Four Horsemen Archives - Page 13 of 103

Last Day – Four Horsemen’s Gothitropolis Ravens Kickstarter Campaign Ends Tonight

As I mentioned in my little Soapbox Sunday rant yesterday, the Four Horsemen’s Kickstarter campaign for the Gothitropolis Ravens has been an unmitigated success. When I talked to them in San Diego, less than a week into the campaign, they were surprised they had hit the $65K target for funding (Kickstarter works on an all or nothing model for funding projects – if you don’t hit the target, you get nothing.) With just about 12 hours to go, they’ve already signed up around thirteen hundred backers who have pledged over a quarter of a million dollars.

If you’re already a backer, now’s the time to adjust your pledges. In the final days of the campaign, the Four Horsemen have been adding extra goodies. The secret figure that was revealed as a stretch goal, the Screaming Eagle, may come with an American flag cape – if they can source a quality one. An additional figure, the Pink Flamingo, was added when the funding totals blew past the regular and bone wings. And stands for the figures (including foot pegs and adjustable clip for flying poses) are now available as add-ons for $3 each.

Continue reading “Last Day – Four Horsemen’s Gothitropolis Ravens Kickstarter Campaign Ends Tonight”

Soapbox Sunday: Five Lessons Mattel Can Learn from the Four Horsemen

It’s like a Tale of Two Cities – the Four Horsemen are involved in a couple of product pre-order campaigns running in parallel. On one side, they’re the design shop behind Mattel’s Mattycollector Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions for Masters of the Universe Classics and DC Universe Classics. On the other, they’re taking pre-orders for their own Gothitropolis Ravens line through the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter.

As we’ve seen over the past week, folks from Mattel and the Four Horsemen are tearing their hair out over whether the Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions will hit the minimums needed to survive. Meanwhile, the Four Horsemen’s Ravens are flying high. Their Kickstarter campaign hit the funding target during its first week, and proceeded to blast through every stretch goal they started with and even a few more they had to put together along the way.

You might think it easy to dismiss the stark differences in the success of the campaigns as coming from collectors’ growing dislike of Mattel and their service partner Digital River. And while I see a fair amount of anecdotal evidence for Mattel-hate, I believe there are some clear differences in how they run their campaigns that is causing the Mattycollector subscription fallout. If the Mattycollector subs live to fill in product silhouettes again next year, here’s some things Mattel can learn from the Four Horsemen, to make the sign-up period less traumatic and uncertain.

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If Toy Guru Can’t Convince You Mattycollector is in Trouble, Maybe the Four Horsemen Can

It’s not without a little irony that as Mattel gets a huge push this month for its two flagship collector brands with the DC Universe vs the Masters of the Universe comic book hitting shelves, Mattycollector is finding its subscription pre-orders for the DC Universe Club Infinite Earths and the Masters of the Universe Classics Club Eternia both in jeopardy. Deja vous? Last year we were in a similar spot. During the Matty sub period, we had the MOTU limited series comic book hitting shelves, and collectors were still reeling from DC Universe Classics going on hiatus at big box retail. But somehow, it seems more dire this time around.

And yet, we’re seeing the Crisis on Multiple Earths / Eternias (see what I did there?) being handled using almost the same exact playbook as last year. To start, when the subs are announced, we get promised improvements from Digital River. Last year: manage your subscriptions online. This year: a new quarterly shipping option. Are these changes from Digital River helping?

When it’s clear that the subs are not gaining traction, the next step is for Toy Guru to sound the alarm – if the subs don’t hit minimums, they’re gone! And now we’re at the next point, where the Four Horsemen tell us that hey, this is for real.

Guys, it’s not that we don’t believe you. I just think it’s silly to keep running the same game plan, when it should be painfully obvious that it’s not working like it used to. If the subs don’t succeed in KILLING THE LIEN this year, make sure they don’t do it next year – try something new.

Continue reading “If Toy Guru Can’t Convince You Mattycollector is in Trouble, Maybe the Four Horsemen Can”

With One Week to Go, the Four Horsemen’s Gothitropolis Ravens Kickstarter is Still Kicking Ass

With the doom and gloom dampening the spirits of some of the bigger collector-oriented lines, it’s nice to know that a passionate fan-base can help a smaller, non-licensed toy line get a big start. The Four Horsemen’s Gothitropolis Ravens Kickstarter project has exceeded all of their expectations. With a week left in the campaign, backers have pledged enough to unlock all of the initially planned “stretch goals” – when I talked to Cornboy and Eric Treadaway a few weeks ago at San Diego Comic-Con, both said they initially thought the last two stretch goals (regular and bone wings) were too far out of reach. Not so.

With long-time and new fans continuing to jump on board the project in a big way, the Four Horsemen are putting together new stretch goals for the push in the final week of the campaign.

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MattyCollector Subscriptions and Pre-Order Push – So it Begins, So it Ends?

It’s just been a week since the Mattypalooza panel at San Diego Comic-Con, but Mattel has already alerted fans that the 2014 subscriptions and the Ecto-1 pre-order are “quite below” expectations, despite them opening up the subscriptions several weeks early. Call it scare tactics, sales and marketing, or just the plain unvarnished truth – Toy Guru is once again warning fans that pre-orders for the Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions and the Ghostbusters Ecto-1 pre-order have to hit their minimums or they’re not happening.

And while, thank Grodd, they’ve replaced the thermometer graphics this year with product silhouettes, the picture they paint right now is pretty daunting. There’s under three weeks to go to the August 19 deadline. Continue reading “MattyCollector Subscriptions and Pre-Order Push – So it Begins, So it Ends?”