Action Force and Valaverse

Bobo put up a video where he talks about mistakes he's made running Valaverse. I'm surprised by the seemingly genuine introspection on being able to say he made mistakes, but here we are.

I was just a little annoyed that he credits that douchebag ninja guy with criticizing his low-cost figures to the point where Bob felt the need to fix the issues that ninja guy brought up, but Bobo has YET to credit me with the actual success of his line at all, since all of my initial criticisms were incorporated into Kickstarter v2, which actually got the line off the ground. Where's MY shout out? Nope, I'm just the meanie-head that he accused of causing his first Kickstarter to fail. As if he needed my help there.

Also thought it was really funny that he had two separate 'my packaging isn't good' segments, finally ending in him deciding to use 'collector friendly' packaging that mirrors what Boss Fight was doing right out of the gate with their first wave of HACKS. So it only took Bob like 8 years or some shit to come up with what Boss Fight already did and was widely available and Bob had definitely seen and probably also owned at some point.
Maybe his inability to absorb information is the reason he gets fired all the time.

He also brought up how badly Tim Kennedy fucked him over on refusing to do any press for his own action figure. On the one hand, that sucks and I kind of felt bad for him a bit. On the other hand, he's a grown up and should have put everything in the contract and it's 100% his fault for not doing that. And on the other... other hand, that's what you get when you work with pieces of shit right-wingers grifters. What do you expect? When a guy constantly espouses hard right talking points, guess what kind of guy he is? In other words - you deserved for him to fuck you over because you are either a goofy dumbass right-winger yourself and thought partisanship would protect you, or you're too stupid to see a right-wing grifter when he's waving a 'Trump Forever' flag right in your face.
 
Damien said:
Kind of a common issue with Vala figures, though. Right? Their proportions are a bit wonked.
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It's what bounced me off the latest lady release. Whole silhouette and proportions are a step back from Pandora (which is also feral Eclipse).
 
thewyldman said:
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Looks like Toy News International got some high depth images:
toynewsi.com

Valaverse DFW 2026 Reveal Panel - Splinter Cell, Rocketeer And More

Valaverse held it's annual DFW convention reveal panel which is now available online for you to watch.Some of the highlights from the panel include an updated
toynewsi.com
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I like Rocketeers silhouette, but the helmet makes me see Sleestak from Land of the Lost (?).
 
Damien said:
Also thought it was really funny that he had two separate 'my packaging isn't good' segments, finally ending in him deciding to use 'collector friendly' packaging that mirrors what Boss Fight was doing right out of the gate with their first wave of HACKS.
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And I think Mythic Legions was doing it as soon or sooner. Not like BF were the only ones in the space with that idea.

It is more introspection than his vibes often put out. And I do think he's taking on board that the line he's made has to become more than vaguely military dudes. He's still in a narrow window, but things are improving. The head on the Vane figure is easily the best one out of this line so far thanks to the printing. I think the more he branches at this point the more success he's bound to have so long as he's filling gaps int he market (which I think Extras will do).
Alt said:
I like Rocketeers silhouette, but the helmet makes me see Sleestak from Land of the Lost (?).
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It is a little Sleestak-y.
 
JakeEkiss said:
And I think Mythic Legions was doing it as soon or sooner. Not like BF were the only ones in the space with that idea.
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Oh, for sure. I only mentioned BFS because they did it literally right away, years earlier, and I know Vala has a hard-on for shit-talking them.


JakeEkiss said:
It is more introspection than his vibes often put out. And I do think he's taking on board that the line he's made has to become more than vaguely military dudes.
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I doubt he'd ever talk about it publicly, but it does seem like he's starting to see a hard cap on what and how much he can sell to just people that either want extras for their Joe shelf, or specifically want big tough action military bois. And he also seems to understand a bit more now than he used to that being a fucking cunt all the time and alienating a bunch of toy collectors isn't exactly a great business strategy considering the size of the collector market overall.
 
Yeah that Rocketeer has no neck. That and the green jacket throw me off the more I see it. I still kinda want it, but I don't know. And the shoulders are like half a centimeter lower than they should be. It'll depend on the price and how easy it is for me to get it where I live.

I don't have any of his figures but I do enjoy his videos talking about the industry and how action figures are made. There is too much secrecy in the figure industry and it's really hard to get in, so I do commend him for opening up so much (although he still could be doing a lot more). However, talking from an outside point of view on his figure line, they don't seem like much more than "more GI Joe". Not even from a design aspect either, he just seems to have taken the Classified articulation design and used it in his line. Which isn't a bad thing per say, but nowdays, people kinda want and expect more than that.

I'm not really trying to take away anything from him, I mean he actually managed to make his own action figure line, I wish I could do that too! It's awesome he did. But if he's a real figure collector, wouldn't he see that he could be doing so much more? He's in a position where he could be improving the industry standard, by doing advanced articulation schemes, higher quality sculpting and painting, showing everyone that it wouldn't actually cost a lot more to make way better figures.

If I had an action figure company, I would at the very least try to do it. See what the Japanese and Chinese figure companies are doing, take inspiration (I just saw a figure that had ball jointed biceps, in order to get better butterfly movement in the shoulders! Insane!). There is still a lot of innovation potential in the figure industry, and indie figure companies are the folks who should be investing in that.
 
spinc said:
There is still a lot of innovation potential in the figure industry, and indie figure companies are the folks who should be investing in that.
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I would say it's the big companies that -should- be doing it. They have the money to do whatever they want, and they actively choose greed and profits over innovation all the time. But I'd agree Bob should be doing it as well mostly because he's up his own ass all the time about how great he is, but doesn't really back it up.


spinc said:
I mean he actually managed to make his own action figure line
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As a former designer for two massive toy companies, with all of the background information and contacts that you'd expect from such, and after a failed Kickstarter. He doesn't deserve much praise for figuring out how to make action figures with other peoples' money after being in the industry for years and years. In those circumstances, you could have done it too. And probably better.
And you'd make cool knights and shit, because you know what's up.
 
spinc said:
Yeah that Rocketeer has no neck. That and the green jacket throw me off the more I see it. I still kinda want it, but I don't know. And the shoulders are like half a centimeter lower than they should be.
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So I tend to really hate his renders as well, wait until there are test shots to give you a better idea. The color and proportions always look off in his pre-viz stuff. It might still look odd in the final, but the finals do tend to look better.
Damien said:
I would say it's the big companies that -should- be doing it.
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So I heard a thing recently that I think makes some sense here. The industry leaders don't innovate, they -ideally- respond to innovation. They're job is to convince non-community members to buy in. The upstarts do the innovating, it's their job to convince you to buy their brand over an industry leader.

Which is to say Bobby should be innovating more, probably, but I think to some degree it makes sense why he hasn't, and it's because he was in the industry leader stable for so long. He's innovating relative to his old job (more accessories of different types etc) but not relative to the entire market.
Alt said:
Does the helmet go over a head?
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Bobby talked about this in the stream. He's got an un-helmeted head, a helmeted head, and then an empty helmet for use as a prop with the un-helmeted head. This is to avoid the proportion and warping issues with a slide-over helmet, and avoid having a figure with tiny head, but also give you a prop helmet option that feels the right size.
 
JakeEkiss said:
So I heard a thing recently that I think makes some sense here. The industry leaders don't innovate, they -ideally- respond to innovation. They're job is to convince non-community members to buy in. The upstarts do the innovating, it's their job to convince you to buy their brand over an industry leader.
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I suppose it makes sense from a 'it's just Capitalism, bro' standpoint. But otherwise it feels so backwards to expect the people with the least amount of money to take all the risks. The guys with basically nothing to lose should be the ones taking the risks, but instead they just sit there and say 'we'll leech off what others figure out.' Which, yeah, definitely sounds like the world we live in.
 
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