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Yes, they did indeed try to sell shares in their business. That was interesting. It wasn't on a regular exchange though and was through some other intermediary.

My completely uninformed opinion is that whatever disagreement about product arose between PDNA and the factory was the sort of thing that doesn't scuttle a delivery. It seems like the figures on Ali were fine, not better or worse than the Battletoads they had released. The factory clearly had no interest in redoing the order and was pissed off enough about it that they sold the product to other parties. Also possible it was just a new factory in over its head that fucked up and had to sell those units to stay afloat. With the COVID boom, it sounds like some new factories popped up overnight and they probably weren't all good at what they did. It sure would be nice if action figure companies put full credits on all of their releases so we could see where everything was made. If we knew they were working with an established factory then we'd know something was up, but whatever. Curious to see what actually gets delivered. Not sure how they've managed to stay afloat in the interim as I don't think they've put any product out for a good while at this point.
 
I'm trying to think of properties I'm so starved for figures from that I would give money to them at this point and the list is pretty small. Looney Tunes, Captain Planet, Toxic Crusaders and I'm sure there are some more that I'm not thinking of but they would have to really wow me and 100% not a penny is going directly to them.
 
PantherCult said:
Its even worse that they haven't delivered on subsequent orders either.
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Or like.. sincerely apologized or took any actual responsibility?



Ashtalon said:
Did they even have financial advisors or accountants to tell them what they were doing wasn't the right way to do things?
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Don't be crazy. They had the one dude's wife to be 'treasurer.' I'm sure she had like.. a seventh grade math class under her belt, or something.


Ashtalon said:
But we've never seen those companies product actually made by the factories and sold without the toy company's consent. So there's gotta be more to the story than just...bad factory. We're missing some part of the story.
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Bingo bango.


Ashtalon said:
Keeping the same name just keeps the controversy going and is a giant albatross to wear around your neck.
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To be fair, the flip side of that argument is starting a new company looks like they're hiding who they are. I guess you could argue at least this way they can say 'we're not pretending not to be who we are or hiding from our history.' Except, of course, they kind of are because they pretended Mega and PDNA were entirely separate things that had nothing to do with each other and at one point seemed to be claiming they weren't even owned by the same person.



Misfit said:
That was interesting.
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By 'interesting,' I'm assuming you mean 'sleazy, NFT-level bullshit meant to bilk people out of money.' And yes, I agree. Very interesting.


Misfit said:
Also possible it was just a new factory in over its head that fucked up and had to sell those units to stay afloat. With the COVID boom, it sounds like some new factories popped up overnight and they probably weren't all good at what they did. It sure would be nice if action figure companies put full credits on all of their releases so we could see where everything was made. If we knew they were working with an established factory then we'd know something was up, but whatever. Curious to see what actually gets delivered. Not sure how they've managed to stay afloat in the interim as I don't think they've put any product out for a good while at this point.
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I'm positive they presented PDNA's first ventures into actual toy production as happening with, as the various new toy companies always say, established factories with lots of experience producing and delivering quality collector action figures. They seemed to STRESS this, in fact. Which makes it hard to turn around and be like 'our trustworthy, talented, veteran factory partner turned out to be untrustworthy and stole from us and also didn't make good product that we were happy with.' Which is it? More lies, is what it is.


Justice said:
Captain Planet
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Who is it that's making that Captain Planet figure? Dasin, right? That figure looked pretty good, actually. Can't see anyone coming along to make anything much better, and I really don't see anyone taking the risk on Captain Planet to go beyond Our Hero his very self.
 
Yeah I need the Planeteers too though. And Gaia. And the villains. You've seen my collection. You know my level of restraint for just having one representative from a property.
 
I think you have about as much chance of all that as me ever getting a modern collection of all the characters from Conan the Adventurer.
 
I'm also curious how the PDNA Jim's will compare with Ali's, just from a figure standpoint. I bought Jim and Psy-Crow and the headpack off Ali, and thought they were better than S7 quality, and I didn't really have any QC stuff that was worse than even an average MAFEX.

I really liked the figures, but I sold my set on eBay, though, after I went down a TenNapel rabbit hole. Woof.
 
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Honestly at this point I can't even get mad at companies even if it's malicious or just goofy incompetence.

So many influencers also partnered and shilled and then never said a word when everything fractured and collapsed.

And so many collectors are willing to just overlook everything as long as some other piece of cool plastic comes out. Or ignore whatever atrocities a Creator has done, again because something looks cool in plastic.
 
Running a small business is hard, and from a distance it is often hard to tell whether problems are malfeasance or incompetence or circumstances outside of ones control.

But you have to be honest - both with your customers and with yourself - and accept responsibility and maybe realize when you do not have the skills to be in a certain line of work.
 
fac said:
Running a small business is hard, and from a distance it is often hard to tell whether problems are malfeasance or incompetence or circumstances outside of ones control.

But you have to be honest - both with your customers and with yourself - and accept responsibility and maybe realize when you do not have the skills to be in a certain line of work.
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Like any relationship. Just communicate. Look at all the bad blood with Fwoosh. Not even the figures, the decline of the forums over the last few years.

Just tell people what's going on. It makes a difference. Especially now that we are all connected on the internet and parasocial relationships can make or break success. For better or worse, now is the time to put a human face and touch on every brand, and it's funny how many businesses are dropping the ball on that.
 
Misfit said:
My completely uninformed opinion is that whatever disagreement about product arose between PDNA and the factory was the sort of thing that doesn't scuttle a delivery. It seems like the figures on Ali were fine, not better or worse than the Battletoads they had released. The factory clearly had no interest in redoing the order and was pissed off enough about it that they sold the product to other parties.
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If the factory felt it met its obligation and produced a quality product and the company refused delivery (and presumably refused to pay for it) then of course the factory would offer it to someone else to liquidate and recover some expense. Especially if it was a one-off job at a factory for hire, which wasn't concerned about any long term relationship.

I did chuckle at the "enforcing IP rights in China" part - that seems unlikely.
 
fac said:
I did chuckle at the "enforcing IP rights in China" part - that seems unlikely.
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Yeah. China literally does not recognize US IP law. They DNGAF and probably never will, and you will never successfully enforce your IP rights in China through US law. Now, someone like Hasbro or Mattel might be big enough that a factory would refuse to infringe just based on not wanting to be blacklisted by a massive customer. But even someone with the legal muscle of a Hasbro still needs to use the threat of 'we just won't give you money anymore' because actually trying to argue IP rights in China is a waste of time.

What the licensor CAN do is file for IP rights -in China-, under Chinese law. Then they'll have a case against anyone that infringes in the future, but not against anyone that already did it. Which is probably what that silly message is actually referencing.


altcunningham said:
And so many collectors are willing to just overlook everything as long as some other piece of cool plastic comes out. Or ignore whatever atrocities a Creator has done, again because something looks cool in plastic.
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This is the biggest problem.
 
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