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Quote:

Originally Posted by CMIII

It'll become Bait and switch if they produce them and sell them but only to those who took the MOTU offer

But why in the world would Mattel do that? That makes absolutely no sense, unless you're just being derisive. Ultimately any company's primary goal is to make money. If they are able to produce any of those figures, why limit availability to a specific group that may or may not want them? Mattel obviously had a hard enough time selling them to the general public/DC fans. Why make the situation even worse?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiberius

But...Bait-and-Switch IS fraud. But I see where you are coming from.

Yeah, bait-and-switch is a specific type of fraud. It's like whiskey and bourbon. All bourbons are whiskeys but not all whiskeys are bourbons. Or something like that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dr Kain

Well Scott claims they have to have the figures for a sub planned and tool'd two years in advance in order to ensure they come out mostly on time.

That's not just Scott talking out his ass, either. The industry standard is about a one- to two-year turnaround for a given toy. That's going from concept sketch to finished product on the shelf at retail.

The thing is, with a subscription service, Mattel does not have to design and tool all the figures at the same time like they would with a standard retail wave. They can stagger the tooling across a year and know that they will sell enough of the finished figures to pay for it all. Or if the sub fails, Mattel knows they won't have enough and can stop the development cycle before they put any more money into it.

So yeah, Scott may have known all of the figures they were planning on doing for the subs, but not necessarily if they'd be able to get to them all. That also goes back to the idea that most companies are very reluctant to talk about anything planned a year or more in the future.

The question with the DCUC sub is, how far along were they with each of the figures that got announced? Was it far enough along that the only way to get back their investment is to get them to retail somehow?