Mattel - New for 2023

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Regarding the talk about custom pieces vs. mass produced offerings...with a custom piece, the amount of people you have to convince is by definition much smaller than a mass produced item.

It's easier to find one person (or ten people, or a hundred people) willing to spend $500 than it is to find 5,000 people willing to spend $250.

With something like the Ultimasaurus, there may be enough of a market for someone to create custom pieces that are very small run, and still make the necessary return on the investment of resources. I'm not super familiar with the Custom Ultimasaurus project, but how many were made? I cannot fathom that it was anywhere near the realm of 5,000, and certainly not 10,000.

It's always going to be much easier to find a dedicated but very small group of fans willing to pay lots of money for an expensive limited project.

But when Mattel is doing what basically amounts to a full mass market production run, it becomes harder to find the necessary amount of folks willing to drop the cash on it. The appeal of it on a broad scale goes down, and if the price doesn't drop enough to make up for it...in the words of Ian Malcolm..."well, there it is."

There were 30 initially made. 5 went to the artists and a couple Youtube content creators, the rest went up for sale and sold out in less than a minute.

Mattel may be a victim of their own success? Had they made a much smaller run they would have made money but perhaps not enough to justify it as a corporation.

Speaking of things they could have made..an adult version of Lex and Tim would have been a neat fantasy set.


OT :  Didn't feel like really making a thread just for this ,but I have a spare Borealopelta and a Macaw Pyroraptor. Looking to trade for an Einiosaurus or Black Moros if anyone wants to just message me.

[Carnoking]

I can't help but feel if Syrett did a crowdfund and needed 5,000 people willing to shell out 300+dollars just to lock in production of the Ultimasaurus, we'd have a similar outcome to Mattel's efforts on our hands.

[stargatedalek]

Mattel should have made the explorer and kids the stretch goals and included the gate and rex by default. Then the stretch goal is a nice little bonus if the set reaches that point.

[Prehistory Resurrection]

From Collect Jurassic.

[Carnoking]

It would seem desperation is setting in on Mattel's end. With a little over a week to go and with equally little fanfare, they've rearranged the tiers/stretch goals. Now you get the gates, explorer, fence pieces, and Tim at 5,000, the Buck at 6, and Lex and Goat at 8. This all seems a bit more reasonable, and I could almost be swayed for those extra pieces at 5,000, but in terms of the big picture, it's perhaps too little too late to push this over the edge.
Makes you wonder what other concessions they might make in the final days.

[Flaffy]

Such is a thing called "Too little, too late."

[Carnoking]

Yeahhhh, still need 3,633 people to come around. That's over 450 new backers a day 

[andrewsaurus rex]

that's certainly a much better way of offering  it......I guess Mattel is reading this thread lol.

But why not extend the deadline?  What's the harm in doing that?  Give it a couple more months and I bet they'll get their 50000 backers.

[andrewsaurus rex]

Good on Mattel for making changes to the offering, but I must confess, I don't see why Mattel would be desperate.  Why would they care one way or the other whether this set gets made?  If they get the backers they'll make it, otherwise they won't.   That's the beauty of crowdfunding.

[Faelrin]

And if the word doesn't get out about this from like the big names, this is all going to be meaningless as well. I'll hit up Collect Jurassic and see if he can help get the word out about this, since this is a major change that folks should be made aware of. That said for how much I bickered and expressed my dissatisfaction as to how this was initially handled, I appreciate the attempt to drastically change this up, as it does mean they are listening to feedback to some extent. The only other logical thing to do to "save it" would be to extend the time-frame at this point. I mean is there anything stopping them from doing that?

I think it would have been good of them to just add in the paddock signs as well. Would be a shame to let those go to waste.

So in an attempt to put my money where my mouth is, I actually can't afford to, well at least not by the end of this month. After getting all the way to the payment plan stuff, and accepted, it wants to charge me over $58 today (probably from the +$30 shipping fee), and that was with the cheapest $24 a month/12 months one. Bust, even if this appears dead in the water, it was worth an attempt, but I definitely don't have those kind of funds to use right now, never mind it wants this on a debit card, despite accepting one of my credit cards, which is also where I keep all my savings for this hobby to begin with.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

From Collect Jurassic.

YMMV ?

Good on Mattel for making changes to the offering, but I must confess, I don't see why Mattel would be desperate.  Why would they care one way or the other whether this set gets made?  If they get the backers they'll make it, otherwise they won't.  That's the beauty of crowdfunding.

I'm seeing so many posts saying " look Mattel caved!! Our plan worked!" lol it's kinda amusing.  I don't think Mattel is desperate, maybe someone is though? Someone probably came up with this plan and it's not working they bear the brunt? I really do think the artists/designers involved want us to have this set.

[Prehistory Resurrection]

A closer look at the Legacy Collection Mamenchisaurus.

[Flaffy]

Nice Sesmiosaurus Mammenchisaurus

Can't afford to get large sauropod toys nowdays as I have to be mobile, but once I settle down I'm definitely going to catch up on these Mattel giants.

[Gwangi]

I'm probably going to have to get that Mammenchisaurs. I'm not pre-ordering it though (I never do) and will patiently wait for it to go on sale, like I'm doing with a lot of Mattel toys these days.

[Shane]

Good on Mattel for making changes to the offering, but I must confess, I don't see why Mattel would be desperate.  Why would they care one way or the other whether this set gets made?  If they get the backers they'll make it, otherwise they won't.   That's the beauty of crowdfunding.

If the backers have completely stalled out with 10 days left in the campaign, they can likely run it indefinitely and it'll never reach the threshold.

The rule of thumb is that as the campaign runs, the daily numbers of backers usually falls more and more until it hits a plateau of basically zero, unless there's a major shake-up (additional bonuses unlocked, changes to the campaign, etc.). You saw this a bit when they opened it up to international backers and got a brief boost of backers for a couple days.

But typically, the bulk of the backing happens in the first few days of the campaign, and then the daily numbers slowly go down, and then usually there may be a brief spike at the end (but usually that's when a campaign is very close to being funded - it's not as likely for something so far away from the goal).

The drop off for the gates was very sharp, and they didn't get enough initial early bird backers to do the bulk of the lifting.

There's no reason to continue it; it's not getting funded without major changes, that's clear now. Continuing the campaign would just be embarrassing on Mattel's part.

[andrewsaurus rex]

the Mattel Mamench doesn't l look like a Mamench to me.   Neck should be a lot longer relative to the body.  It looks more like a generic diplodicid.    Not sure i'll be getting it.

[Shane]

the Mattel Mamench doesn't l look like a Mamench to me.   Neck should be a lot longer relative to the body.  It looks more like a generic diplodicid.    Not sure i'll be getting it.

Agree on this. The neck really doesn't do it justice. This might be the first Legacy giant sauropod I pass on.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

the Mattel Mamench doesn't l look like a Mamench to me.  Neck should be a lot longer relative to the body.  It looks more like a generic diplodicid.    Not sure i'll be getting it.

From what I understand, the animal in the film was based on seismosaurus (now diplodocus) and the name mamenchisaurus comes from an earlier draft of the script.

In that case, it's pretty accurate to what we see on-screen. I don't know where I'll put yet a third giant Mattel sauropod, but seeing that it's the first TLW mamenchisaurus we've gotten it's hard to pass it up.

[Shane]

the Mattel Mamench doesn't l look like a Mamench to me.  Neck should be a lot longer relative to the body.  It looks more like a generic diplodicid.    Not sure i'll be getting it.

From what I understand, the animal in the film was based on seismosaurus (now diplodocus) and the name mamenchisaurus comes from an earlier draft of the script.

In that case, it's pretty accurate to what we see on-screen. I don't know where I'll put yet a third giant Mattel sauropod, but seeing that it's the first TLW mamenchisaurus we've gotten it's hard to pass it up.

It's not though, if you go by the renders and also its appearance in the film and games like Jurassic World Evolution, the neck is very prominent and long in comparison to its body.

https://jurassicworld-evolution.fandom.com/wiki/Mamenchisaurus

Stan Winston Stuio's original sketch (by Crash McCreery I believe) also has a pretty long neck compared to the Mattel render:
https://jurassicpark.fandom.com/wiki/Mamenchisaurus?file=Mamenchisaurus_2.jpg

I'd argue that even going by what's in the actual film the figure doesn't focus enough on the neck length:
https://jurassicpark.fandom.com/wiki/Mamenchisaurus?file=Mamenchisaurus-1-.jpg

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

the Mattel Mamench doesn't l look like a Mamench to me.  Neck should be a lot longer relative to the body.  It looks more like a generic diplodicid.    Not sure i'll be getting it.

It matches the film version pretty well.

I would assume given how thin the neck is and much like the legs it needed to be a bit shorter and thicker to be safe to play with/fit in the box.