Harvinger Studios, Savage Crucible

[jayjonah]

I believe they cautioned that people who place multiple orders will have their orders cancelled. So... we'll see, I guess.

That would make sense to me regarding Elric but wouldn't make sense to me for the komodo dragons. It's a blind box so I got what a 50/50 chance of getting a different color. You would think though they would want to sell as many blind boxes as they could, lol.

 

[Alt]

Did get my Elric. Hadn't brought it up here before but I had a pre-order elsewhere and they screwed me over on fulfillment. So this was my only shot because I'm not paying the aftermarket. Even getting it to Canada was gross, 128 Goose dollars.

I had the site bookmarked for his listing specifically, and I knew it was down with this portal password all day. I also had places to be, so my brief window was going to be on my phone getting to where I was going. Thankfully I was walking.

Around 8:55 I started refreshing because many times in this hobby, they don't actually start on the hour. I've been burned quite a few times on that. At 9:00 it still wasn't doing anything, and I checked the email and I saw it said between 9:00 and 10:00. I openly bitched to myself that I was not sitting around for a whole hour waiting for them to go live.

Then it went live. Locked in, Shop to complete. Had a moment where I wanted to throw something else in, but that Eldritch voice in my head told me forget it. Just get the f*** out. Got my receipts.

Exhaled.

And then I heard it was gone. For fun I live tracked the Frazetta Warrior trickling down.

I don't know.

I hate this company's stance. I've quit Mezco and other companies for this reason. And I hate tonight will be seen as a success and a reward for the mindset.

And again, I was just coming off this getting screwed over for my initial pre-order.

Stellar product, but I have enough figures from them that I can say the consumer experience, just me acquiring them , is somewhere between trash can fire and dumpster fire.

 

[Red Ogre]

They could probably get away with blind box un-armored Lemurians for $25 each at this point, basic packaging

They were $15 during the KS.

 

[TheSameIdiot]

I missed out on Elric despite planning my night around the drop. I mostly feel fine about it because my wanting Elric was a hypothetical thing to start with. It was an "If I like the second book, I might want one..." kind of thing. I only intended to grab one tonight because I knew it was my last opportunity.

Something about Elric has been bothering me, though, and I couldn't place it. I finally realized it's that the design they released is so similar to Berserk's Guts that it'd be a hat on a hat in my display. If I like the second book and want a figure, I'll be much more interested in one of the other designs anyway.

This has changed my feelings about Harvinger Studios, though. They were my good guy alternative to 4H. Not so much anymore.

Either that or word really got out about him.

I think this is exactly it. Major toy reviewers were singing the praises of how Elric is one of the figures of the year. I planned my evening around this drop because I knew it wouldn't last more than 15 minutes, no matter how much stock they had. Granted, I didn't think it'd sell out in less than a minute.

I understand it's hard to gauge the perception of your product when you live and breathe it every day, but before/after Elric felt like a tangible shift to me. If they only had 250 units to sell, they should've known it wouldn't last more than a few minutes. If I were them, I wouldn't have advertised the Elric drop at all. I expected to get one—especially having set a fucking alarm—and I had no shot. The 20 seconds it took to receive my 2FA code probably doomed me.

Artificial scarcity is a bullshit business model, too. It's one of the reasons I quit on Mezco. It's true that I fell out of love with high-end soft goods figures when MAFEX came around, but I find Mezco so unsavory that I avoid buying from them even if they're selling something I want. Mezco has done a ton of other things to warrant that reputation (ignoring customer service requests, using exclusivity/limited releases to generate hype, charging asinine shipping fees, and screwing customers out of rewards points, among many other things), but artificial scarcity and other shitty anti-consumer practices go hand in hand.

I hope they see real backlash from this nonsense, and I hope it inspires some soul-searching. I don't think it will.

 

[Niko (protozoalord)]

Something about Elric has been bothering me, though, and I couldn't place it. I finally realized it's that the design they released is so similar to Berserk's Guts that it'd be a hat on a hat in my display. If I like the second book and want a figure, I'll be much more interested in one of the other designs anyway.

Entirely by design, on Guts' part. When it comes to western-style fantasy in Japan, Elric is the single most influential work of fiction around, whether that be Final Fantasy, Vampire Hunter D, Guin Saga, Claymore, Berserk, Zelda, Dark Souls, etc.

Guts was made to fall in line with Moorcock's Eternal Champion character archetype, with his armor taking inspiration from the visuals of Elric's armor, while functionally being an incarnation of the Black Sword.

 

[docsilence]

Glad I didn’t stay up for the sale. Woke up randomly an hour after it went live and saw Elric was long gone. Didn’t realize they had the Komodo dragons on sale or I would have grabbed one blind box but they were gone when I fully woke up a few hours later.

Hate artificial scarcity. Honestly, I’m pretty ok with what I have from this line now. I don’t need the added stress of a line punching above its weight.

 

[FuzzyBlueDemon]

I'm frustrated I didn't get what I wanted, but I think you guys are overstating the supervillain-level nefarious intent here on the part of Harvinger. In the grand scheme of things, they're still a pretty small & new company. The worst thing that could happen, in business terms, is for them to pay to produce a huge amount of extra product, that was on open pre-order for quite some time, then sit on them unsold if nobody shows up to buy them later. Nobody here can say they never had a chance to place an order for him. But yeah, a 1 minute sellout during the in-stock sale sucked!

 

[adrienveidt]

The Shop app receipt says I placed my Elric order 'Jan 17' but doesn't say which year. A ) that's some bullshit, B ) that's not a 'receipt', and C ) I'm pretty sure it was Jan 17, 2025.

C'mon, y'all. You're being the drowned guy complaining to God that He only sent 3 rafts, 2 powerboats, and 1 helicopter to save him from the floods.

 

[superdoug55]

I keep checking back at Savage Crucible to see if there was some kind of mix up and Elric's back up. No such luck ...

I did the same thing.

Oh well I guess I don’t really need Elric. Personally if I was them I would try to figure out a way to do another release. Maybe change the figure a little bit, do a different box or maybe a two pack something to where they could get more Elrics out there and still be true to their no reissues rule.

 

[Poe Ghostal]

Okay, so they thought Elric would be up for hours and he sold out in five minutes? Is that right?

 

[mrboshek]

Even faster from what I heard? I wasn't refreshing, but when I tried to buy one, the site said 11 left and was sold out when I clicked on him. I was going to pick one up to see what all the hubbub was about with this guy.

 

[FuzzyBlueDemon]

When I got the page loaded, it was just before 9:01. I added him to my cart, then quickly added a slate & another human figure, still got to the checkout page before 9:03 & when I submitted the order, it said he was sold out. So I shrugged & cleared my cart, because he was my motivating factor. BUT I'm honestly just glad to see the figures are doing well. I'll keep progressing what I want going forward.

 

[fac]

I'm frustrated I didn't get what I wanted, but I think you guys are overstating the supervillain-level nefarious intent here on the part of Harvinger. In the grand scheme of things, they're still a pretty small & new company. The worst thing that could happen, in business terms, is for them to pay to produce a huge amount of extra product, that was on open pre-order for quite some time, then sit on them unsold if nobody shows up to buy them later. Nobody here can say they never had a chance to place an order for him.

C'mon, y'all. You're being the drowned guy complaining to God that He only sent 3 rafts, 2 powerboats, and 1 helicopter to save him from the floods.

I hope no one is blaming them for selling out so quickly as some planned intent to create scarcity - as that makes no sense. As you say they can't make infinite product and they had these up for pre-order in multiple places for awhile. Given how some of their other figures have been available in their store for months they may have figured they had enough for what they had been seeing. But I think Elric as their first truly licensed character and a well made figure is clearly a different thing for them now, and I think the only critique will be if, as a new company, they hold to the "hey, you had your chance" model.

While I get the argument about "hey, you had your chance" in this case it is hard to tell how many of their potential customers didn't even know the figure existed when it was up for pre-order. The Facebook group has tripled in size the last year. They are gaining momentum and apparently have a hit figure that they can sell thousand more units of based on the reactions here and elsewhere. I don't think they intended for planned scarcity but sticking to the "we only will make it once" given the change in demand is questionable to me - its one thing for Hasbro 10 years into the Legends line to say "buy this made to order now or possibly miss out", its another for a company just getting their footing.

I am sympathetic though, it has put them in a bit of a tough spot with two vocal sides - one side upset they can't get your product, one side upset if others can get your product.

 

[adrienveidt]

This is similar to how I felt a couple weeks back with the Devil's Bargain variants of EAGLE Force figures; except those 3min were the *only* time those were ever offered at all.

However, that sell-thru convinced BBTS to fund another pair of EAGLE Force variants that I was casually able to pre-order and can add dupes still if I want to.

Assuming the contracts are there, I'm sure Elric's sell-thru is telling them there's more money to be made if they want to make it. If another Elric is basically this same figure again I'll likely pass - unless it's got a screaming-mad BLOOD AND SOULS FOR MY LORD ARIOCH head. But I'd really prefer that come with the Whelan-style Sailor version that the universe truly desires.

From my conversation with 'them' in Dallas, whatever inertia there is against more Moorcock is entirely *outside* of the Harvinger offices. This Elric contract was likely written as a one-and-done and has also likely taken everyone involved by surprised by how in-demand it's become. For 60-odd years the only Moorcock merchandise I'm aware of are the various comics and a small handful of porcelain statues, and they look to have touched an over-pressured line and are shocked by the volume of steam coming out.

In my mind, the single-biggest roadblock here may be Moorcock and Whelan being from the Silent Generation and simply not grokking action figures as an art form and reluctant to engage with these overgrown Harvinger children and their trifling nonsense; regardless of the money amounts that thus-far had only been hypothetical. Hopefully this sell-thru and overall response to the in-hand figure is enough to change their mind about the potential money, if only for profit reasons and not an artistic urge to see their character fully realized in 3D articulated PVC.

 

[Poe Ghostal]

I'm curious about the background of Harvinger. They came out of the gate with what I think is a superior product to Mythic Legions - on-par sculpting and better articulation at a fairly reasonable price. It makes me wonder if they had some really good money backing the whole enteprise, y'know?

For example, if I were independently wealthy, rather than trying buy senate campaigns and Supreme Court judges, I would just fund action figure toylines and RiffTrax of movies I want them to riff.