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Yep, that's it in a nutshell. Sadly some people here seem incapable of realising that not everything is black and white.Originally Posted by MegaGearMax
The thing is that that's what those of us who preordered the Hoverboard thought the same thing about that too. After having been burned once on giving Matty the benefit of the doubt; I want a straight up answer from Mattel, stating that they're not going to pull the exact same design team switcheroo they pulled on the Hoverboard on Castle Grayskull.
There's a thread on therpf.com discussing it in its entirety.
That only tells us the state of play now - not down the track after the proeorder period and Mattel has people locked-in to buying one. As much as I have no doubt that the Four Horsemen want to do this from start to finish; ultimately it's Mattel's call as to whether they're working on this for the duration of the design stage- not theirs.
All it takes is some high enough up exec in Mattel holding the purse strings, to decide that Castle Grayskull isn't "profitable enough" to warrant the Horsemen on it and all the passion the Horsemen have in the world wont change them being replaced with a low grade in-house design team working on it. This was what went down with the Hoverboard (their better in-house designers were pulled from it) and until I get some official statement from Mattel stating that the Four Horsemen will be the design team on this for the duration; I'm not making the mistake of presuming anything again.
You seem to have missed the point here. There's more than one group of designers "in house" with Mattel. Initially, Mattel had a great design team working on the Hoverboard (so great ironically that the initial version shown at NYTF is vastly superior to what we have now) - much like we have the 4H touted to do CG now. The problem is that after the preorder period, Mattel took their better design guys and put them on retail lines, leaving it with a vastly inferior design team.
My fear that's a hurdle to me preordering is that they'll pull a similar stunt and remove the 4 Horsemen from this after the preorder period (remember, the 4H have been shifted from Matty projects before due to cost issues).
Contrary to what people might think, I'd also like to see this happen so the deadline blows out, as Scott is apparently on annual leave right now, so I'm not likely to get things clarified before the deadline.
What I'm acutely aware of is that Scott's PR skills aren't always the best. So the canned spin I've gotten is just as likely to be Scott badly answering what should have been a simple confirmation of things set in stone, as it is him being evasive on orders by upper management. However I simply don't trust Mattel enough too make that gamble.
The deadline blowing out would mean that Scott would return from annual leave before the preorder period ends and hopefully I can get the clarification I need to feel comfortable with going ahead and preordering one.
On the contrary, if Mattel can guarantee that there are no dodgy switcheroos which will take place after the preorder period, my reservations with this go right out the window and I preorder.
My issue and stance hasn't changed. The problem is that people keep trying to argue points that are irrelevant to that issue. People can scream til the cows come home that the Four Horsemen are working on this now and that everything has been promised now in terms of features.
The problem is that the exact same thing happened in terms of Hoverboard promises - only for it all to be thrown out the window when the preorder period ended and I have yet to see anything from Mattel explicitly stating that the same thing wont happen here.
So you're saying that the Ghostbusters figures were the same quality when the in house teams took over them as compared to when the Four Horsemen were doing them? That's the worry with Castle Grayskull, that they decide that Castle Grayskull isn't "profitable" enough to justify this, and they take the Horsemen off the project and put one of their cheaper in house teams on it. Remember that for Mattel, profitable=retail lines.
Again, that says nothing about Mattel throwing out the game plan and changing it completely after the preorder period when people are locked in to getting one.
Analogously speaking, you're dead wrong. They're both very different animals, I agree. However figuratively speaking, they share the same zookeeper (Mattel), are in the same Zoo (mattycollector.com) and face the same animal husbandry issues (design teams being pulled and switched, quality dropping, etc). It's that figurative animal cruelty and neglect which is the issue here.
And what in Matty's entire history has ever given you reason that they will change their pattern of complete ineptness and accomplish such a feat in 2013? Wait, you were saying that they would have to accomplish the impossible to get people to trust them with this preorder now... I see. Well, I still say that the "MySubscriptions Page" that has been promised for years, will not be up before the January 2013 items ship. Anyone want to make any friendly wagers on this? PM me! 
Setting up a page like this would take any e-tailer or web site engineer no more than 2 months to iron out, even taking into consideration numerous billing and internal site logistics issues, but they haven't been able to do this for more than a year after they said they would, even though it would have saved them hundreds of subs from cancelling due to credit card and address changes. Lets not forget that just making this page should not have even been necessary, but for the fact that Digital river was never even meant to sell physical product much less a subscription that would need to bill over the time of a cc expiration.
We hear ya. Now- as Paul McCartney would say- just let it be.
