Snow C.A.T. Live!

It doesn't help Flint and Lady Jaye are about the unsexiest looking figures you could include with a $325 vehicle. Those are by far the worst figure offerings for Joe Haslab? I take it those looks are from the cartoon? Meh, google some modern military snow gear. I'm pretty sure I already posted saying I'll be more disappointed losing the accessories. I do want the bivouac, but I don't know if it even makes sense in a snow environment.
 
Honestly, I wouldn’t be that sad if this didn’t fund. Saves me $350, saves space I couldn’t afford to begin with. There just isn’t enough that exists within the current collection to complement a snow-specific vehicle. It IS surprising that it’s been such a slog, since Classified HasLabs seem to be a sure thing. But I think the climate-specific offering is really what’s hindering its success.
 
NORM said:
But I think the climate-specific offering is really what’s hindering its success.
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That's exactly the issue for me, I just didn't want to assume I spoke for everyone.

I mean, I'm not even interested in Snowjob, Torpedo or Alpine because they're too enviro-specific.
 
Someone mentioned a bit earlier that a potential issue is the Pulse Website not functioning properly. I just went to place an order for some in-stock figures last night (near midnight my time) and got that error message that the site was experiencing high traffic and to try again later. Yeah, right! Not at that time.

Switched to the app and checked out no problem. That error could easily be turning people way from ordering. They need to get that fixed STAT. Going to be a lot of unhappy people later today when the new figures drop and if it’s not fixed by Friday when the SDCC exclusives drop, there will be a riot.
 
I wonder if we've hit a breaking point on Haslabs for a lot of folks with space, tooo. I'm super interested in the Snowcat but I've done more Haslabs than I should have. Financially I could swing it, but kinda wonder if 14,000 people could find room for a helicopter and jet fighter but 6,000 of them are like me and having a "well, hell" moment of needing to have some common sense.

The environmental specific side of things is probably having an impact, too, but honestly I loved the variety of environments in Joes and love their "one guy for every job" thing (hi Dusty) but it's easier to love when you don't need three square feet for a single item. (I'd buy a snow vehicle that would fit in a detolf cube in a New York Minute.)
 
The Haslab for the Star Wars The Vintage Collection Gunship is also going incredibly slow. Guess we'll see how things turn out for both of them...
 
I've probably already said this in this thread, but this is the first Joe Haslab I'm not buying into. I basically dropped the line entirely earlier this year, and it's entirely due to the instability and uncertainty in the economy. I'm lucky to still have my job, but I watched 35% of my coworkers get laid off a few months ago, and organizations similar to mine are constantly being attacked by this admin, so I'm absolutely holding down the discretionary spending and saving more. The Joe team is still making great looking stuff, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't (constantly) tempted by every release, but, you know - needs must.
 
I'll preface this by saying I'm biased because I really like snow-themed stuff. But I really don't see any reason why being arctic themed would be that big of a shot against it. It's not as if most people buying into these HasLabs are creating massive themed displays around them and the SnowCat is a big monkey wrench because it needs its own special place. Most collectors are just stuffing all their stuff on shelves in a very Executioner 'Behold! My Stuff!' kind of way.

This thing sits on a top shelf next to every other giant vehicle you own no different from a Tiger Cat would, or whatever other vehicle. I've gotta think there's a lot more to it than that. I'm sure the economy, as 'berto said, is playing into this as well. It's a tough time to be a collector when regular people have never had less spending money and there's simultaneously never been more toy companies simultaneously releasing massive, high-price items.
 
I had the following typed up, but got interrupted at work, then I wasn't going to post because I thought it sounded snarky. Since this forum conveniently saves your not-yet posted thoughts:

"I can see the snow theme being an issue. I didn't buy a Rattler because I wasn't going to run around the house and backyard making jet engine sounds while carrying it overhead with one arm or at the very least suspend it from the ceiling. I'd be left imagining a Rattler parked on a tarmac?"
 
Hasbro should get rid of this tier nonsense. They're clearly already baked into the price so just include all of them from the get go. FOMO drives sales, not stretch goals. And more bells and whistles from the get go will make the FOMO that much stronger.
 
I'm just spitballing, but I can see that tiers as an expense limiter. Like, just to make up some numbers, if making a tool for Lady Jaye costs $6,000, you're going to want to hold off on having to make it until you have enough committed buyers to make it worthwhile.

So I don't assume the costs are exactly baked in.
 
mrboshek said:
"I can see the snow theme being an issue. I didn't buy a Rattler because I wasn't going to run around the house and backyard making jet engine sounds while carrying it overhead with one arm or at the very least suspend it from the ceiling. I'd be left imagining a Rattler parked on a tarmac?"
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For sure - it's very limiting logic. Which may be a good thing and may be a bad thing, depending on your perspective. To that point, I don't think a ground-based snow vehicle is any more limiting than a bomber jet.


Fletch said:
I'm just spitballing, but I can see that tiers as an expense limiter. Like, just to make up some numbers, if making a tool for Lady Jaye costs $6,000, you're going to want to hold off on having to make it until you have enough committed buyers to make it worthwhile.
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This is correct. They've worked out the number of sales they need to get in order to make those items feasible in terms of minimum order quantities and their profit margins. It makes sense. BUT, they're definitely baked into the price on some level because they're definitely not going to include them for free. If Hasbro thought the SnowCat by itself was legitimately worth 325 dollars, they wouldn't hand over two 20 dollar figures to go with it no matter how many they sold. So there's always going to be some level of inflating the price to cover the extra stuff they plan to include.
At the same time, not hitting those tiers doesn't mean they made more money because just barely funding might mean (sorry, WILL mean) the SnowCat actually costs them more to produce.


No easy answer, I'd say. For my part, I'd prefer a reduced price for the initial goal, and for the 'tiers' to actually be purchasable unlocks the same way most Kickstarters work. But I understand there's a lot more logistics involved in doing it that way, which is probably why Hasbro doesn't and won't ever do that. So we're very likely stuck with this sales model until it stops being viable.
 
Snow C.A.T.


7,479 / 8,000 (+65) 93.49% of funding goal with 15d 19h left.

Glad to see a bit of a bump in the backing numbers. Maybe as it is getting closer to both funding, and the end of the campaign, people are starting to get off the fence. Or it could just be a strange one day bump and it will go back to low double digit gains tomorrow.
 
Ok.

So I didn't want to post anything until I saw a pattern over a couple days, but I have now seen this happen for at least three days straight and I am beginning to think this is a pattern.

So I usually post my daily update around 4-5amEST because that is around the time I wake up and I have a couple hours to myself before the rest of the family gets up. Anyway I noticed a couple days ago that a couple hours (at most) later the backer total was around 20-30 backers less than when I posted. Now of course the total number of backers fluctuates throughout the day and goes up and down. However I was surprised to see so many backers fall off in such a short time. So I decided to check again, and sure enough the same thing has been happening for at least three days now. Currently the backer total is at 7,459 when it was 7,479 this morning when I updated.

Now the big issue for me is that this continual drop has at least, for now, not affected the backing in a negative way (outside of maybe that one day where it lost backers). However if we count just the days I have been watching this phenomenon the Snow C.A.T. could have maybe 100 more backers than they currently do, and be even closer to funding. The hard part is that it means the Snow C.A.T. has to make back a bunch of backers every day before going forward with positive backing numbers which makes everything harder and slower.

(Conspiracy theory time)

Could there be a dedicated group out there who are pumping up the numbers every night to make it look like the positive momentum is continuing? Then the next morning they pull their backing and repeat the process again in the evening?

(End of conspiracy theory time)

Anyway, as I said, I noticed this pattern and wanted to wait a few more days to see if it was playing out the way I was seeing things. At the least it is still gaining backers daily, but it just makes it harder with the constant daily drop every morning.
 
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