HasLab Victory Saber

Darth_Prime

Well-known member
Citizen
Don’t do a tier system? Just include it all with the toy. If that means rounding up to an even $200 then so be it. I’m just not a fan of it.

as I put in an earlier post, if he’s supposed to come with a gun and shield, then make him come with them. Don’t make what should be included items unlocksbles where there is a chance to not get them.

do something like with Unicron. Where there was a small Galvatron and Rodimus, add in some PVC humans as an unlock. Maybe a core sized Ginrai or Wheeljack and a Perceptor.
 
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Platypus Prime

Well-known member
Citizen
I would like to see an extra Brainmaster figure, maybe claim it's Jan, but as a backup face (and also taking into account that unlike Titan Masters, there are no other Brain Master minifigures to draw from if something gets lost).
 

CoffeeHorse

*sip*
Staff member
Council of Elders
Citizen
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Is the chest supposed to be that chonky?
 

mx-01 archon

Member
Citizen
Don’t do a tier system? Just include it all with the toy. If that means rounding up to an even $200 then so be it. I’m just not a fan of it.

as I put in an earlier post, if he’s supposed to come with a gun and shield, then make him come with them. Don’t make what should be included items unlocksbles where there is a chance to not get them.

do something like with Unicron. Where there was a small Galvatron and Rodimus, add in some PVC humans as an unlock. Maybe a core sized Ginrai or Wheeljack and a Perceptor.

The art of setting a price point is balance.

It's not a matter of saying "Price it at $220, then we can afford everything". That $40 difference could be the difference between success and failure.

On a gamble like this, they're trying to estimate the perfect intersection between "premium" and "affordability" that results in the project being most likely successful. Budget ceiling and profit margins are on a razor's edge at the minimum backer level.

There's a lot of psychology that goes into fine-tuning a price tag. There's a reason why shelf prices at box stores typically end in ".9x". When you fully reason it out, $20-40 extra doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things, especially for those with their finances properly squared up. But it can very well be the difference between an impulse buy and not. People doing quick mental math can say "A hundred-something? I can swing that. Not much else I want for only ~$100". The moment you cross that $200 threshold, though, then the brain goes "two hundred... well, that's 1/3 of the way to a PS5...".

Same reason Unicron was sold at the odd pricepoint of $575. Surely, it wouldn't have mattered at that point if they rounded it out to an even $600. But again, you hit thresholds where customers are more likely to second-guess themselves, and the prospect for likely buyers drops precipitously.

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Is the chest supposed to be that chonky?

More or less. The protruding segment is the entirety of Saber's legs, and that's how the character design has always been.

They have the wings sticking out perpendicular on the sides, though. On the MP, I usually sweep them back as far as they go. Doesn't make the chest stick out any less, but it's less fiddly that way, and creates a smoother contour as the shape then blends into the narrower shoulder region.
 
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UndeadScottsman

Well-known member
Citizen
The only way I'd want a Victory dub is if they went full "let's shoehorn this into US G1 continuity" and got Cullen to cameo as Prime for God Ginrai's role until he gets turned into Victory Leo, so the ultimate canon fate of Optimus Prime in the G1 cartoon would be becoming someone else's armor bot.
 

Dake

Well-known member
Citizen
What do you suggest a Tier should be, then?

I also think tiers should be genuine extras, not things meant to actually complete the main item. Looking at previous Haslabs, for example (doing this mostly from memory so I'm sure I'll forget something):

First is the Sail Barge: Everything was there; you knew what you were getting right off the bat. It had no stretch-goals (though they did throw in Yak-face a little down the road it was never tied to a specific amount of sales).

Unicron - similar story. They started throwing stuff in as the sales progressed, but we weren't hoping for a certain additional number of sales to complete him.

Then we got into what I'd call phase 2 of the Haslab process where they began adding actual tiers or stretch-goals. Sentinel gave you a complete figure that could (literally) stand on its own. It came with everything you needed to build your Sentinal army (including weapons in the form of his hand tentacles) and all the tiers were things to offer alternatives but were not required to complete the main figure.

The Razor Crest likewise is a complete ship with Mando. All of its tiers were just bonus accessories. Now some people argued that things like the escape pod or carbonite blocks should have been included all along, but ultimately their lack would not have left the ship incomplete (for example we never even knew the escape pod existed until the toy).

Hero Quest game: you got a complete game. All the tiers were just expansions.

Galactus: Complete figure with bonus figures/heads as tiers.

And now Victory Saber. The V-lock cannon was a standard accessory for the original Victory Leo, but they've made it a tier here and a significant one at that. 3000 more units at $179.99 is over a half-million dollars to "fund" one gun! Now, Star Saber's shield was only a standard accessory with the MP version, so I can see where that's a reasonable tier.

So, assuming we got at least the V-lock cannon as part of the original deal, what would have made better tiers? How about the aforementioned shield and a smaller sword for Saber like the MP had? How about Jan and Holi? It just seems like there could be better options that don't result in an "incomplete" figure if the tier isn't reached.
 
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Daith

Bustin make feel Good!
Citizen
Of course bringing up HeroQuest, we didn’t hit every stretch goal, but they still ended up giving us the last tiers Dragon and Questbook anyways. Still short the extra Gargoyle as far as we know but theirs always a chance they might BS their way into giving us the tier goals anyways if they aren’t reached.
 

Kup

Active member
Citizen
When do you think they’ll add in Japan, or is that already happening? At 10,000 I’ll probably throw my ring in the hat, but wondering if we’re already there anyway.
 

G.B.Blackrock

Well-known member
Citizen
I also think tiers should be genuine extras, not things meant to actually complete the main item. Looking at previous Haslabs, for example (doing this mostly from memory so I'm sure I'll forget something):

(snip)

And now Victory Saber. The V-lock cannon was a standard accessory for the original Victory Leo, but they've made it a tier here and a significant one at that. 3000 more units at $179.99 is over a half-million dollars to "fund" one gun!
Most of your post falls into the realm of opinion, and I'm not really interested in arguing yours vs. mine right now. But I can't let that last (quoted) comment pass. It's not like that half a million is all going into funding the gun. The bulk of that is still just producing that 3000 extra Victory Sabers. However, because the cost per unit to produce a larger quantity goes down, the more units are being made, yes, some of that extra money is to fund that gun.

But it's not a half-million dollars. It's probably nowhere close to that.
 

Dake

Well-known member
Citizen
Oh for sure on the opinion factor. I was just trying answer your question with context as it pertained to myself. The items included with the previous Haslabs isn't opinion though - that is literally how the earlier ones were run and that informs (at least my) expectations.

But yeah, obvs they have to pay to manufacture additional units. It's just tough to imagine that the percentage is so thin that it takes that half-mil to cover the additional cost of the gun as well - even at 14k units.
 

mx-01 archon

Member
Citizen
Goes with what I said to Darth_Prime just a few posts up.

The V-Lock Rifle should obviously have been an auto-include. But gets shunted out of the base package due to the price structure they wanted to set.

Unfortunately, those using the Sentinel and Galactus HasLabs as benchmarks for extras are going to be sorely disappointed. It's easy to drop in entire bonus figures when they're made of 90% standardized parts with the tooling costs already bought and paid for. Transformers, with their largely bespoke engineering and tooling is a whole different beast.
 


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