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Is The Future Of Hasbro's Haslab In Jeopardy???


JayC

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Hasbro's Crowdsourcing Haslab Cookie Monster failed to get funded and their Transformers Unicron is barley half-way over to it's goal with only 4 days to go. If it fails to get funded as well what will that mean for the future of Haslab???

 

Cookie-Failed.jpg

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Hopefully they don't cancel Haslab, but learn from this experience and maybe try to announce this kinds of projects months ahead, while also considering a payment plan that allows for more people to fund these.

I believe Haslab is an awesome concept, but it certainly needs some improvement.

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They need to understand a couple of things:

1. Fundraisers tend to appeal to the whole world, so they should be available worldwide for them to reach the expected goals.

2. They can't expect their costumers to dish out that amount of cash, when they're already milking us with the biggest 4 lines in the market: Transformers, Marvel, Star Wars, and... well Power Rangers isn't one of the biggest 4 :P

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53 minutes ago, memocromatico said:

They need to understand a couple of things:

1. Fundraisers tend to appeal to the whole world, so they should be available worldwide for them to reach the expected goals.

2. They can't expect their costumers to dish out that amount of cash, when they're already milking us with the biggest 4 lines in the market: Transformers, Marvel, Star Wars, and... well Power Rangers isn't one of the biggest 4 :P

#1 at least.  Kickstarter is worldwide and has been a huge success for some outstanding toys that maybe wouldn't have been funded if it weren't international.

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I knew the Cookie Monster thing was bound to fail, even though people were trying to tell me otherwise. Marketing a high end collectible to a group of people that might not be interested (or weren't interested, it seems) in a high end collectible was a questionable decision. I know people love SS, but how many people high dollar love it? How many people high dollar love it AND want a life size Cookie Monster? We're getting into a very niche group of people. 

I think the problem with Unicron is that it doesn't look that good. We've seen high end bots hide paneling very well before, and even though hiding sphere paneling is a trickier thing, the end result definitely could have been cleaner. There's a LOT of paneling obscuring the silhouette in bot mode that's inexcusable at this price. 

Hasbro has been making cheap Transformers toy product for too long and I think when people look at this, they're thinking about the cheap plastic and questionable design choices that we've been getting from Hasbro toy Transformers for the most part in recent years. Unicron doesn't look like a Masterpiece, it looks like a large toy. But that price is definitely Masterpiece pricing. 

I know on paper this must be an expensive piece to produce and the price is probably justified. The end product just feels overpriced though, if that makes sense. It looks like it should be cheaper. I still think Unicron has a shot at being made. This is pretty much a once in a lifetime piece, and even though it's expensive and has its issues, I think die hard fans are going to want to support it last minute. Will it be enough though? I'm not sure. 

Not every brand is Star Wars. The Barge was going to happen because it has the Star Wars logo on the box, Transformers doesn't quite have that kind of brand power, and Sesame Street definitely doesn't. 

 

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16 hours ago, JayC said:

Hasbro's Crowdsourcing Haslab Cookie Monster failed to get funded and their Transformers Unicron is barley half-way over to it's goal with only 4 days to go. If it fails to get funded as well what will that mean for the future of Haslab???

 

Cookie-Failed.jpg

First and foremost, I always thought HasLab was a bad idea, and I wasn't alone.

That being said, two failures won't necessarily mean anything to HasLab. Sure they might take a closer, more analytical, look at what projects they consider in the future, but it was never meant to be an "All-or-Nothing" proposition. The idea was to allow consumers the opportunity to "buy in" to something they would never otherwise be able to get . . . IF they wanted to. Like any other crowd funding venture, if it flies, you make the dingus, if it flops, you move on to the next project.

Personally, I'd like to think Hasbro will abandon the Lab and concentrate on retail, but its to early to turn out the lights yet.

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I think if Unicron doesn't get funded then yes Haslab will be slowing down and maybe do a crowd fund once every few years or cease altogether. Ultimately through I do think Unicron will get funded and more projects will be coming soon. Hopefully next will be something Marvel Legends related!

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I think the issues with Haslab right now its a mixture of bad decisions, expensive prices and the fact that its not a global thing. I dont know if Unicron will get funded in the end but if it was able to be bought worldwide It would have completed the funding goal easily (even if the price seems a bit steep), IMO having 2 items available at the same time (even if they were of different properties) might have affected both, also I dont think Cookie monster was ever an item that realistically was going to reach its funding (at least not for that price and only in the US), Unicron seemed more likely but ultimately I think the price was just too much, Hasbro should have continued to go with smaller scaled items that were $200-$300 tops right now till they figured out a way to go global, then they could do a big one like Unicron.

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On 8/27/2019 at 10:17 AM, memocromatico said:

They need to understand a couple of things:

1. Fundraisers tend to appeal to the whole world, so they should be available worldwide for them to reach the expected goals.

2. They can't expect their costumers to dish out that amount of cash, when they're already milking us with the biggest 4 lines in the market: Transformers, Marvel, Star Wars, and... well Power Rangers isn't one of the biggest 4 :P

Yup. I agree with both, especially #2. Maybe they should open this worldwide and instead of asking that full amount right away, they could ask for a deposit. Payment plan the remaining balance.

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5 hours ago, JayC said:

So Unicron has been extended to October 6, 2019.

I bet it'll get backed now with the extension. I've heard a lot of people saying they would get it if they had more time, but I guess we'll see if that was just all talk or not. 

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5 hours ago, SpiderS said:

I think it solely depends on items they are making and the price, I am still thinking they should give us Marvel related stuff before going out. Maybe 30 inch Galactus 

That'd be cool. I honestly thought they'd go with a Marvel vehicle or character before going to Transformers, but you gotta think some Marvel stuff is coming. 

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On 8/27/2019 at 9:00 PM, Thinwheat said:

Not every brand is Star Wars. The Barge was going to happen because it has the Star Wars logo on the box, Transformers doesn't quite have that kind of brand power, and Sesame Street definitely doesn't. 

 

Transformers is probably Hasbro's 2nd biggest brand plus it is an in house brand.

For me that is beyond what I can afford. I may have had second thoughts if Unicron was larger.

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