Action Force and Valaverse

[Fletch]

@Damien, I thought you were being hyperbolic, like how I try to take credit for getting my friend to try out for a reality show that he'd go on to win. But you're leaning into it so much, I want to know what the actual conversation was that changed his designs. Is there a story?

 

[altcunningham]

I'll also say that his company has really good customer service. I remember he took on extra expense to get shipments in quicker during COVID's supply chain issues. I've also found it really easy to get replacement parts for defects or factory errors. Really top notch in that area

Not been my experience. I picked up a few just to see the product and had some breaks and poor QC. This was on Eclipse, the female Steel Brigade, and the exclusive Eclipse.

Might be because I'm in Canada, but they passed the buck as long as they could before dropping the email chain entirely.

 

[Damien]

@Damien, I thought you were being hyperbolic, like how I try to take credit for getting my friend to try out for a reality show that he'd go on to win. But you're leaning into it so much, I want to know what the actual conversation was that changed his designs. Is there a story?

I'm being a LITTLE tongue-in-cheek, but also a little serious.

This is part of my fun and storied history with Bobo. We got into it pretty good back on Fwoosh during his original Kickstarter. The one that failed hard. Do you remember that one? Pepperidge Farms remembers. When he launched his Kickstarter, I kind of went on a whole thing on Fwoosh - like my usual 9 paragraphs of straight at something. In this case, I went on about how Bobby was supposed to be a tenured, skilled toy designer flaunting his experience at Hasbro, but that his figures were shitty. I pointed out that they hadn't even been made yet and already looked dated as hell, were using old design language, etc etc. I went on to point out literally everything wrong with them - from the articulation choices, to the lack of particular extra parts. I can't remember all the details at this point.

Aaaanyway... LOTS of people ended up agreeing with me and some people that were a bit more gung-ho about getting the figures publicly changed their minds and cited my points as the, or part of the, reason for choosing not to get any. When the Kickstarter failed, Vala went on to publicly blame me (like ME, personally) for killing his Kickstarter campaign with my 'negativity.' After that, he relaunched the line with a new Kickstarter and the figures used every single improvement I had suggested.

So like, am I the only person to have noticed this stuff? Am I SOLELY responsible for those changes? Naah. But it still tickles my pickle that I was very clearly a major force in those changes, and his initial failure, and that he made such a stink about it. And since he saw fit to publicly blame me for his failure, I feel like it's only right that I be publicly lauded for his later success.

 

[Ru1977]

 

[Fletch]

Not been my experience. I picked up a few just to see the product and had some breaks and poor QC. This was on Eclipse, the female Steel Brigade, and the exclusive Eclipse.

Yeah, my stories are all anecdotal. Like my Lightning Collection experiences, I accept that my lack of problems doesn't mean there weren't problems.

When the Kickstarter failed, Vala went on to publicly blame me (like ME, personally) for killing his Kickstarter campaign with my 'negativity.' After that, he relaunched the line with a new Kickstarter and the figures used every single improvement I had suggested.

Hah! I don't think I was involved in action figures during the first Kickstarter, or at least not aware of it, but I figure if you're called out by name, you get to claim involvement.

 

[Trunks3540]

They make really good 1/12 guns. I bought most of the packs I could. I even got the snow one with the mint green on them but I painted most of them black. I have a wonderful Punisher armory, as well as tons of extras for characters that should get guns and don't. Like, my Punisher has alot of guns. I think I may give John Wick some but he only uses special types of weapons. Punisher just grabs what he's in the mood for and has an entire base full of guns. I don't think I have enough for that, but I have enough to make it look good if I could ever display it.

 

[TheRealSmallville]

I'm being a LITTLE tongue-in-cheek, but also a little serious.

This is part of my fun and storied history with Bobo. We got into it pretty good back on Fwoosh during his original Kickstarter. The one that failed hard. Do you remember that one? Pepperidge Farms remembers. When he launched his Kickstarter, I kind of went on a whole thing on Fwoosh - like my usual 9 paragraphs of straight at something. In this case, I went on about how Bobby was supposed to be a tenured, skilled toy designer flaunting his experience at Hasbro, but that his figures were shitty. I pointed out that they hadn't even been made yet and already looked dated as hell, were using old design language, etc etc. I went on to point out literally everything wrong with them - from the articulation choices, to the lack of particular extra parts. I can't remember all the details at this point.

Aaaanyway... LOTS of people ended up agreeing with me and some people that were a bit more gung-ho about getting the figures publicly changed their minds and cited my points as the, or part of the, reason for choosing not to get any. When the Kickstarter failed, Vala went on to publicly blame me (like ME, personally) for killing his Kickstarter campaign with my 'negativity.' After that, he relaunched the line with a new Kickstarter and the figures used every single improvement I had suggested.

So like, am I the only person to have noticed this stuff? Am I SOLELY responsible for those changes? Naah. But it still tickles my pickle that I was very clearly a major force in those changes, and his initial failure, and that he made such a stink about it. And since he saw fit to publicly blame me for his failure, I feel like it's only right that I be publicly lauded for his later success.

This...this right here is amazing this is all before my time in the collecting space, but I love this story Thank you.

I stated my thoughts on Bobby in the other thread, but he comes off as extremely douche in every video. Constantly puts down other companies, has a huge beef with McFarlane not putting his name on the front of every box, and he even spends a lot of time in the toy aisle for little kids and criticizes that stuff.

All while his 1-man entourage is filming him & licking his nuts. And when he's in his office, he still needs the lint-licker to (poorly) record him instead of just setting up a camera & going for it.

He constantly talks about "moms shopping for their kids" and never once mentions "dads shopping for the kids", which is a huge red flag & tells you immediately who he voted for.

His channel is full of negativity, nut licking, and bullying. The missus & I watch it sometimes so we can laugh at him, but I try not to do it too much because I don't like giving him the views.


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[Fletch]

I don't know when this happened, but there's been a price drop in the AF Vanguard by, like, $60.

You can get the vehicle and all the upgrades for less than a Super7 Skycutter.

 

[Damien]

Yeah... no one was buying his armored soccer-mom SUV, so he dropped the price and pretended it's because he's better than Hasbro... or something.
But never forget (and I say this about every toy company - not just an anti-Bobby thing here), if he can lower the price by 60 bucks and still sell it, that means he ALWAYS could have lowered the price by 60 dollars, but just wanted you to pay more. Those are the options; he was being greedy then, or he's losing money now. Wonder which it is.

 

[thewyldman]

Yeah... no one was buying his armored soccer-mom SUV, so he dropped the price and pretended it's because he's better than Hasbro... or something.
But never forget (and I say this about every toy company - not just an anti-Bobby thing here), if he can lower the price by 60 bucks and still sell it, that means he ALWAYS could have lowered the price by 60 dollars, but just wanted you to pay more. Those are the options; he was being greedy then, or he's losing money now. Wonder which it is.

He sold out of initial quantity on his website which was like 10k units


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[Damien]

He sold out of initial quantity on his website which was like 10k units


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I would love to see the proof of that.
Do you remember when Mattel 'sold out' of a bunch of MattyCollector items and then those same items popped up en masse a year or so later in discount retail stores across the US? Pepperidge Farms Remembers.

 

[thewyldman]

I would love to see the proof of that.
Do you remember when Mattel 'sold out' of a bunch of MattyCollector items and then those same items popped up en masse a year or so later in discount retail stores across the US? Pepperidge Farms Remembers.

I mean it’s not hard to track inventory on his website. It was a gradual drawdown that ended right around the Black Friday sale.


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[Damien]

I mean it’s not hard to track inventory on his website. It was a gradual drawdown that ended right around the Black Friday sale.


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I don't find that compelling. Respectfully. Totally fine if that works for you (or if you just don't care - you certainly don't have any reason to). Not an attack at all.

But like.. It's Bob's site that he is in complete control of at all times, and is not audited by any neutral third party, as far as I am aware. So, just for me personally, I would take his own website inventory to be just as anecdotal as 'I barely see anyone talking about actually owning this thing within what is legitimately a very small community, despite seeing lots of people that do own Vala action figures.' So do I believe he sold through 10k of these -- and did so with enough speed and hype to warrant another production run? I don't. Like at all.
Not saying it's not possible. Just not probable. I won't believe it's true without proof (which, admittedly, we would never be privy to).

That's just explaining my reasoning. Not trying to sway you to suddenly agree with me.

 

[JakeEkiss]

Yeah... no one was buying his armored soccer-mom SUV, so he dropped the price and pretended it's because he's better than Hasbro... or something.
But never forget (and I say this about every toy company - not just an anti-Bobby thing here), if he can lower the price by 60 bucks and still sell it, that means he ALWAYS could have lowered the price by 60 dollars, but just wanted you to pay more. Those are the options; he was being greedy then, or he's losing money now. Wonder which it is.

Honestly it seems just as if not more likely he's just losing money now. 10k seems like a lot of units, but its about 2/3 of what the Ecto-1 sold (at a noticeably higher price) and that feels about right as far as the full audience of this hobby goes. I would absolutely believe Bobby has an audience that could make a 10k run of that car sell out. I also absolutely believe he's the sort of guy who would think he hadn't hit the end of that audience when he had and would over-extend. Happens all the time. The hot-hand fallacy.

But storage costs money too and with tariffs eating into things he may need to recoup more of that investment now rather than later even if he isn't making profit.

 

[Fletch]

And I think at the time all we had for vehicles was the VAMP? Hellcharger, Ramen Racer, ECTO-1, those all came later. Am I remembering that right? I'm sure there were non-AF collectors interested in a vehicle for their Punishers and such.

Now, I haven't seen a lot of good reviews about it since, so a sales slump after word of mouth spreads is very believable, but I can imagine a world where 10,000 people wanted the only 1/12 scale 4-seater car out there.