I mean, you're not wrong, but I've never taken these crowdfunded things as a matter of, "oh, woe is us, a company who cannot afford to manufacture a toy for collectors, please give us money now." Rather, I see them as big-ticket niche items that hasbro simply doesn't want to make in the numbers to justify a retail release. Doing it the crowdfunded way means they know exactly how much income a figure will generate without having to worry about producing a volume large enough to cover what goes on remainder or clearance, plus the general fanfare and publicity that goes with a big announcement draws a lot of attention.Warcry wrote: ↑Sun Aug 29, 2021 6:14 amA part of me hopes that this campaign fails because I really don't like the idea of billion-dollar companies like Hasbro using crowd-funding. They avoid taking any risk and guarantee themselves profits, while charging a higher price than they could get away with at retail and pocketing buyers' money years before they hand over the product. It's just another in a pile of decisions they've made lately that are openly hostile to the consumer.
The Ark is an excellent counterpoint as to what one would expect a crowdfunding project to be, but I guess after... six(?) or seven(?) other Titan figures, they felt it was a reasonable risk.
Yeah, it was short of the minimum backers until fairly late in the process, I think. Then of course people started whining that stores were scalping the thing for 30% markup when the only reason the figures they had to sell even existed was because the stores ordered them in bulk. Like, the whole "made-to-order, must meet minimum amount of backers" aspect that was clear from the beginning was something that just didn't click with some people until way after the ship had sailed.
That said, I still think the whole, "surprise! Cough up $600 for this figure in the next six weeks or you won't ever get it at the price again! And also MP44 Convoy which costs $450 comes out in that same window of time! Hope you didn't want both!" could have been planned out radically better.
(I wanted nor own either, fwiw)
(changed "whoa" to "woe." oof)