Watch Mattycollector’s Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull Update Video

Castle Grayskull and Club Eternia Pitch Matty Tracker 2014 - T-4

Toy Guru has posted a video update of Castle Grayskull’s progress on YouTube. While he did highlight that Mattel has made the opening of the JawBridge larger, that was all that he really covered in terms of what improvements they’ve made since Toy Fair. For those of you still mulling over the decision on whether to keep your pre-order or to try to purchase day of, we’ve got the full list of Castle Grayskull improvements here.

What did he talk about then? Well, he spent nearly half the video pitching the Club Eternia sub, which I think is in striking distance with four days left to go.

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Mattel Teases Modulok Art and Filmation Sword for Club Eternia Subs

modulok1 modulok2 HeMan_Filmation_Sword_newsPage Matty Tracker 2014 - T-5

Bless their hearts. Mattel is continuing the push for Club Eternia subscriptions by providing more teases during the final days of pre-orders for the sub.

Modulok was one of the Masters figures I didn’t have when I was a kid, but I can still appreciate why he’s in such demand by Masters of the Universe Classics fans. I would have thought between him and Two Bad that Club Eternia would have plenty of legs to push further than we are with subscriptions. Regarding the “mystery” sword, I know it wasn’t meant to be difficult to see that this will be the first Filmation power sword in the line. However, Mattel marketers take note: naming the image “HeMan_Filmation_Sword” was a dead giveaway. 😀

Now, let’s see if these new teases gives Club Eternia a pop in the sub numbers. The subscription window closes on August 19.

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Masters of the Universe Classics Shokoti and Castaspella and DC Universe Classics Fire Headline the Mattycollector 8/15 Sale; Early Access on 8/14

Three ladies headline the August Mattycollector sale, and hallelujah – it’s not the Star Sisters. On the Masters front, it’s Castaspella from the regular Club Eternia sub, and Shokoti from the Club Filmation half-year sub. DC’s Fire serves as a poignant reminder that the Club Infinite Earths subscription is in dire straights. Her partner in crime heroics, Ice, is one of the figures that’s at risk if the subscription doesn’t hit minimums. Ghostbusters cosplayers, the Ecto Goggles go up for sale too.

For your convenience, here’s the link to the bundle page for the August Mattycollector sale, which opens at 9AM PST on Thursday.

Early Access opens tomorrow at 8AM PST. For Masters, it’s Rattlor and Man-E-Faces. For DC, it’s Uncle Sam and Platinum with Tin pack-in. But I’m wondering, why bother? If you have Early Access, you’re subbing, so you probably have those figures already. Until Early Access includes the sub figures going on sale the next day, it’ll be of limited value to me. But on the off chance you do need something, here’s the link to Early Access for August.

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Soapbox Sunday: Five Lessons Mattel Can Learn from the Four Horsemen

Matty Tracker 2014 - T-8 Kickstarter - Gothitropolis Ravens by the Four Horsemen - 35 hours to go

It’s like a Tale of Two Cities – the Four Horsemen are involved in a couple of product pre-order campaigns running in parallel. On one side, they’re the design shop behind Mattel’s Mattycollector Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions for Masters of the Universe Classics and DC Universe Classics. On the other, they’re taking pre-orders for their own Gothitropolis Ravens line through the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter.

As we’ve seen over the past week, folks from Mattel and the Four Horsemen are tearing their hair out over whether the Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths subscriptions will hit the minimums needed to survive. Meanwhile, the Four Horsemen’s Ravens are flying high. Their Kickstarter campaign hit the funding target during its first week, and proceeded to blast through every stretch goal they started with and even a few more they had to put together along the way.

You might think it easy to dismiss the stark differences in the success of the campaigns as coming from collectors’ growing dislike of Mattel and their service partner Digital River. And while I see a fair amount of anecdotal evidence for Mattel-hate, I believe there are some clear differences in how they run their campaigns that is causing the Mattycollector subscription fallout. If the Mattycollector subs live to fill in product silhouettes again next year, here’s some things Mattel can learn from the Four Horsemen, to make the sign-up period less traumatic and uncertain.

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Ask Matty Q&A for 8/15 (a Few Days Early!)

Mattel DC and Batman Unlimited (1 of 4)

It’s been a long time since our last Q&A with Matty, but we’ve decided to get back into it. Toy Guru provided some answers early, because he’s either going to be driving for every last subscription to Club Eternia and Club Infinite Earths, or he may just be out of the office for a few days.

1) A lot of people thought that the DC Unlimited and Batman Unlimited lines were doing well at retail. What were the reasons for canceling those lines?

We are always working with retailers to find the best way to bring DC figures to mass collectors and moms and kids. Right now the 6″ line will continue on Matty pending we get the min number of sub holders.

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