DC fans put up the good fight, and in the end, Doomsday was dead – but so was Club Infinite Earths. With the announcement of refunds coming to subscribers for 2014 , it’s official – Club Infinite Earths is dead. But to carry on the Death of Superman analogy, who knows what will spring forth to fill the void? Hopefully it’s not four all-in subs! 😉
If there’s a takeaway here, I hope Mattel realizes that it’s *not* that collectors won’t support a DC-based Mattycollector line (as some of the “it’s up to you” rhetoric has suggested). With collector-oriented figures taking a break at retail, there isn’t another Mattel option – but as we’ve seen, that doesn’t mean that collectors will sign up for whatever Mattel throws out there. All or nothing was at best a short-time prospect. It didn’t hit the targets two years ago, and I think with DC Universe Classics dead at retail, there was just enough sentimentality to push it through last year. Now that fans see what all or nothing means, it’s over.
Rather, the lesson for Mattel is that they need a different marketing program for DC to make it work for direct-to-consumer sales. With Club Eternia, you’re dealing with four broad factions (Masters, PoP, New Adventures, and movie) – that’s why all or nothing can work for that line. With the wide diversity of characters and factions in the DC Universe, it was a long shot for them to be able to convert the [insert a faction] fans into fans that would be happy with anything and everything.
Mattel isn’t going to give up the DC license any time soon – not with kiddie action figures and Fischer Price doing well at retail. But there *is* a DC collector market out there, so the best thing they can do is keep interest with Mattycollector alive – so when collector figures do return to retail, they’ll have a built-in market to kick start it. Remember, when Hasbro relaunched Marvel Legends, they didn’t have a frenemy like DC Collectibles eating away at their customers for a couple of years.
Club Infinite Earths customers, look for refunds early next week. Ecto-1 customers, no refunds as cards were only pre-auth, not charged.
via Club Infinite Earths customers, look for refunds… – Mattycollector.com.
sad indeed….. i had really thought motuc would follow, but this is enough. i will miss the line and really hope they bring something good to retail soon other than those horrible justice league abominations they have out now.
And so it ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Since the last year it was an attetion call for mattel, but they just keep pushing it and pushing it…
I guess no one will admit to the FACT that Mattel barely announced less than half the line they wanted people to pay for. I will NEVER paid for a third of something without having a clue what the rest of it is. Who’s to say Mattel would not have thrown in a “I imagined this character” figure which no one has ever heard of (see MOTUC for examples).
It’s not hard to list 9 out of 12 figures that are going to make it. Apparently it was. Oh wait, I’ll ask you for your money and give you a Batzarro. Really???? That figure would die at retail. Because mommies wouldn’t buy it for $2, let alone $20+ plus shipping.
MOTUC succeed cuz every darn videoblog listed the majority of the characters they wanted you to buy. Even DC videoblogs featured MOTUC.
I’m glad it died because it wasn’t a healthy life. I’ll wait a few years and hopefully the next wave will be better managed.