Before we get to the inevitable sound and fury, let me point out Mattel’s reveal of Whiplash’s bio and packaging on Facebook yesterday.
WHIPLASH
Real Name: Torrant Krazut
Following their father’s untimely death, Torrant grew up bitter under the rule of his older brother Ceratus. After years of brooding in Sub-Ternia, he struck a deal with a surface dweller named Keldor and helped lead his forces in a raid against Randor’s army during the Great Unrest. Although Keldor’s plan failed, Torrant was banoshed from Sub-Ternia for betraying his people. He was taken in by his former employer and quickly rose up through the ranks, staying with Keldor even after his transformation into Skeletor, serving as his chief brute squad enforcer. His thick hide and stubborn intellect have made him more than a match for the Masters of the Universe, often leaving only He-Man to defeat him. Whiplash uses his thrashing tail for doom and destruction.
I’ll discuss the bio more in my eventual review of Whiplash, but I will say that I can’t wait for the figure. After Trap Jaw and Tri-Klops, Whiplash is my favorite Evil Warrior (and one of the only figures, along with Spikor, who I managed to hold on to throughout my childhood without losing it or giving it away), and his figure is one of the best-looking of the 2010. I know it sounds crazy, but as of right now I think he’ll give both Battle Cat and Gygor a run for their money as my favorite toy of the year.
Anyway, getting back on topic, below is the link for the all-in-one order page. And as always, good luck.
Megaduce Flare
Faker & Venkman are (as of 6:42 PM EDT) still available, but they're listed as "Almost Gone."
DCUC Wave 5 is still available as well.
I had completely forgotten about this today, She-Ra was one of the few figs I was willing to 'wait in line' for. Oh well, I'll just have to hang on to my slightly more expensive BBTS pre-order of her then.
Keldor for me is probably going to wait for the 3rd or 4th reissue.
At least I got a Faker.
AnimateTed
Yes… we've all been using the backdoor. And it was mightily successful. What TRULY Aggrevates me, isn't that Matty figured it out, but that they used resources to STOP it!!! Instead of using reources to correct the issue that once you put something in your cart it's there until you checkout. THATS what gets me.
Nik
@AnimateTed: But see, they didn't stop it. Unless my order gets cancelled somehow. I got my order umber and confirmation email. They just added a pop up saying
"NOTE: You are not currently on the Matty Collector site, and will not be able to complete your order. Please click here to proceed to MattyCollector.com."
After so long of waiting on the regular site, I went back to http://gc.digitalriver.com/store/matty/en_US/pd/p… and just ordered my Venkman.
I will let you know if I somehow screwed myself and get a cancelled order, but for now I say it's just a scare tactic. Next month if your having trouble go to either the bundle or product pages and replace mattycollector.com with gc.digitalriver.com and give it a go.
My guess as to why this month was so bad (besides 3 popular MOTU, and wave 5) was that the "pop up scare" caused more people to go to the regular site. The only reason the site has been better he past few months was because more and more people found out about the backdoor and have been using it. Just a guess.
Nik
Note: even now, gc.digitalriver.com works, mattycollector is still shot.
misterbigbo
Boy, I wish there was something any of us could do to make some kind of difference.
Thomas B
well there were ALOT of glitches…..
i eventually got my 2 keldors but only barely.
i ended up placing ANOTHER order after people were reporting them sold out so this is why there was a glitch.
Poe
@misterbigbo: Like a boycott? I'm just not sure enough people can get mad-as-hell-and-unable-to-take-it-anymore about toys.
And I'm just not sure there's much we can do about the actual sellouts. Mattel has to increase the amount of product, and that's that. Boycotting the line, i.e., not buying the toys in order to pressure them to make more toys? I…don't see that working out. Definitely not with Mattel.
If you're referring to the poor user experience with Digital River, however–there we might be able to do something. I think we have to see actual evidence of fraud in order to get the Better Business Bureau involved, but we could bring pressure, in some way, for DR/Mattel to pony up to improve the way the ordering process works (or, even better, get Mattel to ditch DR entirely). As I've mentioned before, there are systems used for things like sports and concerts tickets that make use of online waiting rooms and such that prevent this kind of mess.
On the other hand, my parents asked me just last year to get on the Red Sox website to try to buy tickets for them at the same time they were, so sometimes you do just have to either put up with this crap or just say "Forget it, I'll wait for the re-release."
Mario
@Poe: Funny.
Well, it was funny, but then you went & removed it. I guess you felt it was a tad too smartass?
Poe
@Mario: Maybe a little, yeah. 🙂
nerdbot
I’m kinda surprised wave 5 hasn’t yet sold out. I guess I shouldn’t be, given the reasons already cited by others. It does make me wonder what Mattel’s response will be.
Snakeeyes22
How could they not anticipate the traffic or number of orders better than this?
Let's see…
The entire wave of the most difficult to find DCUCs, each one fetching prices close to Gentleman Ghost.
The fourth Ghostbuster, who also is the guy you'd get if you only wanted one of them.
Lobo – pretty big deal for animated collectors
3 Masters figures! Maybe you'd think Keldor wouldn't be a big deal since at a glance he's a Skeletor head swap, but there's one big reason that all 3 figures are pretty desireable…
Mattel made all 3 characters a pain in the ass to get 8 years ago!!! They'd be popular enough already, and everything sells out anyway, but I think their 200x scarcity fueled even more collectors and speculators.
Shoulda released Moss Man today too.
dayraven
@fishsticks: i am yet another "no keldor" story… he didn't show up on my opening of the page until well after he sold out… DR must PAY!!!!
Esbat
I'm gonna schvitz if I have to go through this to get any of the Orko/Plastic Man/Starro. *weeps*
DrNightmare
I’m sure everyone shares your pain Ted xD
Mario
@Poe: You're a good man.
I thought it was cheeky funny though, not smartass funny.
PrfktTear
Haha… everybody else boycott matty! **looks forward to stress free matty days**
Wow… so 8:43 EST, and Venkman and Faker are still around! Not to mention Wave 5. If Venkman is still around on Friday, I might just go ahead and buy him so I can “complete” my Ghostbusters and be done with them…
Grenadier
@PrfktTear: Yeah, that’s a funny scenario I’ve run through in my head:
– Everyone agrees to boycott Matty on sale day.
– Everyone believes the boycott will mean less traffic on sale day.
– Everyone logs on as usual, causing the usual traffic.
– Everyone gets pissed off. Repeat Step 1.
clark
Wanted Keldor and She-ra, was unable to get either one. Oh well, they’ll probably release both of these figures in a year when I’m not buying MOTUC anymore.
Russ
@misterbigbo:
the .org crashes every month on that date, at that time due.
NoisyDvL5
@DR, but if you didn’t get him you didn’t pay?
@Poe:
I’m a little floored by that too. I’m annoyed at myself for not thinking it through too. Grr.
Ryan
Anyone besides myself and Poe boycotting Venkman until we can get a non-jizzed version?
misterbigbo
@Poe: I'm assuming you made a smartass comment at my expense? Interesting in that I never wrote anything this time about a boycott. I've long given up hope that the collecting community at large has the willpower and personal character to do something like that. And a boycott is never designed to get more of something, but better treatment of the customers. In this case increased production numbers would help, but I was thinking an improved web portal or sales model, like pre-orders.
Seems clear to me that Mattel doesn't care how badly their vendor DR represents them if sales only increase month after month. I'll wait to see the great increase in sub sales then the glutted eBay auctions next year to cherry pick the few out of the line that I'll want, and never visit mattycollector again.
Poe
@misterbigbo: I still think a boycott is a method of protest that simply won’t work on Mattel–at least not for MOTUC. The way the MOTUC line is run, the second there was any sort of major sales dip like that, the execs will pull the plug and that’ll be that. Is that better than continuing to go through the mess we go through now to at least get some figures? I don’t know. This is where my innate “they’re just toys” rationalization really starts to kick in.
I’m open to suggestions on how to get Mattel/DR to really take improving the experience seriously.
As for whether there will be too many 2011 subscriptions, causing the bubble to burst on eBay next year…I was talking about this with Rustin Parr from OAFE and we’re wondering if the professional resellers won’t be more savvy than that. I think it’s obvious 2010 will end up being the most profitable year for resellers on this line, what with so many big non-sub items (Battle Cat, Tytus, Gygor, the 2-pack).
americanhyena
At what point did Lobo and Metallo sell out?
Mysterious Stranger
@americanhyena: Lobo sold out some time yesterday afternoon. The DCUC Wave 5 set must have gone in the night as it was available when I checked around 9 last night (pacific time) and gone this morning.
Grenadier
@Mysterious Stranger: I just checked and Wave 5 is still available.
"EPIC FAIL" says Mattel Representative.
americanhyena
@Grenadier:
It definitely said "Currently Unavailable" first thing this morning. But you're right, it's available again now.
misterbigbo
I totally agree a prolonged boycott would kill teh lien, but a well-publicized one-month hit where Mattel execs know why it's happening might make some waves. Or ripples.
PrfktTear
@MisterBigBo: collecting community at large has the willpower and personal character AH HAHahahahAHahahAHAh!!!! Collectors and “willpower” and “character” do not belong in the same sentence! 😉 I know I can’t speak for the entire community, but I have about as much willpower as a dog on peanut butter.
I agree though, a boycott would be ineffective. Either they would start to DECREASE production numbers, or as Poe said, they’d just pull the plug all together. Despite all the headaches and grief we have put up with, if it came down to having MOTUC as is, or having no MOTUC at all… the choice for me is obvious.
Nicholai
@americanhyena: Mattel rep said on their forums that it said "Currently Unavailable" earlier because they were checking stock. She also said that it is selling fast and will probably be changed to almost gone soon.
RSSchmidt
i had already given up on matty after the evil lynn sale and had really wanted a hordak as well but no evil lynn just led to my disappointment and straying away! so the next sale came and i wasnt interested much in tytus maybe optik but i knew both would sell out fast. who was left but my beloved merman so i had to get him and update my order info which i think led to my downfall of the evil lynn sale. anyhowwwl, to make long story short iam back in the game! i got a she-ra figure 14 mins after sale time. so i guess things have been updated at DRI. i was ready to call it quits after yesterday and just blow my money on a superheroine bondage site had i not captured a she-ra! oh well i guess things happen for a reason LOL!!! awesome site poe keep up the good work!
dayraven
@NoisyDvL5: correc,t i didn't pay for him yet… but i think digi riv should buy up all the stock on ebay and sell them again on mattycollector at base cost… give us all another chance at a fair price. of course they won't, but they SHOULD.
Mountain-man
@americanhyena: @Reverend Ender: Not sure, but probably looking to trade once arrives. Send me a PM over at .org if you like(same handle) Thx guys.