Gaming Heads Mass Effect Tali'Zorah vas Normandy

[brentflynn]

Originally Posted by Silas Loki

C'mon, seriously? I'll stick with the straight answer I got. I mean "future lines"? What does that mean? The line is already here, everyone knows what's made and what isn't! If your question was "is the line gonna continue?" then a simple yes or no would be sufficient without infringing on any license agreements, surely!

Note: my feedback was verbal, so, I guess it can be taken with a pinch of salt, but, if the proof of the pudding is in the eating, how many months / years of inactivity do you wait before it's clear it ain't gonna happen.

Yes, that's exactly what my question was. It was a disappointing non-response. I guess your verbal response was a bit more 'off the record', hence probably more accurate, unfortunately.

[dao2]

This was the response I got:

"If i'm honest, this is the first i have heard about this. We are not allowed to disclose future products but we certainly have not said such a thing either."

Grain of salt of course >< Especially as it's been a while since the last one... maybe they are trying to keep the number of them on PO at a minimum, maybe it's cancelled As I said I'll continue to hope for the best, not much else I can do :P

[Silas Loki]

Well, it's clearly a case of "he said, she said"......but either way no announcement of new products.

While GH may indeed be playing their cards close to their chest, like it or not, the clock is ticking for these statues and their relevance in the wider market. Look what happened to Gentle Giant and their Honey Trap line, they delayed and delayed, and in the end (no doubt about it) they had no choice but to produce a low batch quantity because the line lost general interest and became irrelevant to anyone but the most hardcore supporter.

[Tacheyon]

I think the clearest message that this line is dead will be at SDCC. If there is nothing new announced then this line is dead and all we can hope for is that Tali and Mordin can get released with any decent quality.

[Jiggatron69]

Originally Posted by Silas Loki

Well, it's clearly a case of "he said, she said"......but either way no announcement of new products.

While GH may indeed be playing their cards close to their chest, like it or not, the clock is ticking for these statues and their relevance in the wider market. Look what happened to Gentle Giant and their Honey Trap line, they delayed and delayed, and in the end (no doubt about it) they had no choice but to produce a low batch quantity because the line lost general interest and became irrelevant to anyone but the most hardcore supporter.

Yea, GG completely screwed themselves on the Honey Trap line with that nonsense. GG did that to all their stuff though. From The 300 to Captain America, all their statues took too long to get out into the market and many times they arrived broken. I thought I had finally snagged the Black Widow GG statue from my local shop but when it arrived it was in pieces. The replacement for her arrived in pieces too and finally gave up cause they couldnt get another. Same with Artemisia. Multiple breakage with no replacements available.

With ME4 coming out soon, interest in the original characters will be hard to maintain unless they play prominently into the lore of the new trilogy. GH had a good chance to stoke the fire of interest in this line and they just took on too many licenses as they have all this Bethesda stuff comin. All i see is Fallout bobbleheads, Elder Scrolls and Bioshock stuff. Anecdotally, i think XM has already produced more pieces to market than GH has in the same amount of time?

[dao2]

I dunno... While I don't think that GG handled honey trap better I really don't think it would have gone as well as people expected. They may have gotten more PO's when they original because of the hype but I really don't think in the end they would have sold more as no matter what production is gonna take a while and people would lose interest, and essentially those people that were interested in the first place were interested for the wrong reason (hype, coming off the Sucker Punch line train, etc). Wait ruining interest really feels like you didn't want it in the first place to me imo.

But in the end it's an original line, more time really isn't going to make the license more or less relevant. Somewhat similar here with ME as the "prime" is far past done, the difference being that ME4 is coming and while that might rekindle some interest in the ME universe it can also make people want to save money for those ME characters. Also if the new ME isn't as well received there will be those that think it tarnishes the originals but v0v.

Unfortunately though the long silence is an ominous indicator. I was also told they can't talk about future products and I sort of understand... but in some ways I don't. I'm not really sure why it would not be ok to say "yes we still have the license and have another character planned to be released in the future" but v0v....

[built2shred]

Gentle Giant are statues you keep for life because your scared to death to ship them due to how easy they break during shipping.

[Silas Loki]

Originally Posted by dao2

I dunno... While I don't think that GG handled honey trap better I really don't think it would have gone as well as people expected. They may have gotten more PO's when they original because of the hype but I really don't think in the end they would have sold more as no matter what production is gonna take a while and people would lose interest, and essentially those people that were interested in the first place were interested for the wrong reason (hype, coming off the Sucker Punch line train, etc). Wait ruining interest really feels like you didn't want it in the first place to me imo.

I disagree partially, delays are, in general, product suicide. OK, let's be clear, delays on their own are not a reason to simply bail on a product, but delays coupled with silence.....that's a 5.56 NATO straight to the brain!

What delays also do, is allow other companies to temp customers away with ever more shiny products, technology and quality moves on, and in the end your delayed product becomes a has-been.

Those Honey Trap girls were awesome when they first came out, but let's be honest, if you wanted a sexy female statue, other companies came to the table with equal or better offerings before GG could get off the starting block.....

The situation with GH is the silence coupled with lack of product. OK if in the future GH finally pulls their thumbs out their asses and actually moves the line on, we'll be there because we love ME, but our combined dollars aren't going to support a product line - they need the fickle gamers, and bling merchants to prop up the sales. With every passing month it becomes less and less likely the gamers and blinggers will care......assuming they would even give a damn now! How long ago was ME3 done and dusted?

[dao2]

Originally Posted by built2shred

Gentle Giant are statues you keep for life because your scared to death to ship them due to how easy they break during shipping.

hahaha...

That's all my statues :| and that people are gonna screw me over and say that they arrived broken even if they didn't ;p thankfully I very rarely want to sell statues (I think I've sold less than five, and while I'm selling one currently it's only cause I need $$ kinda bad :P).

[dao2]

Originally Posted by Silas Loki

I disagree partially, delays are, in general, product suicide. OK, let's be clear, delays on their own are not a reason to simply bail on a product, but delays coupled with silence.....that's a 5.56 NATO straight to the brain!

What delays also do, is allow other companies to temp customers away with ever more shiny products, technology and quality moves on, and in the end your delayed product becomes a has-been.

Those Honey Trap girls were awesome when they first came out, but let's be honest, if you wanted a sexy female statue, other companies came to the table with equal or better offerings before GG could get off the starting block.....

The situation with GH is the silence coupled with lack of product. OK if in the future GH finally pulls their thumbs out their asses and actually moves the line on, we'll be there because we love ME, but our combined dollars aren't going to support a product line - they need the fickle gamers, and bling merchants to prop up the sales. With every passing month it becomes less and less likely the gamers and blinggers will care......assuming they would even give a damn now! How long ago was ME3 done and dusted?

Eh I guess, though I don't think anything really new has come that made Honey Trap irrelevant. And I think it still stands, even if they put them all up for PO then, it would still be a bunch of cancellations as the wait for the production wouldn't really change. Silence does suck, and I do worry about that but it's mostly with "unproven" companies that I worry about, but it's just me.

Gamers are a tough audience for statues anyways, this stuff is expensive and overall gaming is one of the cheaper entertainment hobbies and most of them balk at the prices for this sort of stuff (though I'm sure you know that, I think I've seen you message it). I feel like ME though is already as faded as possible and from this point (until the new game releases or they share some character info) interest would only increase (people returning to the universe, or replaying the games before the release of the new ones). Also I think gamers are more willing to live with delays, they certainly have to suffer them :P

The silence and the long wait blows, but I don't think it's really doing a lot of harm to the sales (however high or low they are already). An upcoming license renewal can certainly be a cause of all of this though.