The Vocal Crowd (TVC Collector's)

 Hasbro did a livestream Q&A and needless to say the Vintage Collection collector's and fan sites have, well, take it away Dana Carvey:

And rightly so. Now, in the BanthaSkull Q&A Chris & Jing revealed that items like playsets and vehicles play into the tooling budget for the VC which is something that many have speculated but now got it confirmed. Chris from BanthaSkull (no relation to Chris at Hasbro) started off the Q&A with a hard hitting question right off the bat. Tim AKA Bossk's Bounty was also in the Q&A and threw another hard question at the Hasbro team. Chris asked (summarized) about why the VC has to "give up a figure to get a certain figure made". An excellent question. Tim, aka Bossk's Bounty (summarized) asked that if the 3.75 is what Hasbro calls a world building line, than why does the Black Series have world building figures from Andor first (Mon Mothma, Imperial officer, Cassian in disguise)? Another excellent question. The Hasbro team response was well, corporate talk. Not to badmouth them, they were doing their jobs.

However, there is what Hasbro says, and then what it does. And they don't match up. Lobot and the Bespin Guards aren't in the Black Series, yet. But what is in the Black Series but isn't in the VC is very telling. Now this is a partial list (someone posted all of them but I can no longer find it), but here goes:

Cal Kestis (Fallen Order)
Second Sister (Fallen Order)
Galen Erso
Bodhi Rook
Baze Malbus
Ahsoka Tano (Rebels)
Ezra Bridger
Kanan Jarrus
Zeb Orellios
Sabine Wren
Dryden Vos (Solo)
Greef Karga (Mando Season 1 outfit)
Bad Batch & Omega
Admiral Rampart
The Client
Supreme Leader Kylo Ren
Poe Dameron (Crait)
Rey (Throne Room Duel)
Count Dooku
Asajj Ventress
Jaina Solo

Now these are off the top of my head, but it is estimated that there are currently 85 Black Series figures who have yet to be in the Vintage Collection. 85. But the VC is the "world building line" as Hasbro told us for years. It obviously isn't. I didn't mention in the list all the Andor Black Series figures either. They get 10. The VC gets 2. And Andor doesn't even interact with Vel in the outfit he wears for his VC figure, so it isn't a "matched set". How can you world build Andor with only 20% of what the Black Series gets?!

The non answer to Chris from BanthaSkull's question irked me. A lot. And again, not mad at Hasbro Chris & Jing, they were doing their jobs. As someone who runs a small blog, I don't understand how wanting Bix Calleen, Peli Moto, Luthen Rael, The Client and Season 1 Migs Mayfield means we can't get new versions of ANH Luke, Han, Leia and Ben Kenobi. The way it stands now, NONE OF THOSE FIGURES ARE COMING TO THE VC!  I understand each part of Hasbro (Marvel, Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe) has a budget for new tooling and all that, I get it. They have a budget and need to stick to it.

But here is how Hasbro should have answered that question (and it could also answer Tim's question too):

"The Vintage Collection is unique in that we also take into account things like playsets and vehicles in our budget. For vehicles, in most instances it requires no new tooling since we often re-use older molds to release things like Boba Fett's Space Ship, the X-Wing & the Millennium Falcon. Coming next year we will be issuing a new Speeder Bike into the line. For playsets, they often require new tooling and take away figures from the budget, which is one reason why we do repacks of older figures. So while the Black Series gets lots of new tools, they don't have vehicles or playsets taking away from tooling budgets so they get new figures but don't get the benefits of playsets or vehicles like the Vintage Collection gets."

I realize this "answer" only leads to more questions, but that's the point. For the VC to get more "new" figures Hasbro would have to stop offering vehicles and playsets, which in my opinion is what they want to do. In business terms, Hasbro would love to end the Vintage Collection so that they could put more into the Black Series. Yet with oil prices going up, and toy prices going up, are Black Series collector's willing to spend possibly $27-29 per figure? That's why except for 2 or 3 figures coming soon I stopped getting Black Series figures. Of course the VC price increases hurt Troop building for me, but I can still grab a couple I like. But even if the VC goes up to $18-20 per figure it's still not as expensive as a Black Series one. But Hasbro also has seen how VC has been selling well, especially in the last 2 years. If they canceled it now, they'd lose a lot of money. And if people stop buying 6 inch toys, well, the VC would be there to pick up the slack.

Now, I don't mind repacks. Heck, I'm happy that the Skiff Guard figures next year will be mainline releases and be at Wally World's and Target stores all over! Some I missed out on. Mandalorian figures are all basically repainted repacks, but with something else added to it, like a new head sculpt. While Bespin Han isn't a great figure I like the card, and can display him on a wall. Hasbro just makes more money with hardly doing any new tooling at all this way.

But the ONLY way Hasbro could make more product is to negotiate a new license fee with Star Wars and Disney. My estimate is this fee is at 20%, which is high! By doing that, it can free up a little more money which could be used to make ANH Leia and Bix Calleen for the VC. But the voices of Vintage Collection collector's is one that is quite loud. We don't mind the Black Series, and don't really find fault with those that prefer it over the VC. But we do mind dishonesty. If the Vintage Collection is truly a world building line, then Hasbro needs to step up and prove it. What good is a playset if there are no figures who can interact with it? Same for vehicles! But what the Hasbro team did tell us is that they like it when fans on fan sites do figure bracket challenges and top 5 or top 10 lists as it gives them ideas on what fans who have the money to spend on collectibles want. So this is how we get things done. After all, The Vintage Collection collector's are also The Vocal Crowd.