BitterNews for Saturday, March 13th, 2010

* Mattel Fuck Up Of The Day: Here’s a note that Matty sent yesterday (emphasis ours), with Racist Robot’s 1st “Booshit” translation in red:

"Just a quick update on our sale Monday, March 15th. All products arrived yesterday at our warehouse so the sale will proceed as planned, with one small caveat. Under normal conditions, products ship within about 5 days of purchase or subscription renewal date. This hinges on the product getting to the warehouse in enough time for them to receive and properly process it, which is supposed to be at least two weeks before the sale date. Sometimes, circumstances beyond our control (like in this case) mean the warehouse doesn’t get the time it needs. They’re still hoping to get everything out in the 5 day window, but we need to allow for an extra day or two, just in case. "

Dayum – we fugged up agin! Can yous believe it? I cans! Shit be crazy bad and we ain’t even realize it until Friday befo’ da sale! We’s da biggest baddest toy company in the muthafuggin worl’, but we still ain’t be hearing our own 411 on how our shippinatin’ and ree-seevinamatin’ is comin’ down at our own fass-ill-itees! But hey, we's just warnin' yo dat dey MIGHT be prollums - cuz dat ain't never happen with our shit befo'! Oh, SNAP! You Nerds nevah be gettin' yo shit – WORD!

"You’ll know your order has shipped when you receive the shipment confirmation email (when it’s shipped, the confirmation is triggered), so don’t worry if you don’t get your shipping confirmation right away. Product normally leaves the warehouse within 5 days and we’re allowing an extra 2 just in case. If you don’t get the confirmation after 7 business days, then please do contact customer service."

Don't worry!? That be like tellin' a Haitian not to freak out if de erf start vibratin"!!! How many times you be fuckin' peeples ovah and expect 'em not to be freekin' da fuck out???!! Nerds be jittery all day Monday, not sleepin’ all week until dey hears from ‘ol man Digital Ribber, which ain’t nevuh happin, cuz Ribber be out shootin dice or sellin mad crack cuz they be stone pimps, but not so inerrested in shippin’ or custamuh soivice. DAYUM! Tired Nerds be WACK!!

"One other thing is that available quantities of most products are fairly low (beyond the subscriptions − those are all guaranteed), so we do expect a quick sellout on most items. Also, we know that with the volume of our sales you should expect to see the white “rate limiter” screen (similar to buying concert tickets). Please don’t panic − it’s there to keep the massive amounts of traffic flowing without crashing the servers. And definitely don’t hit refresh, or you’ll lose your place in the queue.”

JIBBITY FRIED CHICKINS! How dis be news?? Mattel still ain’t got makinatin’ togevver!?? Internet be on FIYO all day MONDEY CUZ A DIS SHIT! Nerds be goin’ MAD CRAZY! Servers be crashin', items be out of stock in like 5 minits or sumthin', hate be flying', facebook be crashin', peeples be gettin' kicked off da forums fer cursin' - an it all be dat ToyGooroo's faulty - he be too busy jackin’ he dick to his weak-ass Soopa Powaz shit to be makin’ attention on the here an’ now! Whut he care about da customer? He got his shit and he playin' with it right now, wif Julius Marx be gobblin' on his johnson! Them ol’ white people whut owns Mattels should be firin’ his pale white ass! But at leas’ Gooroo got da blamin’ game downs stone cold – it allus be summun else’s fault – you gots to remmemer dat when de PO-leese or yo’ Mamma be bustin’ on ya! Poysonally, I’s prefer to have summun else to blame - like my cuz Russel – ToyGooroo ain’t eben got da brainz to fabri-mo-cate a plozzible lie! WATTY-MELONS, BITCHES!

DISCLAIMER: Racist Robot** is not a Racist, inasmuch as he has no prejudices against any particular class, creed or color – but he is inherently a figure of Racism in that his mere existence (thanks Michael Bay!) shows that Racism still runs rampant and is unapologetically exploited for a dollar and a cent. What Racist Robot can’t stand however is bullshit, especially from the companies that manufacture the art and products we love (and the ones that suck, too!). Therefore, Racist Robot has been programmed to interpret Press Releases, quotes and other garbage passed from Corporations to Fans, and he’ll do it all, exclusively here on BitterGeeks!

** Please note that Racist Robot is an actual mass-produced toy that was sold in stores all over the world – based on a blatantly offensive character from the Transformers films. There was a minor hubbub at the time but it quickly blew over, although no one bothered to peel back the layers as we’ve done here, painting it to emphasize what an offensive caricature it is.

Mattel's Matty Mego Misfire

Straight from Mattycollector.com, I received the first in a new line by Matty and company: The 1970s Mego 8" Super-Hero knock off, the Green Arrow. Or 'Retro-Action Super Heroes' as they calls 'em now. Mattel's Toyguru and his DC Universe team were oh-so-proud of launching this retro knock off when the line was unveiled during the 2009 San Diego Comic-con.

We should have known better...this launch is the next in an ever growing list of mis-fires by this incompetent group. Oh, we know now that Toyguru has moved on within the ranks of Mattel and he will no longer be mis-managing the the DCU brand but as this figure shows, his legacy will linger on at least until 2011.

It's not so much the figure itself we dislike. As usual for this group it comes down to shitty execution. Look, the retro idea seems ok for what it is but both Toy Biz and Hasbro (Twice) have played with this retro Mego idea. Twice in the 1990s ('Famous Covers' for TB and 'DC Super Stars' for H) and once in the past decade (Spider-Man Origins). Every time, no matter how they were produced or marketed, these lines just could not connect with today's collectors. Eight inch male dolls with cloth outfits just don't work anymore. Not even on some small scale collector level. Period. The only potential collectors of Mego are well over the age of 40 at this point. If they really want to have a Mego figure in their collection, they generally have the income to go buy originals. The originals are, of course, quite pricey at this point but that only adds to the desire to own vintage toys from one's own childhood. It's a simple proven fact that any major toy company that attempts to cultivate a new collector line based upon ideas in the Mego-like realm is in for major disappointment.

So here we are with Toyguru's dream of remaking the World's Greatest Super-Heroes. And here's the big launch with DC Comic's Green Arrow on a blister card that is also supposed to be a reproduction of the kind of packaging the originals were sold within. So imagine my shock when I see how piss-poor the packaging quality of the actual sample turned out. The card itself is flimsy and warped within the outer white box package. Great. Thanks for selling a warped collector toy on a collector retail site to a collector. We love that.

The real shock here is the absolute shoddy printing across the front and back of this blister card. The colors bleed into one another and it's all blotchy. For fuck's sake, no one proofed the final packaging? A team of brand managers and artists working at one of the world's major toy companies couldn't see this or correct before it went into production and shipped all the way over from China? Inexcusable. And don't try to tell us it's fucked up on purpose and is in keeping with some retro/vintage, shelf worn look they were actually striving for. I've bought and sold plenty of the real thing before. Hell, the other Bittergeek on this blog has a collection of the real deal and be hard pressed to find any in his carded Mego collection that look anywhere close to this shitty.

What a crappy launch. My first and last purchase of Mattel's Retro Hero line. Can't wait until Matty starts begging in posts online for collectors to purchase more and support the line.

We'll let the photos take over now and speak for themselves. Click for a closer look. I gotta go dump this turd on ebay before others figure it out.

Matt-tarded

Mattel and their collectors site, Mattycollector, continue to go from strength to strength in terms of pissing off their customers, and the most recent Matty offering (on December 15th) has taken the crown as the worst offender ever from the previous record-holder, August.

Please note that August was only 3 months ago, so expect more shenanigans in the near future – like on, say, December 23rd when their first fake Mego and the real site-crasher, DCU 11, goes on sale.

So what happened this time? Well, first the site went to shit within minutes of the noon EST launch time. Customers couldn’t check out, quantities greater than one weren’t being recognized, error messages were the norm and many encountered what has become affectionately known as RSOD or the “Red Screen Of Death.”

15 minutes into this clusterfuck the Matty Facebook page was updated with a message that stated they knew there was a problem and were working on it. Then, nothing.

Customers were forced to spend upwards of an hour trying to place orders that should take seconds to complete. Many had to order each item individually as a workaround to the uncooperative shopping cart, incurring extra shipping charges (and why does Matty charge tax to everyone, even when they do not operate in every State?).

By the time the problem was fixed (about two hours in) the message boards were on fire with horror stories and the re-release of Skeletor was sold out, which further aggravated already pissed-off customers who had wasted two hours trying to simply buy Mattel product.

The comments ranged from Mattel apologists on one side to enraged customers who vowed to quit the lines.

How did this happen? Good fucking question.

Mattel has been running this site for nearly a year, and it has been plagued with issues the entire time. In August, lots of orders were lost, cards were charged and customers were left frustrated trying to get a response, many of which remain unanswered.

Mattel’s e-commerce partner, Digital River, is a huge company whose slogan is “Nobody Offers More Ways To Build Your E-Commerce Business.” Apparently, Mattel chose the "shitty" option from the Digital River menu.

Certainly Digital River deserves plenty of blame, but Mattel is the real problem.

First of all, after nearly a year of class-a clusterfucks, why are they still using Digital River? Of course Mattel has a contract with DR, but this can easily be broken if the partner fails to deliver, unless they signed the worst contract ever, which, considering the way Mattel has operated over the last few years, may be the most likely answer.

Second, after nearly a year of class-a clusterfucks, why are they making their largest product offering ever without solving the problems first? We’re not even taking into account that Mattel was planning to offer DCU11 and the Green Arrow Mego on the same day - until they suddenly realized that either a) they would not have product in time (the official story) or b) that shipping is a profit center and that they could improve their margins with two offerings in one month, causing the same customers to place twice as many orders and pay twice the shipping (our guess).

Of course Matty knob-polishers like Julius Marx and his ilk (who would never criticize the company because their free product pipeline might get cut off) failed to address the issue at all in their toy news sections although their message boards were on fire with angry customers who rightly called it like they saw it.

Speculation ran rampant, mostly focused on cart issues. Did scalpers buy up all the Skeletors because the cart wasn’t functioning properly (not honoring the limit of 10 pcs per customer)? Did the cart artificially tabulate a higher number of sales, meaning that there really were fewer sold than the faulty cart indicated?

Instead of addressing the disaster, Matty & his human nerd puppet “ToyGuru” were busy “answering” fan questions on various collectors websites, an exercise that makes as much sense as eating twinkies while working out. And why not? After all collectors don’t want you to tell them if their money has been hijacked when they could be getting informative answers like these instead:

“Q4. Is there any chance we might see small villain groups for the DCUC line such as Royal Flush Gang, Brotherhood of Evil or Fearsome Five? Each of these have a build-a figure character potential (Ace, Mammoth, Monsieur Mallah & the Brain) that would be awesome to see 4horsemen style!

A4: Definitely a chance, but nothing we can confirm right now.

Q5. Whenever the Legion of Super-Heroes are released for the DCUC line can we expect to see them have a whole wave like wave 8 was for JSA or will they be peppered into other waves?

A5: We have some great plans for LOSH but it is too early for us to get into these specifics. “

While he was busy not answering questions (under the guise of answering questions), ToyGuru was ignoring the growing anger of his disenfranchised customer base.

Finally, the Facebook page was updated with a message stating that Mattel hadn’t gotten their full allotment of Skeletors from the factory and that the figure would be re-offered in the spring.

What???!!

Mattel has been crying foul on production issues for three years now. Initially this was justified as Chinese factories closed and product and parts vanished without notice. This cost Mattel a small fortune and sent the company scrambling for excuses as they pissed off vendors and fans by failing to address the issue in a timely manner.

But they have been re-using the excuse to cover up other failures and passing the cost of the loss onto their customer base by increasing the price of their products by 30%. Other companies suffered similar issues at the same time and were able to overcome them, why not Mattel?

It’s difficult to imagine that this Skeletor shortage was a surprise to Mattel unless they are even more incompetent than they have demonstrated themselves to be over the last few years. It’s hard to imagine with a bar set this high, but certainly not implausible.

So were they trying to meet a year end number to justify the ongoing Mattycollector site experiment? Are they, as has been whispered in El Segundo, looking for an excuse to throw ToyGuru out on his inexperienced ass?

It’s impossible to know, because, as usual, Mattel remains tight-lipped and unhelpful in addressing any of their ongoing issues that affect their dwindling customer base, but they plan more releases through this frustrating and ineffective system.

Clearly they are in over their heads on a number of levels, including manufacturing, distribution and line management. It’s too bad that this potential profit-center is being destroyed by poor execution.

PS: Look for our long-in-the-works upcoming series “Why Superhero Toys Suck Part One: Mattel” coming soon!

Mattel's DCU Failure at Mass Retail

Mattel's most recent round of product updates on their Mattycollector facebook site confirmed that for the first time ever, an entire upcoming wave of DC Universe action figures would be available for purchase via thier own online store.

On the surface this is fabulous news to long suffering hardcore collectors who are tired of the runaround and poor distribution of nearly every wave of this brand over the past year. As we've recounted here in this blog many times, Mattel's team handling this brand have done nothing but a piss-poor job getting this line to retailers and thereby into the hands of the collector.

But while this news of online sales may seem great on the surface, consider the larger picture and fate. Why would Target or Wal-Mart bother to invest in a line of toys when the main repeat customer in the toy aisles, the collector, can simply sit home and order them directly from the vendor? Outside of desperate retailers like Toys-R-Us, the other big boys don't have the time of day for that kind of a deal. As a toy buyer, how do you justify giving up the valuable space on the shelf or dealing with the constant headache of inventory controls when you now know a good percentage of your customer will buy directly form your vendor who is now a COMPETITOR for the same sales?

The answer is that they won't. Mattel has already caused the main retailers plenty of trouble this year with the brand. If Target hasn't already told Mattel it's done messing around with the DCU (which is our bet and why Mattel is announcing this online route now), then they absolutley will soon enough.

The DCU brand is not strong enough to support itself longterm with only online sales and reduced mainstream retail distribution. Proof? Show us any Mattycollector.com DC Universe exclusive that has yet to sell out in thier store.

Yes, the online route will be great in 2010 and will save the Bittergeeks just as much frustration as anyone out there trying to track these figures down. But we know better and can see the bigger picture and ramifications long term. The brand is severely damaged and now limping home to a likely demise.

And all because Toyguru and his team blew it.

Mattel's TOYGURU...marketing whiz

Really? First time?! Oh, hell FOR SURE Grandma will drop Batman in the aisle for this treasure!

Mattel's resident fuck-up, TOYGURU, the guy in charge of (destroying, we think) the popular DC Universe brand of action figure lines, must have thought long and hard about how to market the GUARDIAN figure in DC Classics wave 9.

Now in the pecking order of comic heroes, it's hard to imagine you can find a handful of hardcore comic nerds who even know who this character is much less give a shit if he was ever made into a plastic figure.

But Guardian was a smooth body figure that Toyguru found and ol' Toyguru loves to re-use smooth body figures so he won't have to spend any sculpting money on 'em. But apparently 'Guru, knowing a peg-warmer when he sees one, must have decided that this figure needed that certain pizzazz to move him off of the pegs in the toy aisles. And unlike the shit he over shipped to the poor retailers all year like Captain Cold and Gay Blue Aquaman, he determined that this potential loser would need the extra push. So even though the tag means nothing to the moms or kids or even the collectors (they need to buy him anyway) the sticker for the shout out was made!

"FIRST TIME IN 6 INCH!"

Oh! Well is there an 8" version? 3"? 12"? 5.5"? Um, no. But who cares. Wave 9 of the series isn't making it to retailers anyway.

Another example of 'Guru wasting time in the wrong places with this brand. How the idea for such a wasted sticker wasn't laughed out of El Segundo, we'll never know. How does Mattel find 'em?

Mattel DCU Classics 9 Epic Fail: Get Em While You Can (or if you can)!

From Mattycollector:

"Hey DCU fans,

A lot of fans have written in about some canceled DCU Classic orders for Wave 9.

Mattel always does its best to fulfill product on shelves and we’re currently working on shipping as much of Wave 9 as possible. We will work with all of our customers to fulfully as many orders as possible. It is also possible we will go back into production of Wave 9 down the line due to greater demand. But nothing is set in stone yet. Still working on this.

In the future, we will be working even more in advance with retailers and online e-tailers to get orders in early for DCUC to ensure all orders can be filled.

Doing all we can do on this - you have my word!

And to clarify, we will not be selling Wave 9 on Mattycollector.com. Although we reviewed this option a few months back, because online and brick and mortar retailers needed Wave 9 product, we released what we had hoped to sell on Mattycollector to these customers. We're hoping that by Wave 11 we can indeed offer DCUC on Mattycollector.com and fill all customer orders too. We'll have more details if they are available and if this goes forward. Again, nothing set in stone right now.

Matty"

Hey ToyGuru, why are you trying to crank out five/six assortments a year when you can't even manufacture to meet pre-orders, nevermind re-orders?

SDCC 2009 Screw ups - Runner Up, Mattel

By our reckoning, Mattel Comic-con exclusives were the second most in demand of the event behind DC Direct’s Green Lantern 5-figure set (which also suffered major foul ups).

To their credit, at least Mattel learned a valuable lesson from last year’s show and moved the sale of their exclusives out of their show booth and over to a separate sale booth. However, they greatly underestimated the crush of the crowds everyday that wanted to buy their merchandise. The booth and the aisles all around it were a zoo from the moment the door opened on preview night. From the start, every Mattel employee told everyone that was turned away daily the same lie…”not to worry, we have rationed out new inventory to arrive everyday of the show. So you’ll have plenty of opportunity to come back and try again.”

It was complete bullshit or they simply changed their minds on Friday and decided to sell through everything they had. By Thursday morning they had sold out of the He-Man artbook. By the end of Friday, they had completely sold out of several of the most in demand figure exclusives including Wonder Twins sets with Gleek, from the Masters of the Universe they had sold the ’09 He-Ro exclusive along with He-Man, Beast Man and Skeletor. Aside from their purchasing limit of two copies per customer of the He-Man book, they never limited the number of toy exclusives one could buy.

We know the Mattel staff couldn’t give a rip but how about some consideration for the poor bastards that could only purchase single day tickets to the con? If one could only attend the show on a Saturday or Sunday and Mattel kept telling people stock would be there but lied about it, that’s a screw job. We call the Mattel Toy Shop or Matty Shop or whatever the hell they call themselves, the second biggest f*ck ups of the 2009 Comic-con.

Hey Mattel, next year, shop limit should be 2 figures per person, per day. Weeds out the scalpers in line loading up. Second, figure out how to reprint the He-Man book. Comic Book companies do this all the time. Add new content, change the cover, add a figure as a bonus, whatever, but figure it out.

And by the way, as we write this post, we noticed MattyCollector.com still has not listed any of the Mattel SDCC exclusives (left over) on it's site as promised. In comparison, the Hasbro Toy Shop has had it's con exclusives up for sale since the Monday after the show ended.