I didn't know they even had 4" collectors, as everything I ever bought that was sculpted by them was 6". If anything, I was really surprised they were considering doing these in 4", so it wasn't even remotely a shock that they announced these as 6".
Again, I have no axe to grind, as I wasn't going to buy these in either scale, but the outside perspective says that the 6" decision is the smart money. As they said, the business case for 6" at whatever sales price was stronger than for 4" figures. I absolutely cannot argue with that or fault them for it. Anything else is purely a fan-driven perspective, not one that recognizes this for what it is, i.e. a small business with low volumes and thin margins.
I'm not arguing or faulting them on making these at 6". I'm just saying that I think they way they handled it was terrible. If these had been announced as 6" like the Ravens that would have fine, I was actually expecting that when they first showed them. Even if they had come out and stated that they didn't know and were doing the required research to determine the best scale would have been fine, but that is not what they did.
Lets go back a year ago to when they announced them.
They did a huge tease as to what the scale would be to generate "buzz". They let that go on for about a week before the announced that they would be done in 4". Then there was the backlash from the 6" collectors,
so "industry insiders" came out to defend the business justification of doing these in 4" as opposed to 6"
Now, that may not have been official, straight from the 4HM, but it was pretty close. So it's not like they didn't put some thought or planning into the line before the announced it at 4".
As for them not having a 4" fan base, they certainly do, and a very passionate one at that. They have only offered
Outer Space Men and
Power Lords in those scales but we have bought every rainbow flavored version of their product. And are usually treated like crap for some reason or indifferent at best.
At the close of the OSM line we never go any updates as to the future of the line. They pretty much just shelved it and never tried discussing it anymore.
For Power Lords they offered a "Fan Club" where you could get exclusive stuff including a fancy orange flavor of Gripptogg. They treated the people that paid for that like garbage and it came to the point that Adam Pawlus had to bitch them out on their forum to get any of the perks that were supposed to come with it. They let that expire with no news or announcements as to the future of that line either. Last I've heard about that is more re-paints of the soldiers for some kind of Christmas release (about 2 months ago). Still no pre-order or news as to that...
I also find their reasoning behind the cost per figure dis-ingenious. They say they want to keep the price down but still offer the OSM and Power Lords for expensive prices.
Colossus Rex sold for $26 and sold out very quickly, and that was after the endless rainbow variations that were released prior to it. The
ultimate Ggrapptikk was sold for $40 and sold out before the regular versions.
Not to mention the only way to get those is to buy them from their store and deal with the crappy "drop" selling mentality and being grossly overcharged for shipping.
I don't even know why this irritates me as much as it does because I'm usually indifferent towards how companies treat their customers. I've been buying Hasbro and Mattel product for years and they treat 4" collectors like crap as well. I guess I just expected more from the 4HM. Regardless, I'm pretty much done with them as a company (for now) and will be supporting BFS more in the future.
