed elsewhere, or just have wavering faith that it will be funded. the moment the last few days happen, all eyes and attention spans will be back. And if the Haslab crowdfunding fails, I'd rather not think about how the execs will shuffle the budget of TFs, but it will be what it shall be.

I for one will back this this to the grave.

 

Not freaking out... just disappointed. The extension has given some people the time to have second thoughts. Either due to personal finances or due to competition from 3rd party. It is having an effect.

I'm keeping my orders. But, if it fails, I won't lament $1200 being back in my pocket.

 

It won't affect them in the slightest. There was no danger to Star Wars if the Sail Barge didn't fund, there's no danger to the Sesame Street license now that Cookie Monster didn't fund. There was R&D costs to develop Unicron, but no molds have been made yet, so that's relatively normal for the toy industry. Right now, the sequel line for Siege has already been tooled so that it can be released next year. More Cybervere and Rescue Bots and Movie line toys are being produced for both Hasbro and Takara. Unicron won't derail any of that.

If Unicron doesn't make it, people will be disappointed, but will go on with their lives.

 

It's been bouncing up and down for a while now. I've been curious about how it's trending, so I cobbled together a script to scrape the number every five minutes and store it if it changes: HasLab Funding Trend. It's currently trending back up. The way it keeps moving by a relatively small number makes me wonder if a small group is cancelling and then re-buying just to make people panic. If so, some people have way too much time on their hands...

I've backed it, and definitely hope it goes through. I'm in a position to build a place for this to be a centerpiece of my collection. But if it doesn't make it, that'll be fine as well. Certainly a bit depressing, but I'll just use the spot for my group of Devastators, once I have the Studio Series version completed. Or my current Armada Unicron(s) and Cybertron Primus(s) figures. Or my other Titans.

 

Reading the various posts and such, I had a thought which made me chuckle, if for some strange reason this doesn't get funded and Zeta does continue to make their version, what would stop them from making the asking price the exact same as the haslab version...

How many would continue to back that one as it seems the biggest issues folks have with the haslab version are:

- Price
- Planet pieces
- Size / weight

 

Eh. I think there will be some reassessment of how Transformers is handled going forward if this fails. A lot of the Siege line in particular and CHUG in general is built on the back of the nostalgia crowd - fans that loved G1. They're really reaching in deep to pull figures out. Micromasters, powerdashers, etc. are really obscure toys. Things like Scrounge and Straxus popping up as a rarity really gets G1 fans buzzing, which is free advertising for Hasbro.

"They're releasing a ZETAR? WTF?! Hasbro is AWESOME!!"

So what's this got to do with Unicron? It's quite possibly a litmus test to review the overall health of their brand and test out that generational marketing strategy they've been pushing for the past 5-10 years. Yes, we're all buzzing about Zetar, but how much money does a 40 year old fan like me REALLY have, versus stuff we snatch up for our kids out of the novelty of buying a Zetar for our kids? This is especially something I'd bet they're considering after how well Metroplex performed versus Fort Max and Trypticon. It's all over the place for big toys. So a cheap way of doing market research is this sort of "dumb fire" crowdfunding project.

In other words, this is kind of like that vaguely sarcastic "weather forecasting string".



If the TF Fandom knocked this Unicron out of the park and we got funded in 25 days, then there'd be a massive reassessment as to where the money needs to go for future lines - the collectors.

If Unicron died on the vine instantly and pulled a Cookie Monster, there'd be some reshuffling of dollars to other lines - probably Cyberverse, Rescue Bots, the more "kid friendly" lines.

What we have now suggests that the collectors are still out there, but just not in the numbers Hasbro wants, which gives them something to ponder. Maybe they pump more money into collector-skewed advertisements and events. Maybe they say "F it" and shovel cash into kid lines, abandoning fandoms entirely and letting Takara handle us. Maybe all they get out of this is "we need to reassess big toys as it applies to our toy ecosystem concept". However, I'd say that there's going to be some reassessment of what dollars go into CHUGs and collectors when all this pans out.

 

...the fact that they want to sell units? If they jacked up the price, they'd kill off some of their own market and open the door for some other company to puke up a Unicron mid-Zeta-development/pre-release while everyone did what they're doing with Haslab's - waffling about over the price and wondering it it's worth it or not.

I've had a few chats with some 3P company people - nothing major. I have no "inside information", but these guys aren't knuckle dragging cretins. They have at least a rudimentary handle on how economics works. Zeta MAY jack up the MSRP if Haslab Unicron fails, but they run the risk of everyone being pissed at them, too. Seeing how mercurial this fan base is, it'd be a really horrible PR move on their part.

 

Very thought provoking. I think the 8000 is the higher end of the litmus test and 5000 being acceptable. 3000 would be time to reassess priorities.
8000 feels like a “swing for the fences” goal. Just to see if they could get away with it.

 

I distinctly remember a poll in the 3P forum where Zeta or someone on the behalf of Zeta asked if the fandom would be willing to pay more for a combiner. They did Kronos and Not Bruticus for relatively cheap and were trying to glean further interest in a Defensor and others.
I’m sure they would like to, but are they confident with their financials

 

Honestly, again, I think the problems this is facing are on Hasbro. No hype, huge price tag, small gap, bad place to put it for a crowdfund, underwhelming posts(Seriously. That Galvatron post was hoooooorrrible.), and thus while people want this to suceed, people also aren't too miffed if it fails. I want it to succeed, but my mind is already wandering to what else I could get with the deposit money I have if this doesn't work out.

 

This.

I think they're giving people WAY too much time to mull this over with the deadline extension. In addition, the target was too high to begin with and they've overestimated the Transformers fandom for G1. Before this project, I'd be willing to guess that at least half of TF fans didn't even know who Unicron was.

 

They are a pretty crappy fan if they dont know who Unicron is. Considering he has been a character in at least 3 different TF shows I've watched.

 

I got no clue where their numbers are because I'm some dumb monkey and not a Hasbro suit, but that's information I'd want when formulating my next move with a franchise with the same footprint as Transformers.

I think the extension's kinda been lackluster because it wasn't planned, but I have no evidence to back that up. 5000+ people is a pretty decent number of people, which at least makes it feasible that there might be 3000 more people out there. Someone probably had to make a hard call to cancel or extend and then decided to extend with the expectation that people would have another 30 days to save and then commit at crunch time part 2.

However, it really doesn't seem like a lot of planning for the extension time took place. Perhaps that's OK because if they all of a sudden started trotting out a dog and pony show, we'd have squalling weirdos flapping about squawking about how the extension was a conspiracy because people love being miserable and/or feeling important enough to have a conspiracy against them.

 

That had me laughing hard. Thanks for that! I can just picture a big box with a John Deere, Transformer and Hasbro logo on it. The UPS guy going "No really....what's in the box?"  

Am I the only one who heard this guy saying this when you read this line?

 

Eh... If they're young and strictly casual movie fans, I wouldn't necessarily call them "crappy." The Unicron toy we're getting is a character that was shown once in the movie and had a couple of appearances on the original G1 cartoon.

 

Remember, as I was told yesterday, we have to keep our facts straight and can’t forget that it’s just a prototype mini figure. If we don’t remember that, we’re just trolling.

 

That's when you look them dead in the eye and say:

"I'm a TransFarmer fan."


TransFarmer - an innovative harvest performer

No. Also relevant is how one should deal with such bombastic statements:

 

I'm going to post this in both forums. After watching both transformation videos I honestly feel both companies accomplished what they were going for. Haslab wanted a big, imposing planet mode with articulated teeth and a transfor...ahem...conversion that was not too difficult. Hasbro's has some really nice thick plastic which obviously adds to the weight. Zeta focused on robot mode and a much better trans...sigh....conversion. Zeta's also has nicer articulation but I believe Hasbro never intended theirs to be played with. Zeta also has ball joints on the first point of articulation on all the fingers. That's a great touch. Zeta does look amazing. And to me so does Hasbro's. Honestly the winner is simple. The collectors/consumer. We win. We have options and can pick our favorite due to what our preference may be. What a time to be a fan.

 

The people who want Hasbro's Unicron don't win if it doesn't get made. Only the people who want Zeta's version are guaranteed a win here.