We Need a Better HasLab Tier System 

For the price of the deluxe cantina set we should have got all the tiers

One of the biggest problems with Haslabs projects is that because the community is so big, you will never be able to please everybody, regardless of what route you take Let’s use Marvel Legends for example. With the Engine of Vengeance campaign, Hasbro offered 3 new figures with unique sculpts as tiers, but people complained about the $350 price l and about Hasbro essentially locking away characters behind a paywall So when it came time for the Giant-Man Haslab, Hasbro responded to the criticism by addressing every complaint. The price was reduced to $200 and the tiers were items design to work exclusive with the Haslab in order to avoid locking away new characters. And guess what? People STILL complained because they felt that the tiers should be better As customers, we should always want the best value for our money, I totally get it. But man, some people are impossible to please. I definitely don’t envy the position that the Hasbro team are in

I appreciate that Hasbro has been trying things out with the Haslab. People will always be disappointed if they feel like they missed out on a tier, if the next tier is unknown, or if there are no tiers. My preference would be to include all the tiers at the start and how many backers needed to fund. The stretch goals can be a price reduction that everyone shares. An example would be let's say a $300 giant man with two faceplaces and 2 figures (ant man and wasp 2 pack). Funded at 8000 backers, with a $25 reduction at each tier of 11,000 14,000, and 17,000. As the price reduces, it would grab more interest. Nothing advertised would be missed. The problem with add ons is they would also need a minimum number of backers, because making 500 zombie face plates wouldn't make sense, so some add ons would fail to fund, or be expensive to compensate.

I wish they did the Haslabs a la carte. Have multiple options to select and they could determine how many we get based on the total units backed. Maybe unlock more options for a higher total to give people incentive to back it early. Could even have a deluxe selection available if all the tiers are met and the total keeps going up.

Considering that the price of all tiers are already baked into the price of the Haslab, they need to just come up with a total amount of units sold, and just go with that. If we pay for a Haslab that doesn't hit all of the tiers, you're paying for an incomplete item that they are still getting their money for. That, or they need to do a true Kickstarter style of pricing.

Im glad the backers that wanted it are getting it. I personally didn't back it, Im still waiting on 2 Giant Man, and my Ghost that I backed. I cant run it up to 4 Haslabs that Im waiting on. Plus I think the price tag was a bit high for my taste honestly.

Great breakdown brother. Hit the nail on the head in a lot of the Haslab issues/hurdles. Ramen Toy is doing it right!! 🤙🏽

Enjoyed this!

Since the Cantina had different price options, the goal should have been a monetary amount instead of an actual number.

There are definitely some good opinions all around on this subject so I'm gonna throw my two cents in the jar as well. A Haslab IMHO, should be a dream project for a toy collector. It should be of a scale and level of detail that we would never see at retail. It should be something that someone can use as a centerpiece of their collection and something that stands out as being unique and desirable. I dislike Tiers. I would much rather Hasbro come up with a complete offering with Zero tiers. I don't mind figures being included, but they really need to back off of the silly position that if the campaign doesn't fund, those figures will never be seen again. Funny enough, we are kind of already seeing them back away from this with "versions" of Damien Hellstrom and Madelyne Prior/Goblin Queen being released after the Hell-Charger failed to fund. If we had to continue with Tiers, I do like your idea of maybe making them optional add-on purchases for the folks who really wanted them, that way, they don't affect the actual funding of the project. They could maybe even consider creating Haslab adjacent add-ons that they announce and make available at a later date. The GI Joe team kind of does this already without officially naming it as such, for instance when they made that H.I.S.S. Techno-Viper & H.M.S. product after they got the Haslab H.I.S.S. project funded. Lastly, since Haslab projects are arguably premium products for die-hard collectors and not average toys, maybe Hasbro should involve the fanbase directly with an annual poll to help define the next projects. They could retain control by coming up with maybe 3 ideas and have a poll to see which one wins. It would also give them valuable insight and metrics as to the popularity and feasibility of projects that they can use when introducing the next poll. To sum up, keep doing Haslabs, no tiers, maybe some value add-ons at a later date and fan based polling. Sorry for such a lengthy comment Jeff, but this comes from 50 years worth of toy loving passion! (🙁 +🦸‍♀=😊)

My stance has always been: the base offering SHOULD be enough to entice you to back the project. The stretch goals should not influence your decision to back a project, which is the mistake most people make; the mentality is usually "Ok, cool (in reference to the main project) but what else am I getting?" I would make every HasLab 60 days. The first 30 you have no mention of the stretch goals. Then after 30 days they reveal the stretch goals. However I would have some sort of early bird special for those who back the project during the first 30 days, like a year long 35% discount to the entire Hasbro Pulse store, free shipping, etc. something totally unrelated to the project.

That skrull head would of got me to order 2

You should be able to vote from tiers they offer once it is backed. It would be voter’s choice, like you said. We vote on box art they will use, why not vote for tiers. It might have saved the EOV and those pissed off customers who hate the pay wall issue. They could offer an option close to the end of the backing, to purchase the remaining tiers for a certain amount of money. In the case of the cantina, add the music band for $80 more.

They should just include everything. People just end up waiting to the last possible second. I ordered my Cantina at -3 minutes pass the deadline. If everything was included I would have ordered the first day. One good thing is that not many sold. 14 something thousand I think. The resale is gonna be high. It’ll be a rare Haslab.

The significant issue regarding Marvel Legends Haslab is that it thoroughly exposes the chasm of disconnect between collectors and Hasbro. Furthermore, that chasm of disconnect also comes with an acknowledgment that Hasbro has little intention to change their method of crowd-funding. As long as the program remains profitable for them. As I can only comment on Marvel Legends Haslab, the tiers with Galactus, and EoV offered re-used and re-painted standard bucks with little attention paid towards making the tiers distinct to the project. With Galactus - Silver Surfer was a re-issue; Nova was as basic a buck that could be made; Doom's head (wtf 'nuff said) and Morg was the only unique sculpt but also the tier requiring the most backers; EoV - Mephisto with his crocs + Damon with NOTHING displayed Hasbro ML's greed with a standard no-frills buck; Goblin Queen was simply an inappropriate character selection. The issue with the tiers isn't the fact they are hidden behind any paywall. That is simply a false statement used as a convenient excuse for Hasbro to alter the ML Haslab's agenda. This was NEVER an excuse when it came to the Sentinel and Galactus and was only brought up once the EoV failed. Should Giant-Man have included tiers such as Yellowjacket, the inevitable Giant-Man as a 6inch and Wasp - no one would be complaining about any paywall. Which is my point; it is not the "paywall" issue with tiers, it is the ML's team of tier selection (which is another disconnect between collectors and Hasbro). Instead, the argument isn't "locking behind a paywall" rather Hasbro's inability to listen to the collecting community in relation to tier selection. If collectors want to hide behind "Hasbro can't please everyone all the time" then those collectors also have to exist with their heads in the sand. Haslab's are suppose to be a "CROWD"-fund program. Get the CROWD involved with the character selection of tiers by offering a voting system during the campaign. It will keep the program "alive" throughout its campaign. Should Hasbro continue with their agenda on crowd-funding programs maintaining their "we know better than the collectors", more campaigns are destined to fail. Whatever happened to the Crowd in crowd-funding anyway? It works for Ace at Ramen toys. There is little sympathy for a billion-dollar company crowd-funding regarding the issues they created and perpetuated. A company such as Hasbro, who does very little to further the progress of action figure development (c'mon, still using decade old parts? Where is the paint?) while still refusing to acknowledge the collecting community's (read; paying customers) demands, shouldn't be crowd-funding anything. Note: I wouldn't be so negative with the Marvel Legends team if I didn't like collecting Marvel action figures so much.

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

The risk in selling unique add ons is that once you sell it, you have to tool it and manufacture it, and maybe you take a loss because fewer people buy in than you need to cover cost and turn a profit.

Maybe, like the deluxe version of the bar, they should just fund the main item, but we can pay more or less. One price for the base set/ figure. Then pay more for the tiers and get a deep discount for getting all three or four tiers. Like 25 for one 40 for two 50 for three and so on. Or get rid of tiers, put it all together and drop the price significantly for the tiers. At 10000, its 20 bucks less. At 13000 its 50 bucks less, ect. Idk just a thought. I will say with Star Wars they need to have a figure loose and in the package or a package that you can take the figure out of, and put it back into for storage/display.

There’s some sort of legal reason, why they can’t offer the tiers after the Haslabs close. I don’t think they’ll ever allow you to vote on the tiers. They definitely want people to buy multiple, so they’ll also never do resealable packaging. But the two options with the Cantina, can be something they do again.

They should just offer 3 different packages like 1 with just the base offering, 2nd with some extra figures, and then a deluxe with everything. That would be better imo

I'm still hoping Hasbro make the Sky Stryker ground crew available to us that backed that Haslab

It was 1 hour to go when I noticed it was at about 150 shy of the Second Tier. I knew it would hit the second Tier. Didn't think it would hit the 3rd.

I would have ordered the Cat's Lair if it had just come with the translucent Lion-O. People like me won't order unless all the tiers I want are unlocked.

They should get rid of the tier system. The price already includeds the cost of all the tiers.

Maybe if they just had the option to add an extra tier for 25$ to 50$ for each, instead of 2-3000 backers for each tier, the Haslab would fund better

Maybe they should've offered Wolfman as an early bird! Either way, I feel the cantina is too far removed from the general audience's minds. There's apparently not enough fans who wanted this item, for the price that was offered. Personally, I'm not obsessed with all these random blink & you miss aliens. Greedo was a wasted slot, though. I got the bar & a handfull of modern styled figures. I feel pretty good!

Will they not just release these tier characters later as individual releases...seems like a given.🤷

They should let the campaign continue as long as the initial goal is met

Galactus and Unicron are the only worthy HasLab projects in my opinion since the sail barge. Recently, the scale and craftsmanship just aren't up to the le else of the initial few releases. The projects started off coming in a box that looked big enough to hold a kitchen refrigerator but now the projects are showing up in video game console size boxes. The scale keeps diminishing but the price keeps increasing. I haven't supported a HasLab and I don't believe I ever will. It would have to be something truly special to get me on board, but I know that they stopped making special since 2019.

I don’t think we got enough cups with this Haslab.

*+++++We should all **_*PETITION_* Hasbro/Kenner_ as a community+++++* 🤔I Don't Know *_ANYONE_* (who backed the *Cantina* ) Hosting/Streaming, Commenting or Superc-hatting who said: "Meh, I Don't *_Want/Need_* The *Wolfman* (Arliel Schous)" And so, obv. *_WHY_* don't *_Hasbro_* just do a *_SEPARATE_*_ HasLab_ Fund Campaign for The Wolfman⁉ ~ Since it didn't quite Hit *+++++We should all **_*PETITION_*_ _Hasbro/Kenner_ as a community+++++*

A Haslab with Fing Fang Foom, with a nice Mandarin figure as a tier would mop up! You could throw in a new Madam Mask figure and a Jimmy Woo Agent of Shield figure for tiers would also rock! My 2 cents. Tiers certainly sweeten the pot, but the initial offering is what counts most. If it isn't well conceived and affordable, I don't think it's likely to be successful.

With Haslabs I think folks need to accept how the system works. They post ahead of time that they need X backers to get it all. It didn’t hit and that’s fine. Folks who back need to be fine paying for the minimum offer. And count the tiers as just extra with no guarantee. In the end Hasbro is about maxing profit. there may not be any more backers regardless. It is what it is.

I stand by what I've been saying forever - Hasbro needs to wise up and do a customer survey and see what they want for Haslabs - especially for ML. Personally, I don't like tiers. Tiers are a greed grab. Hasbro admitted that the price of the tiers is baked into the price, so every tier that's missed essentially raises the actual price for the product. In other words, if you pay $350 for a Haslab with 3 tier figures and it funds but does not hit the tiers, you're paying $75 more than the actual value of the main offering. Hasbro needs to go back to the idea of Haslabs being for wild projects that would not otherwise be released. Giantman, in my opinion, did not hit that level, nor did Engine of Failure. Galactus? Absolutely! The Sentinel? Yes. Hasbro also talks out both sides of their mouths - they claim fans don't want figures as tiers, and yet they have figures (and good ones!) as tiers for the Star Wars Cantina Haslab. So which is it? I think people prefer extra figures with the Haslabs, especially when the Haslab is a giant figure. 3 of the 4 ML Haslabs were giant figures. Two sold like crazy and came with figures (Sentinel, Galactus). The one that didn't (Giantman) was barely outperforming (and for a few weeks was UNDERPERFORMING) the Engine of Failure. I'm still convinced that Hasbro played with the numbers in order to avoid a 2nd failed Haslab. SO people want figures. The way around the paywall issue? Simple - just don't include vital figures. If Giantman had come with a prototype Ultron and maybe Hank in a lab coat and for a third tier possibly Ultron-6 (when he had the square machine lower body), it would have funded for real and with no complaints. Likewise, if they did an Eternity Haslab (imagine how awesome that would look Galactus sized, and all the stars and galaxies in his body light up!) and included an original green-costumed Dormammu (a simply repaint with a new head sculpt) and an original Dr. Strange in his all blue costume, again, I can't see there being complaints. Then there's the question of vehicles. Fans are clamoring for an Avengers Quinjet (which could come with Jarvis and prototype Ultron as tiers) and it would fund at least as fast as Galactus or Sentinel! Or a Fantasti-car that comes with Willie Lumpkin, classic Agatha Harkness, and maybe an unusual character that looks cool but isn't popular enough for a normal release (Darkoth, Invincible Man, or the Punisher - Galactus's alien-robot servant from his 1st appearance in FF #48-0).

You notice its like the tiers the collectors want lately we all miss out ,,its like something is going on behind close doors

If Hasbro were to change their haslab to a deposit system - say $100 down, and the balance when it ships, they would have probably recived 3 or 4 times as many orders. Surely a $3.5 billion dollar company could afford to work it that way. If the deposits were non-refundable, at least then they would get their tooling costs, and it would avoid all the time waisters out there... Just saying...

Hahahahahahahahaha......here in Australia they closed the funding 8 hrs before they said they would. I was waiting for the greedo to pass funding which it hadnt and when it did, i went to back it and it was removed from funding completely. I called the rep and they said Hasbro told them to remove it from funding at 4.00 pm instead of 11.59 pm. Yeah i told him, they were happpy with the sales and didnt want to sell anymore. Moral of the story is i didnt get one which isnt anything new with these morons who run operations. In my opinion, the backing should run for 10 mths. I believe they would sell more units in long run.

Tiers are pointless, Ryan from the Marvel side already spilled the bean's last year, that the tiers are already included in the base pricing. So the "tiers" are just basically being "held hostage" for more $.

Dont collect star wars ,dont fund haslabs ,dont really care either way but heres a comment for your algorithim bro 😉

Signs of a bad economy and a too high price

Hate tiers system just price what's contains and a minimum num to back

Your premise is flawed You’re not buying the Haslab and tiers You’re buying the Haslab Any tiers you get or don’t get is a bonus If you’re not completely satisfied with the base offering then don’t buy into the Haslab until all the tiers unlock And as for missing figures, only the backing card on that wolfman figure was exclusive to the Haslab He’ll be coming next year, him and probably more bar patrons so collectors that backed the cantina can buy them to fill up their bar

I typically don't comment on videos I disagree with, but your opening statement is what is the problem with the collecting community. I couldn't get past the first minute without being pissed off. The arrogant stance that backers didn't get everything they paid for is false. They got what got funded, nothing more or less. None of the tiers were promised, so how can they have not gotten everything that they paid for?!? It's all choice based. No one has got a pistol at any backers head and everyone has the option to back it or not. Let's stop riling up the natives with the false narrative, shall we? Controversy for contents sake is weak sauce. And you're "supposed" to be one of the community pillars?!?! C'mon, son! Just my opinion.

The # of backers is set too high the sail barge only needed 5000 backers than̈ hasbro got greedy raised # of backers needed for all this haslab projects and you have a small company like Ramen toys selling early bird specials on vehicles for 6" figures for $180, cars, vans, tanks and isn't crowd funded ,shits getting made maybe hasbro should stop crowd funding and just make some kick ass toys

Haslab is overrated

It didn’t reach the 17000 backers so the tier wasn’t unlocked. If you need 40 credit hours to graduate and you only have 39 you’re not going to graduate. You don’t get things for not getting to the finish line and at a little over 14000 backers they didn’t have enough backers and they wont receive the third tier. But the campaign was a success and they were able to fund the project because the people who wanted it supported it. So we can complain about not getting tiers unlocked but we’re not getting anything from anyone or any business for free. We have to wake up and understand that. That’s not how the world works. That’s not how capitalism works. I think the HasLab is successful venture for Hasbro but it really needs to focus on the most supportive fandoms GIJOE, Transformers and VTC of Star Wars. These should be the targeted audiences. Making sure each project has 60 days to fund, and only doing HasLab projects for the “correct” fandoms will eliminate the need for voting on items. Every GIJOE, vintage collection and transformer HasLab has funded those are the IP that Hasbro should do haslabs for.