TVC Fans to Hasbro:  Can You Hear Us Now?

Vintage Collection fans have sent a loud and clear message to Hasbro. We are many, we have money, and we want our TVC!

The Razor Crest HasLab campaign came to a close a few hours ago, and in an explosive finish reminiscent of Usain Bolt leaving Ryan Bailey in the dust, a whopping 28,893* backers shelled out $350 each for the right to have one in their collections.

The success of the campaign seemed to catch Hasbro by surprise, as it reached the funding goal of 6,000 units in just over a day. After an admirable performance throughout the middle of the campaign, it achieved the final unlockable stretch goal of 17,000 with about 3 and a half days to go. The Crest accumulated 11,000 more backers before the umpire invoked the mercy rule.

What does this mean? Most obviously, it's a testament to the popularity of The Mandalorian as a property, and that Hasbro made a great choice for the second Star Wars Haslab project. After all but ignoring Season 1 for TVC, it was clear something needed to change, and Din Djarin's already iconic ship, inexcusably absent from our collections, was a prime candidate for a release.

But perhaps more importantly to those reading this, it's the clearest message yet from fans to Hasbro that the TVC fanbase is a money-spending force. The Marvel Sentinel campaign (an army builder of sorts) collected an impressive $7.7M. But TVC fans shelled out a whopping tally of over $10.1M!



After an inconsistent couple of years of TVC 2.0, fans were getting frustrated that Hasbro wasn't listening. The 2020 reveals were meager and underwhelming. Then came that fateful moment on May 7, 2020. During a Hasbro Fan Site Q&A following a very disappointing Fan First Friday livestream event from the day before, Bantha Skull expressed concerns about the dismally low volume of TVC product. Patrick Schneider (Senior Manager, Global Brand Development & Marketing, Star Wars) responded infamously:

Obviously there are less Vintage products out there than Black Series. As we’ve said in the past, to some extent we have to do what the market is telling us to do...

This response sent Chris into an emotional tailspin not seen from him since 2008. He penned an angry editorial blasting Hasbro for misreading their consumers, making choices that were dooming TVC, and erroneously concluding that the 3.75" scale should take a backseat to that other line.

The realization that Hasbro was not making a meaningful investment into the future of TVC led us to team up with several fan outlets around the community to create the Petition for More TVC. Based only on grass roots word-of-mouth across the hardcore collecting community, the petition garnered 7500 signatures within a few days. The response exceeded our wildest hopes. We knew that this number only represented the hardcore collectors who frequented the sites, which is a relatively small portion of the greater TVC consumer base. And we know that the Hasbro brand team took note of this message from the community, as they acknowledged it more than once during subsequent livestream events and Q&A's. Due to the long development cycle of products, we understood that we would likely not see tangible positive results stemming from the petition any time soon. It might have taken 6 months to a year before any possibility of news of upcoming increased TVC product volume that could prove Hasbro was indeed listening to the fans.

Then came the incredible success of the Haslab Razor Crest. Five days shy of the conclusion of the campaign, and having not yet achieved the 17K backer threshold necessary to unlock the 5th stretch goal, Banthaskull again participated in a fan site Q&A with Patrick and the Hasbro Team. It was a perfect opportunity to revisit the "market demand" situation which came to light back in May. Chris asked if the success of the Razor Crest gave Hasbro confidence to invest further in TVC. Patrick's response this time:

Yes.

I think it was actually on these interviews, and I think it was Bantha Skull’s question back in May that launched the whole market demand thing, which is honestly fantastic. We loved seeing the petitions. We loved seeing the online campaigns. That’s more information for us. We’ve learned more about the market demand for The Vintage Collection. And [the success of the Razor Crest campaign] is just another pillar in that support. The Razor Crest campaign has been phenomenal. Let’s not undersell it. The fact that it hit the backer goal in 26 hours, the fact that it’s north of 16,000 backers right now with still five days left to go has made us so excited and so blown away by its success. It’s certainly more evidence in favor of the fact that there a passionate group of Vintage fans out there. We’ve said before that we’ve got a bit more coming for The Vintage Collection in ’21 and beyond. That’s still true and maybe even more so. We’re excited about the future for The Vintage Collection, and we hope you guys are as well.

Now put Patrick's answer into the context of what has happened in the 5 days since: 12,000 more backers! We should take a moment to revel in what we have done as a community to help revive the One True Scale when it was on the brink of extinction.

We have spoken, and Hasbro has listened.

*barring any post-campaign shakeouts

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