May 9, 2013

Kool-aid Hordakgate: Is it THAT bad?

Yesterday I rambled a bit about Mattel's secret Surprise sale that vanished a few minutes after I posted about it. I'm talking about the Translucent Spirit of Hordak figure.


Kool-Aid Hordak showed up unannounced. Someone saw this while on the Mattycollector site for some reason and began spreading the word. Then Hordak vanished.


Kool-aid-Hordakgate was born.

Now I'm not ultra angry about this. Just mildly annoyed.

I think it was pretty uncool of Mattel to do this on the same month that they have customers' wallets on a vice grip with the $100+ Combo of Fighting Foe Men and Karatti. (That's on one sub. I fear the charges on those who ordered more than one) Had they done it next month where Club Eternia only has Octavia (a Horde character) it would have been slightly cooler.

I also don't understand WHY do this when Mattel's own Scott Neitlich has made the rounds on forums and podcasts saying that "Subscriptions are the lifeblood of the line and that day of sale has been reduced to accommodate that shift towards subs". Hence Fangman being purposely under-produced so he had ZERO day of sale stock to "reward subscribers".  This undermines the Importance of the subscriptions... especially to the Completists because this is practically saying: "I don't care if you subscribe or buy day of sale, but we'll make it effin' hard for you to have a complete collection! MWAHAHAHAHA!" Luckily I'm not a completist.

A little heads up even if vague would have been most welcome. Something like:
“Hey Toy fans! The Mighty Spector here! There seems to be some chrono-interference effecting the Matty Collector web site. Keep your eyes peeled for any anomalies on the site on May __th!” 
That way we know we HAVE to check the site and we could BUY the product.

No early warning or reason to check the Matty site. I mean, the only reasons I've been checking the Matty site were when I was dealing with CS because my Snake Face took a LONG Time to ship and the SDCC reveals! I'm unable to check Matty 24/7 to see if they're putting up some figures for sale unannounced.

My main issue with this is: Is this going to be done only with the Kool-Aid Hordak? Or is this going to happen with other characters like Loo-Kee, Rio Blast, Flogg, Single carded Prince Adam, or Battle Lion?

People are angry for a reason (or a bunch of reasons if we count getting fed up with Digital River, Mattel QC Issues, etc.)  WE HAVE TO JUMP THROUGH ENOUGH FLAMING HOOPS TO GET OUR MOTUC TOYS! We don't need any more hoops to jump through!

Yes, he'll be back, but these "stealth sales" might bite Mattel in the ass for 2014...

1 comment:

  1. it really is bad for all the reasons you stated.

    the only way this could make sense is if it is offered for early access next month and this was just a way to build excitement/distraction for a wasted development sku of another useless variant.

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