Super 7 Ultimates Thread

Fletch said:
Other takeaways include a more or less official nail in the coffin of Dungeons & Dragons, and an insane argument that Universal Monsters would win in a fight with G.I.Joe.

For D&D, I maintain that showing Wave 2 would have helped sales of Wave 1, but now I'm also pushing back on the idea that interest in the line can only be gaged by interest in that big vinyl Tiamat. Going only off of my own high interest level in seeing the figure line continue vs. my total lack of interest in a big, vinyl Tiamat, I feel like he's wildly off-base again.
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Yeah, that was a pretty absurd statement to make: The articulated line of action figures based on D&D is dependent on its fans buying a $300 vinyl dragon. I think he already confirmed in a prior interview they have other waves mocked up. If they want to do the rest of the kids put them up for preorder and see what happens. If not enough people preorder, then don't make them. If he really thought a wave 2 was possible then they would do just that, but I bet they know it wouldn't do big enough numbers to warrant going into production. Plus, they're now going to be $65 in all likelihood so that makes it even harder to get people to bite. Which means he's just trying to get people to buy his big, expensive, vinyl dragon. Which, for the record, I think looks fine and it's probably the type of release Super7 does best, but we're talking about two pretty distinct customer bases. It would be like Mondo saying "We're not going to go through with the 1/6 scale TMNT line unless people really buy-out the soft vinyl TMNT we've done." It's asinine.
 
Fletch said:
Given how NECA abruptly stopped making theirs, you're pertinent right.

I don't know why, though. 80s cartoons, retro toys, AND D&D are all having a moment. These guys should be hot.
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I mean, I don't think NECA never explicitly SAID their 4 figures and vintage repaints were going to be the start of something more. I thought someone said at one of the cons, or interviews it was implied they did the modern update versions first, because they planned on the updated vintage toy looks when they went after the license.
 
My Ross had the D&D Arrow guy in it. Don't even know his name which is why I left it, but thought I should let you guys know to check your Ross if interested.
 
SalemCrow said:
I mean, I don't think NECA never explicitly SAID their 4 figures and vintage repaints were going to be the start of something more.
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I probably over-trusted some platitudes in a Veebs interview. Pretty sure the designer talked about other, upcoming characters, though.
 
I think it’s reasonable to assume had the NECA figures sold well there would be more. There were plenty more characters they could have turned to.
 
Probably not at all a useful litmus test, but I tend to assume that if I can easily find something for several months, where I live, then that line or particular product has failed. We don't get a lot of good stuff, and what we do get we don't tend to get in volume. So if something is still on the shelves, it's usually that same one that's been there the whole time and no one has bothered to snap it up.
 
I think people expecting merchandise for the 80s animated D&D cartoon to be big sellers were just overselling the appeal of that cartoon. Certainly those of us growing up at the time remember it. However, it was only 1 season of 20-something episodes. The show didn't have tie-in toys to help maintain interest in it. I never see it airing on any of my channels. It was just kind of lost to time. I was surprised Hasbro made those characters as a mass retail line. Maybe if Hasbro hadn't made their figures, the Super 7 ones would have done better, as they're obviously more into niche properties.

and yes making a giant vinyl dragon before completing the main cast seems like a giant (literally) misstep. Unless S7 figured people who bought the Hasbro figures would also get the dragon. But why not delay it until you've filled out your own line a bit more? Maybe they figured the dragon would be such a huge seller, they could put that money into a wave 2 of figures?

If NECA still has the license, maybe they'll make more D&D figures. But just every so often. They're obviously not huge movers, but I've never seen them linger in stores for long. So they're being more cautious and slow to release them. Did NECA say they were done with the line?

D&D is just one of those properties which has great brand name recognition, but it doesn't automatically translate to toy sales. Not sure what they could do with a toyline to make it a success. Dragonlance figures? Something based off video games? More generic figures not tied to any specific media? I almost think the latter may be the best approach. Maybe with some armor and bits you could remove to make your figure more unique? Like the GIJoe Classified Budo guy who comes with alternate samurai armor. So have a fighter character with some armor parts you can slide on and off. And then label it like a "build your own character" type of action feature?
 
I think a lot of people saw the 80s toon as a potential untapped gold mine because of the lack of merch. I know Randy at NECA expressed interest in it, but then Hasbro went and did their own thing (and Super7 foolishly thought there was still room for them) and kind of killed that idea. Whether it’s one-off figures of Drizzt or the classic NECA character offerings, D&D just doesn’t seem to translate well to toys. It’s just odd because Four Horsemen are obviously doing plenty well with their not D&D stuff, but perhaps that’s simply the difference of being a small shop vs a bigger one, licensed vs unlicensed.
 
Horsemen sells a fraction of what Neca requires, let alone a Hasbro. Perks of being a small company with no licensing fees and being able to reuse molds constantly while also not having to make stuff that has to sell thousands of units at target and Walmart


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With Hasbro's line... they weren't good figures. With Super7's line... Super7 had tanked their rep to the point that I think by the time these were out, people were (rightly) skeptical of the company and their product and the price and whether or not they'd actually finish the team. And, playing clearance chicken with S7 can really pay off. Even though it makes it unlikely lines will continue.

Had NECA done a DnD animated line instead of Hasbro/S7, I think the line may have done well enough to complete the main cast with some baddies. But it was a small audience to begin with and while DnD's modern popularity would have moved a few units, I'm not sure how many contemporary players would want figures of such a specific iteration, vs characters drawn from either BG3 or the 5E onward rulebooks. I think a Figma or SHF BG3 line would do well.

In some ways NECA's toy figures are even more niche, nowadays, and maybe didn't offer a spread of character types that mimic what's popular in the game, now. Their fantasy looks are very of the era, which is fine if you specifically want 80's looks.

S7 tried a modern Vecna, but it was like... a stand alone. He didn't necessarily pair with anything, and because they use the pre-order model, you're looking at a few years wait before you can have a figure to fight him.
 
Ashtalon said:
I think people expecting merchandise for the 80s animated D&D cartoon to be big sellers were just overselling the appeal of that cartoon. Certainly those of us growing up at the time remember it. However, it was only 1 season of 20-something episodes. The show didn't have tie-in toys to help maintain interest in it. I never see it airing on any of my channels. It was just kind of lost to time. I was surprised Hasbro made those characters as a mass retail line. Maybe if Hasbro hadn't made their figures, the Super 7 ones would have done better, as they're obviously more into niche properties.

and yes making a giant vinyl dragon before completing the main cast seems like a giant (literally) misstep. Unless S7 figured people who bought the Hasbro figures would also get the dragon. But why not delay it until you've filled out your own line a bit more? Maybe they figured the dragon would be such a huge seller, they could put that money into a wave 2 of figures?

If NECA still has the license, maybe they'll make more D&D figures. But just every so often. They're obviously not huge movers, but I've never seen them linger in stores for long. So they're being more cautious and slow to release them. Did NECA say they were done with the line?

D&D is just one of those properties which has great brand name recognition, but it doesn't automatically translate to toy sales. Not sure what they could do with a toyline to make it a success. Dragonlance figures? Something based off video games? More generic figures not tied to any specific media? I almost think the latter may be the best approach. Maybe with some armor and bits you could remove to make your figure more unique? Like the GIJoe Classified Budo guy who comes with alternate samurai armor. So have a fighter character with some armor parts you can slide on and off. And then label it like a "build your own character" type of action feature?
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Also I think the toy community thinks of the brand from the toy/cartoon aspect when the bigger brand recognition for D&D is the game itself. I mean how much does the game generate in revenue compared to the toys? There is also the celebrity (sub?) culture around the game. There was a time a couple years ago where it seemed to be a cool thing for certain celebs to do. Joe Manganiello had games with other celebs and even showed up on "The Big Bang Theory" in relation to those games.

Don't know of any celebrity gatherings around the cartoon or recent movie.
 
Ashtalon said:
So have a fighter character with some armor parts you can slide on and off. And then label it like a "build your own character" type of action feature?
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I'd like to say this is the kind of line I want, but I think this is basically what Four Horsemen are doing and I haven't bought a single one of those yet.

It's also how I want Nacelle to handle their Star Trek line. Give us all the known characters, but make the connectors universal enough that a variety of head and hand packs would let us customize our own fanfic ship crews (because I can't be the only collector with a fanfic ship crew).

On another tangent, I've seen Four Horsemen do MOTU homage figures, I wonder if they'd considered D&D Cartoon homages with, like, a knight or ranger matching the colors of the cartoon characters.
 
DnD started its modern Renaissance probably in the late 00's early 2010's when elder millennial hipsters started rediscovering it and added to the ranks of the core group of ever-nerds who were still playing on the regular. I think 4th edition spiked a little interest, but it probably just served as a reminder and got people to blow off the dust on their AD&D/3E/3.5E books. Nerd Poker began around this time.

It had kind of a counter culture vibe for about 5 years before, like most underground things (like bands etc) or niche nerd things, it fell into the zeitgeist. It coincided with a lot of the demographic rollover, broadening, and regeneration that also happened in comics, gaming and other niches in the 2010's as counter culture shifted more and more into regular culture as social media helped open doors for people to find things. The MCU took over movie theaters, Game of Thrones was the most popular TV show.

Stranger Things/Critical Role/Adventure Zone/5E/even South Park "The Stick of Truth" all hit within one year of each other, around ~2015, which brought in a lot of young millennials and older Gen Z. And that's when the full on tumblr-fication of DnD began. Social media was filled with people taking pictures of dice/drawing their OG characters, etc. And more normie actors (not the Brian Posehn types) started dabbling with the bandwagon. I mean, you just had regular people that never read a fantasy book in their life becoming super fans of GoT and then winding up on Reddit, being exposed to all sorts of new things.

I'd say the culmination was during COVID, when media/hobby consumption and playing online was at its peak. People began introducing kids into the game. In the 2020's DnD clubs opened up at more schools.

Maybe the swan song was BG3. It seems, like the MCU, a lot of people are over DnD now, or it's just not the fad it was from 2017-2022. I'm sure it still has more players than ever, but a lot of the folks that picked it up put it back down. It's no longer hip or unique or ironic to play, so people that glommed on for that reason likely shed off. But there are still more dice stalls at comic cons now than I think I've ever seen.

As far as merch goes, I still think generic DnD figures would sell better than IP characters, if only because a lot of the newer generation see themselves so much in the character. The game is more about them and their friends and their unique canons, then being super into Warduke or something.
 
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