Could a Minimate Multiverse exclusive happen?

[Kirby]

Ninja?

(I just did this for you guys):

[wallbreaker2.0]

I think a really good choice for a character is Stan Lee and maybe make a 2 pack with Jack Kirby I don't think either are licensed also they could be made from mostly used parts. I think it would be a great homage to the inovators of a medium that we all love. Having said that I don't think the whole mmmv exclusive minimate is a financially viable idea REALLY REALLY coool but not financially viable.

[Leoric]

It's been done before hasn't it? Wasn't there a bomb mate or something like that? The guy I bought my collection from said he was a member of the previous AA board and one of the Minimates he kept and didn't sell me was all white with a black bomb on it's chest. He said they sent it to him free.

[Rad]

It's been done before hasn't it? Wasn't there a bomb mate or something like that? The guy I bought my collection from said he was a member of the previous AA board and one of the Minimates he kept and didn't sell me was all white with a black bomb on it's chest. He said they sent it to him free.

There was a bombmate. It was done by one of the members of this board and limited to 100 (semi) official pieces though I believe there was some un-numbered ones given back to Art Asylum as a thank-you for them providing the blanks free in the first place.

The bombmates were dished out to members of the old Art Asylum messageboard. I think they mainly went to the regular posters and were (and still are) a very cool giveaway.

Thing is; The bombmate was a cool freebie done for fun by one of our members. You guys are talking about an official Minimate Multiverse Blank. That costs big money. It doesn't matter how good your intentions are, when it comes to actually giving up cash in the amounts we'd need to commission an exclusive a lot of people will back out at the last minute. A lot of those people will still expect others to stump up the cash and the namecalling will commence.

[TBT!]

There was a bombmate. It was done by one of the members of this board and limited to 100 (semi) official pieces though I believe there was some un-numbered ones given back to Art Asylum as a thank-you for them providing the blanks free in the first place.

Rad's 99% right with one exception, there were no unnumbered ones, the ones that went to AA had numbers and were part of the 100.

T.

[Zombieboyfiend]

OK, I love everyone's enthusiasm on this subject. However, I will tell you that if a MMMV exclusive were to happen, unless we had tons of money to throw at DST, it would not be Marvel or DC related. Nor would it be LOTR Wave 3 since that license has expired. It would most likely need to be a blank with the MMMV logo on it's chest. I am an eternal optimist, but you're looking at $10,000+ easily for any licensed exclusive. Total cost for my exclusive was just over $6000. That includes every cost that goes into making a blank with one tampo. DC and Marvel will be way more expensive with paint and more tampos and accessories. Not to mention the approval process from both Marvel and DC. It could be done, but we'd have to raise some significant funds to do it. I'll gladly help out if this is something that everyone really wants to make happen. Even if you got half of us members to donate $25.00 or more, we'd well be on our way to making a kick ass exclusive. And maybe instead of recouping everyone's individual cost, they would simply get the exclusive. Then MMMV could absorb all of the profit and keep this site going for awhile. It's a great idea, just needs to be thought about extensively and serious fund raising efforts would need to occur.

-Jaycen

I'm willing to pay $25 to help out for sure. Silly your the only one I know that is familiar with the process of getting one made does it matter about color of the mate? For example let's say there are 100 mates of those hundred, ten of them are a different color. Does that change the cost? Because if not I have an interesting idea of a unique blank based on these type of dice. http://www.chessex.com/Dice/Borealis%20Dice/27000.htm If your not familiar with these dice they are clear but depending on how you turn them they change to green or gold or blue. Just an idea to make it stand out from the other blanks.

[Zombieboyfiend]

I wonder if it could be written off of your taxes being the site is non profit.

[Dante_X]

well like someone said ninjas would be cool but i think abe lincoln or jesus would be cooler, then on a felw we could swap parts and make zombie jesus or zombie lincoln,that would be cool, but if you guys realses a ninja you have to realses a

pirate, you just have to its like the 11th commandment, if you make something that art be a ninja though must make thee a pirate too, so yeah

[drgnrbrn316]

From what I can tell, we're on pretty good terms here with DST, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of them playing ball with us should we ever seriously pursue this idea. However, as has been stated before, the cost would probably kill this deal before the ball ever got rolling. This discussion has been had numerous times in the past, and unless we ever got one of those "here's a hundred blanks, go nuts" deals like at the old board (unlikely, since we aren't officially affiliated with anyone), you'd have to make in excess of a few thousand blanks, which, even if the Minimate movement continues to grow, will be years down the road before we get the membership at MMMV to grow enough to cover it. When thinking about blanks, you have to factor in factory costs and material costs, as its my understanding that some colors are more costly than others. Then, with blanks good to go, you have to figure out what to do with them. Do you add a logo to the chest? If so, you have to factor in cost of applying the logo. Do you design a character? A simple character, like John Stewart will cost you on paint apps and any detail application. A complex character like Starbuck will cost more, as you have paint, detail, plus the cost of new parts or even the cost of using existing parts. Finally, once all your minimates are made and the paint is dry, how are you going to bundle them? Bags, boxes, labels: these all cost money as well.

With no pricing knowledge, I can still imagine that this whole process is pricey. In order to make it happen, you either need to get Bill Gates hooked on Minimates and signed up as a member of this board, get a good deal of sponsors to advertise in the humble little banner ad at the top of the page, or raise up a great deal of donations. Getting the board members involved will only carry you so far, as I can't picture anyone here paying past a certain price range to get an exclusive board minimate.

I don't say all this to discourage the attempt. It could be that the price isn't as high as I'm thinking. We'd need to see price figures from some of the people who've done this in the past to find out how much is charged for the process, what the minimum number would be, etc. And it could be that some sort of arrangement could be made between DST and whoever undertakes the task to get this project off the ground. I'm just saying its going to take a great deal of commitment and time from someone to make it happen. All part of the reason why the original Bombermate is so special and so sought after.

[captain_cbecker]

Obviously, the prospect a bringing a unique item to market, such as a MMMV exlusive, has a lot of financial concerns and drgnbrn316 makes a great argument to that effect, especially since it would be a relatively small quantity.

Here's a thought though.... what if you took parts overruns from existing lines to create a character that's not offered....

Here's an oversimplified example... if we were to take BSG for instance...

Use the head & hair from Wave 3, pilot Helo and the body from Col. Tigh to create First Officer Helo. Package it in a baggy like the SDCC and Toyfare exclusives to keep the costs down.

By using components from existing figures you reduce the design and tooling costs and if you can obtain overrun parts, then the actual, original product run goes a long way to drive costs down. When you're already producing thousands.... an extra thousand won't add up to much with figures this size.

Licensing may be an issue - I don't know how that would work.

How about cross lines exclusive BSG Captain Marty McFly or Admiral Jack Bauer (I know, I know - big license issues)

Just a thought

[Deadpool]

I would just like to throw out the idea of starting a fund. Just a thought.

[TM2 Dinobot]

Drgnrbrn316 has got this thing dead on. It's expensive! If it wasn't, every one would be doing it. People keep saying original character, and no more blanks. There's a problem with that, and that's we're all different. I personally have no interest in a pirate, ninja or Lincon Minimate. However, a blank is something we all can agree on. A cubed Earth just screams "MMMV".

I personally don't see this happening unless DST bends over backwards to make this happen for us. I'm laying odds that if it came down to taking pre-orders, we'd get a grand total of 329. That makes us exactly 4671 pre-orders short of a minimum production run.

I also know DST does not ignore us. I wouldn't be surprised if at some convention a blank pops up with a familiar looking logo from a certain site on it...

[pickle]

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but I hate starting new ones

So here is my idea for a minimate multiverse exclusive: skip the whole minimate idea and have an accessory pack.

I would really want one, and multiples to boot. It could have a few guns or swords, some odds and ends like kryptonite, maybe a top hat...... about half dozen pieces in a little sealed bag with an MMMV sticker on the back. It might not be that much cheaper then doing a blank minimate but an accessory pack holds more interest for me than a mate and I could see people being more interested in extra weapons then more random mates.

just an idea I wanted to throw out there in hopes of people still being interested in the MMMV exclusive idea.

[Jad]

You know, that's actually a really great idea, pickle, and it sounds like it wouldn't require us to deal with any licensing issues. Some would want a pack to support the site, some would want extra accessories for diorama building and customizing, and still others would want a pack or two to replace lost parts. Plenty of us need an extra hair piece or flame ball or whatnot. We could even have a poll to determine what the most-desired pieces are. I could see lots of people ordering several of these packs.

(And, let me thank you personally for bringing back an old thread rather than starting a new one. It's one of my pet peeves too!)

[Dante_X]

that actually sounds really good dude nice thinking,

tell you what if this accessory pack works ill buy $55

worth of them.....hopefully they come with holsters though lol......

maybe we could make a new wepon too?

[drgnrbrn316]

If we were to get a new weapon tooled just for this idea, your costs would be pretty steep. You have to factor in creating a new mold, setting the thing up to run in the factory machines, test runs to see how it turns out, not to mention normal costs of plastic, wages, mass production, shipping, etc. Even preexisting molds would be problematic. For starters, you have to clear whatever parts you produce with the legal team, as who is to say DC wants their chunk of kryptonite being given away or packaged with a Marvel part. And who is to say the accessory molds are ready for the same level of mass production as your standard Minimate body. Then, the before mentioned costs of plastic, wages, production, shipping, etc still apply.

The ultimate problem with any type of Multiverse exclusive anything is going to be the cost and the units produced. As much as they love us, AA and DST are still a business, and ultimately, business comes first. It's my understanding that a standard run of minimates in this market is about 3000. A blank with a simple logo will run you somewhere between $2 and $3 a mate, for 3000 mates. More complex logos, like pictures, may run higher. And we don't want to get into Hunt mate prices.

Assuming we go for a bare bones blank with Minimate Multiverse written across the chest, that'll cost us between $6000 and $9000 just to get the thing produced. We still have to package and ship the little buggers. Last I checked, the Multiverse barely covers its operating expenses, so I don't think the budget has room for an extra 10k for an exclusive. If we all agreed to chip in, then it could settle in the realm of possibility if you got everyone to pony up at least $30. The odds of getting 300+ people to all agree to pay up for this project is pretty slim though. Not to mention the logistical nightmare of deciding how many blanks go to whom.

Now, I don't know how much it would cost to get an accessory pack made, as I don't even know if the topic has been brought to the boys at DST, but I imagine that with the excessive number of molds used, you're going to get similar numbers on a cost per unit scale, which again brings up the drama of where does the money come from and who gets what.

The Bombermate was one of those "stars aligned in just the right way" moments. AA and DST were willing to part with a very limited run of blank minimates at considerably generous terms for a website that was officially affiliated with the parent company. In this case we are a website existing outside the realm of official status, and though our relationship is on good terms, with the current mass of licenses, I don't see them willingly parting with the time, resources, and profit necessary to toss us a bone when they already have other ways of giving back to the customers via the Target giveaway and the more recent Hunt/Cylon giveaway.

I'm not saying an exclusive could never happen, I'm just saying that it will take a considerable amount of teamwork on our end of things to make it even remotely possible. There's a reason that blanks tend to gravitate around the trade shows with the remarkable budgets and why they have fallen in popularity in recent years.