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New Fortnite From Jazwares in 2022: An Interview with Mike DeCamp and Enrique Ruvalcaba
478 Plays4 years ago
This week, Dave and Erik are rejoined by returning guest Mike DeCamp of Jazwares and he brought with him his colleague Enrique Ruvalcaba to discuss the details of the new Fortnite product hitting shelves now and what's on the horizon for 2022! They even take time to answer some of YOUR burning Fortnite questions.
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Intro and other voices by Joe Azzari
https://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/
Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie Dandies
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Update
00:00:02
Speaker
Are you ready, kids? Get your parents' permission, check your mailbox, and grab your shopping cart. It's time for the Adventures in Collecting podcast. I'm Eric. And I'm Dave. Welcome to Adventures in Collecting, where we talk toy news, culture, and halls, along with our journeys as collectors. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Adventures in Collecting. Hi.
00:00:33
Speaker
Dave, we're back. No AIC 120 this week. We got a little surprise, a little full length episode on an off week. Yeah. No news is good news for everybody. There will be news.
00:00:50
Speaker
in this episode. There will be some new news.
New York Toy Fair Cancellation
00:00:55
Speaker
So for those of you that are unaware, we would be rapidly, as this episode airs, we would be rapidly approaching New York Toy Fair. And if you haven't heard at this point, New York Toy Fair has been canceled. So at New York Toy Fair, the press, the toy makers, the marketers,
00:01:16
Speaker
Um, it's basically closed to an industry event, but it gives, uh, in a lot of instances, the press access to, you know, uh, people in the toy industry and gives us a chance to talk to them about the things that they're showing off and, and getting ready to, uh, you know, send out to retailers, you know, in the, in the coming months. So today is kind of like our replacement for that with a couple of our, our friends from jazzwares that did I get that right, Dave? Is that.
00:01:48
Speaker
You might have, but that's okay. Yeah, I think you've already kind of unburied the lead. I just think I'm going to let you go on. Perfect. So Fortnite continues to be an immensely popular franchise, the world over.
00:02:07
Speaker
and its presence in the toy industry is larger than ever.
Jazwares' Fortnite Action Figures with Guests
00:02:11
Speaker
Returning to the show to walk us through what's new in the world of Jazwear's Fortnite action figures is friend of the pod and senior business development manager at Jazwear's Mike DeCamp and first time guest, Jazwear's marketing director, Enrique Ruvalcaba. Enrique, Mike, welcome to the show. Hi, guys. Hey, what's up? Thanks for having me back.
00:02:35
Speaker
We really gotta work on getting Mike a jacket now at this point. He needs an Adventures of Collecting Members Only jacket or something. Yeah. Oh, so here for this. Yeah, you're just set in records. This is your fourth appearance on the show.
00:02:52
Speaker
Yeah. And let me just take a moment to congratulate you guys on all the growth and all the hard work that you guys have put in. I mean, it's the one, one of the few things that's kept me like connected throughout this pandemic. And I always look forward to see what you guys are up to next. So congrats on all the growth. Thank you very much. Thank you Mike. Thank you.
00:03:13
Speaker
So Enrique, since this is your first time on the show, we're going to format this a little bit differently than we do our normal episodes only because this is kind of like we want to get that Toy Fair vibe. But before we get into the new product stuff, tell us a little bit about what you do at Jazzwares. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, first of all, for inviting me on and, you know,
00:03:42
Speaker
I've been in the industry for a long time and I've done a few shows here and there. And so it's always super cool to touch base with the community. And I love talking action figures and I've been doing it for a long time. I worked at Jack's Pacific. I worked at Mattel and I've worked on some of the biggest brands, you know, Batman, Warner Brothers, WWE.
00:04:07
Speaker
Um, and now obviously I'm on Fortnite. So as a, as a director of brand, I mostly oversee, uh, the strategy of the product line, sort of, you know, what scales are we going to make? Um, Mike and I work together on sort of what, what outfits we're going to put out. Uh, I work with retailers on saying pricing, you know, are we going to do vehicles? Are we going to do play sets? Um, I travel a little bit here and there and
00:04:37
Speaker
pitch to all of our partners and obviously we work very, very closely with Epic Games and our agent, IMG, who sort of works with the both of us. So a little bit of everything, but mostly the brand strategy overall. Well, once again, welcome to the show. We're excited to have you on and excited to get your perspective on what is one of our favorite product offerings. So we're really excited.
00:05:07
Speaker
Yeah, me too. All right, so jumping straight in into the brand new micro legendary series. What was the thought behind introducing a two and a half inch scale line? So one of the things that I like to reference often is as somebody who's been in the action figure world for a long time, I like to sort of understand where we've been and where we're going.
00:05:38
Speaker
I think one of the most sort of, and it's not just me, right? It's like everybody in the world, everybody who's a fan of action figures knows that what Kenner did way back was revolutionary and sort of, you know, at the time it was all 12 inch figures, right? I think you could even probably call them dolls back then, the GI Joes, right?
00:05:59
Speaker
And so when Lucas came out with the movie, they thought, hey, how are we going to do all these awesome vehicles, you know, TIE fighters and X-wings and everything. And so they decided to shrink down the scale. And that that challenge sort of still exists in our world. And so.
00:06:17
Speaker
Fortnite is such an awesome world, such an awesome universe and it's so big and it literally just doubled in size this last chapter, right? Like literally the world flipped on its head and now there's this whole another, you know, almost universe to it. So it's a big big world. There's cool sort of environments, POIs, vehicles,
00:06:39
Speaker
There's the Klombo dinosaur now slash monster. So how do we do all these really cool things? Well, we got to take our scale down. So we're going to keep the awesome articulation that we have and great deco. Hopefully you guys agree out there that we do some of the best figures, if not the very best figures in the market. And so they're going to stay awesome, but we're going to go down the scale so that we can do bigger, cooler things.
00:07:05
Speaker
And for me, like, this is such a throwback to like mask that it's like, it's awesome. I was immediately kind of all in when I saw these. And or when I when we, you know, Mike had mentioned these, and then I see them and now I have like, like I have carbide in my hand right now.
00:07:24
Speaker
These are unreal, like just what they do. The sheer joy I have just kind of putting him in different positions and getting him in different spots on my desk is super cool.
00:07:39
Speaker
And thanks for picking them up, you guys, you know, it's, it's been really exciting as they start to hit shelves and penetrate the market to see like, you know, you guys are definitely taste makers in the community. And as you guys adopt them, you know, word spreads and I can't wait to see, you know, four months or six months from now, what the photography community is doing because I mean, like,
00:08:04
Speaker
I love my massive figures and I love some of the even bigger things that have come out over the last 12 months.
00:08:11
Speaker
my stage is only so big. I can't fit all that stuff in front of my camera. So to have this new micro scale and have it upholding that legendary name, they're sculpted by Dave Cortez. So the hand is the same as the former six-inch line. We've got the best and brightest. The team has exploded from the days when the line started.
00:08:38
Speaker
So we've tripled our amount of people on this team. We have really great new people in leadership positions like Enrique, and they're all just like fans. So I can't wait to see what you guys think of what's next too. It's always been fun watching across the lines. So whether it's the
00:09:03
Speaker
Whether it was the now retired six inch and seven inch legendary and brawler series or the ongoing four inch series and now that this micro legendary series, you can really tell that these figures are a labor of love because they're doing things that are
00:09:23
Speaker
not common for both the scale and the price point, frankly. That's showing. The shelves show that too, right? It was almost like a shock drop, to use an old Fortnite term, that these came out.
00:09:50
Speaker
Now they're gone. We saw them on shelves for a couple of days after the initial drop here in New Jersey, where Dave and I found them at targets that were about a half hour away from each other. They're now gone. You can't find them. Whether it's the flush factory that people are finding at Walmart, which we'll get into that
00:10:15
Speaker
a little bit later, or the actual figures themselves, I mean, they're now cleared out.
00:10:22
Speaker
And that's definitely a blessing and a curse because we want everybody who wants them to be able to get them and to experience them. But as far as initial reads, that's great. But now it's really going to come down to the challenge of supply chain that everybody is talking about to make sure that we're balancing our strategy and making sure that we're hitting product in the right places where people can find it.
Loop Breaker Concept
00:10:51
Speaker
So aside from this being a new scale and kind of all of the play possibilities that are now opened up by shrinking the scale down, you guys also introduced the Loop Breaker moniker that is showing up on some of the packaging. Can you tell us a little bit about why, or frankly, what that term means and what separates those skins from the others?
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah, so, you know, Fortnite's been around for a little while and it's been amazing, right? My son's been playing it for a long time. I've been playing it for a while. And there's been so much excitement around the brand and there was no toys for a while. So when we first put them out, it almost didn't matter what characters we did.
00:11:50
Speaker
You know, it was a bit of a frenzy and I think we were either the number one brand that year or for sure in the top three, we were just blowing out like crazy. And so what we did from a character selection perspective is we just kind of put out awesome figures, you know? Not a tremendous amount of sort of like theming. As we go forward with Micro, what we decided to do
00:12:18
Speaker
differently with micro is go in more chronological order. So the figures that you see out there right now, if you've got a sharp eye, you'll notice they're from chapter one, season one, two, and three.
00:12:34
Speaker
And so we might keep that exact same cadence, but regardless, we're gonna go sort of in order. So we're gonna go season four, five, six, 79, et cetera, et cetera. So the loop breaker, the loop breaker is our opportunity to sort of not miss out on really cool outfits that the community wants. So the first one we did was zero. And so he's not necessarily from
00:13:03
Speaker
Chapter one, right? So the moniker loop breaker allows us to sort of cheat, you know, if you will, and, and just put out like really cool characters that are not necessarily in linear order.
00:13:16
Speaker
Gotcha, so it's it's not it's not a question of a because I know some of the kind of the community's response to it I mean the fortnight community is a very passionate one Immediately people are thinking like is it something that has to do with the comic like they you know They broke the loop so they're off the island and like they're trying to tie in or is it like a rarity thing like the loop breaker ones are gonna be more rare than the other ones it is it is purely a a way to kind of break the timeline
00:13:46
Speaker
without breaking the release schedule effectively. Right. Which already goes into answering the next question where we've seen these early characters in the product offering. And will we see some of the newer characters kind of jump the line as like a loop breaker, like a cube queen or a shanta?
00:14:11
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's so funny. We're talking about the cube and Mike and I just maybe a few weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, we were working on something for Walmart and that was an exact idea that we pitched to them was Cube Queen with a, you know, buildable cube in scale. Really, really cool. I loved the idea. It was all Mike, by the way.
00:14:41
Speaker
And so we pitched it. Ultimately, I'm not sure if it's going to go forward. But to answer your question overall, absolutely. I mean, I think you'll see more of the newer characters just, again, because of the strategy of sort of going in chronological order with micro. You're going to see more of the new characters sooner in the four-inch line. Obviously, again, we love the loop breaker.
00:15:11
Speaker
it doesn't have to be like one per wave. We can fudge here and there and there's always con exclusives and there's different international exclusives and different ways to get out.
00:15:26
Speaker
Um, a loop breaker that somebody really wants. So, you know, I'm particularly interested in, you know, the seven and the foundation and maybe that's an opportunity. Um, so yeah, I think that the answer is for sure. Uh, we can definitely, uh, look for some of those really cool outfits that are out now. So while we're kind of talking about the characters that are on deck, um, you know, and,
00:15:54
Speaker
You know something that we've kind of alluded to several times now is that Fortnite introduces so many new skins and variants of old skins on a weekly basis.
00:16:05
Speaker
So in terms of character selection, do you guys get, just, just out of curiosity, do you guys get like an advanced look for
Collaboration with Epic Games
00:16:13
Speaker
Epic on things that they see as a particular merchant, merchandising opportunity? Like, I think of like the skins that like, you know, have become kind of like household skins for Fortnite, whether it's, you know, Peely or meowsles or, you know, uh, or, or tomato head, right? Like, like the ones that have become, um, you know,
00:16:34
Speaker
Kind of iconic Do they ever give you kind of like a heads up like hey? you know we have this one that we think is gonna be really cool or is it really like You know you guys see them, and then you know then you kind of have to mobilize around them
00:16:51
Speaker
From my standpoint, I think that Epic is just one of the most tremendous partners we've had in jazzwares history. There's been many opportunities for us to collaborate with them since the line began. Of course, as business grows and as their business grows, those opportunities are a little bit harder to come together with just because of scheduling and COVID and everything over the last
00:17:19
Speaker
like two years, but they're amazing with letting us know when something's really popping off now. Enrique works very closely with our partners at IMG who kind of quarterback conversations between us and Epic when scheduling gets challenging.
00:17:36
Speaker
So yeah, it's a very open two-way avenue. But it's also fun to try and wow them as well. We like to demonstrate our expertise in the game and our knowledge base of the game. So that's also really fun is to try and walk in a room and wow their creative team too. So it goes kind of both ways.
00:18:00
Speaker
So I'm going to push you on that one. So when was the last time that, can you think of an instance where you got to walk in and be like, yeah, look at this toy that we created based on the assets. How awesome is this thing? Yeah, totally. I think the one where our paths crossed with a lot of
00:18:26
Speaker
whatever buzzword you want to put on it, like synergy or anything like that was the chapter one box set. We understood that to be a very, very high caliber opportunity for jazzwares because we were offering an exclusive figure, we were getting to lean on our tooling catalog a little bit.
00:18:46
Speaker
And at the same time, their creative team had basically the same idea. So we both kind of met in the middle and I was like, oh wow, this is awesome.
00:18:56
Speaker
And even more recently, the loop breaker title was something that we had on our sketch pads and in our drawing board. And it wasn't until the latest chapter rolled over when there was an idea that there's actually loop breakers in the game. So there's these really great moments. And there's been a few. There's been a few. That's awesome.
00:19:26
Speaker
So we've seen the Flush Factory playset spotted in Walmart's. Fortnite is of course known for a lot of wild locations on its ever-changing map. What other places can we expect to see whether it's in the micro series or represented in the four-inch line? I think that that's a really good question, first of all. Thank you so much.
00:19:54
Speaker
But it's one of those questions where I sort of want to, you know, flip it a little bit and kind of ask, you know, you guys, obviously, you know, you, Dave and Eric, you know what you would like to see. And also, you know, the community. There's so many. So, you know, like I mentioned, Fortnite is such an awesome world with, and their POIs are so iconic.
00:20:21
Speaker
You know, you get kind of both sides, right? So some fans think, you know, I love till the towers, why did they take it away? And then other fans go, dude, the map hasn't changed in a year, you know, so there's different perspectives on it. But there's so many cool locations that we can do. I would love to know
00:20:43
Speaker
what you guys, and I mean that, you know, like everybody in the community, what would you like to see? I personally have always been a fan of, you know, when I used to drop, like right in the middle, either the agency or the authority. Like to me, those would be such amazing playsets. I love the whole Midas, you know, story arc and the bosses of those seasons. And it was so cool, you know, with the moat and the helipad
00:21:14
Speaker
I just think that it would translate really well to a really cool play set. Ooh, I like this. You know what I think would be really cool? Like modular IO guard locations.
00:21:32
Speaker
where you kind of get the little outbuildings. And again, I'm thinking specifically in the Microline, just because I feel like it's made for instances like this, where you can build your own IO Guard station based on the pieces that you have. Because each one is a little bit different. And maybe pack in an exclusive IO Guard. I think that would be a really fun set.
00:22:00
Speaker
And I also really like on the new map, I like the, I'm still remembering all the names of all the locations, but I like the, it's like the dirt racetrack. Oh yeah, I love that.
00:22:13
Speaker
I think that would be an awesome set because like just just to like getting like the the the cars on the big you know monster truck wheels and stuff like that like those are things and play items that really outside of a micro scale like outside of that that you know the 2.5 inch scale it's gonna be really tough to like scale up and make that
00:22:41
Speaker
But I feel like now that we're down to this scale, like all of these new possibilities, you know, I feel like are here. Yeah, like I usually hop into like the Joneses or sanctuary or even like on the last season or the last chapter of the last season, the convergence was a great place to drop into too. But even now with like the clombos even dropping into like the desert is cool.
00:23:11
Speaker
Yeah, those guys are so cool. They're adorable. Yeah, just throw berries at them.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds like you guys hit it right on the head and Eric, to your point, this is the backbone of creating a microline as it uncorks all of these possibilities and it will be tremendous for us to hear from you guys because that's one thing that we always want to do is be ear to the ground and listening and have our finger on the pulse of what the community is looking for.
00:23:47
Speaker
And it's been amazing. If you look at the flush set when you get one in your hands, Flush Factory was a massive POI, but we were able to kind of distill it down to a few really key components that allow you to fill in the gaps with your imagination.
00:24:08
Speaker
And just totally off the rails, this is not indicative of any of our future plans, but I would love, love, love to do the Ice King's castle and the dragons, the devourer with his big eye and stuff. So these are the things that just, I mean, it really
00:24:32
Speaker
Hate to say on corks again, but it really it really unpacks a lot of the possibilities of doing all these fun things I feel like to if we don't mention it he's gonna kill us But if there were additional play sets and you know points of interest I feel like the butter barn would have to be high up on the list. Otherwise Yuma is gonna Gonna flip. Yeah. Oh the butter barn would roll. Oh
00:24:56
Speaker
Yeah, you know, it's so crazy how something like man cake is even a thing, but it's just the greatest character design. Oh, you mean a spaghetti western stack of pancakes? With the butter bandoliers. You know, I saw just this morning, I forget what the title was, but like it was something along the lines of like best birthday ever.
00:25:20
Speaker
And somebody's mother made them a cake, like an ice cream cake, that was in the shape of a stack of pancakes with a face on it. And it was so funny. It was man cake. And people just resonate with that kind of stuff. The only thing that's better than a stack of pancakes that happens to be a cowboy is the skin variant where the stack of pancakes that happens to be a cowboy has a mustache.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think that's the one that's on the cross cell for the Microline is to keep the game with the name. Well, you know, we've talked about, you know, kind of putting the question out to us. And by the way, once this episode airs, I will absolutely put a post up and we'll collect wants from the community for you guys. We will absolutely do that. We'd be happy to do it.
00:26:23
Speaker
With both the micro line and the 4-inch line, we've seen these new vehicles and accessories, the new pickup truck and the new race car and the big rig and everything. Are there more vehicles than what we've seen already and more accessory packs on the way? For the 4-inch stuff?
00:26:49
Speaker
Just in general, for the four-inch stuff, for the micro line? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Can't really tell you which ones, but yeah, it's a certainty, definitely. Fair. Yeah, I think so, to Mike's point, right, with the four-inch, we've done a lot, including recently our reboot van, which
00:27:13
Speaker
did pretty well. And then I believe right now we have the mud flap out there. So we've done a lot in the four inch line. So we've done whiplash and we've done the bus, of course. So with micro, we're just starting. So this is another one where maybe we can get some feedback. But we could do it one of two ways. What we decided to do early on with micro is kind of divert a little bit. So we don't want to put out the exact same
00:27:43
Speaker
vehicles, you know, in both lines. So we're sort of, you know, taking a slightly different turn with with micro to do different types of vehicles. But obviously, you got to do, you know, the classics, you know, we were talking about chonker Speedway and whatnot, like
00:27:58
Speaker
There's so many cool things. To the accessory point though, we did do like loot boxes and crates before and chests. And those ones didn't necessarily, they weren't our best sellers. So I don't think we're gonna see a lot of like pure accessories, but I think we're going to do more accessories in the multi-packs that we're doing.
00:28:27
Speaker
We have a really great opportunity right now. And I mentioned, you know, one of my big things is I work with all of our retail partners, you know, Walmart and Target and everybody else around the world. And so they all want something kind of unique, different. So you're going to see a lot more, this is maybe for the next question or maybe the previous question, but you can see a lot more variance, but also variety and accessories in the pack.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah. And speaking of which that, that four pack, um, I definitely picked it up with a cuddle team leader and Peely, um, and a bunch of accessories in it. Uh, it's a great entry point to get in because you're basically getting a squad and multiple people to, or multiple characters to pose with. Um, so yeah. Um, are there more of those different varieties of multi-packs planned?
00:29:21
Speaker
Yeah, I want to shout out and I would love to hear obviously more from Mike, but before he goes, I just want to tell everybody out there in the community. If you don't know Mike, he is the absolute man. He knows his stuff. He comes up with the greatest ideas over the past few weeks and months.
00:29:43
Speaker
He and I have been working pretty closely on this exact thing. Like how do you do, you know, you guys were talking earlier about the different sort of styles, you know, like school trooper is one that comes to mind, right? So you've got like regular school trooper, you've got inverted school trooper, you've got purple, you've got the gilded, you know, there's so many different versions. And that works out nicely for us, you know, because we can get those characters out quicker.
00:30:13
Speaker
because we don't have the tool from scratch. We can borrow pieces and do a little bit more of a slightly easier execution. Mike has come up with some amazing multi-packs. It's good news, bad news because some of those are going to be UK exclusives, but you're going to see a lot of cool variants coming out.
00:30:37
Speaker
Yeah, we refer to Mike often on Instagram as our favorite toy mad scientist because the stuff that we know he's responsible for, that he's very quiet about, is way more than he often gets credit for. We know what you're up to over there, Mike.
00:31:00
Speaker
Well, you know, it's been a really, really great experience having Enrique come in and he's so full of knowledge and a long career in toys where he understands the value of strong themes and he'll just say like, alright, well, you know, tell me more or get me more and we just sit there and kind of just dream stuff up like constantly.
00:31:27
Speaker
It's been great to have his support in those exercises because they'll ask me for, you know, a certain X amount of strategies and I get, you know, I'll shut myself in all weekend and just be here dreaming up like, oh, what if, what if, what if, you know. And now a word from our sponsors. And now back to the show.
00:31:54
Speaker
Well, like we said at the top of the show, New York Toy Fair is usually our chance to get kind of a look into the future. And while that's not happening this year, we did get some press images from the London Toy Fair. And we saw a lot of the new stuff that's hitting the shelves now, the new line look for the 4-inch line, which by the way, the new packaging looks fantastic, guys.
00:32:20
Speaker
And we saw the microline. We saw some things that are coming to the microline in the future, perhaps, like a particular food truck. But we did also see the master grade subline coming to the 4-inch line. Is there anything that you can tell us about that? Because outside of the images, I don't think there's any information out there.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah, a tricky one. Let's see. So yeah, so look, here's the deal. You know, you guys, you guys have been doing this for a long time. And, you know, these shows, especially these days with COVID, they're even more closed doors than they were before. So there's not supposed to be any photos or
00:33:06
Speaker
It's just coming out but you know every once in a while there's a leak and it does get out there and so I think that you know What's there? I've seen the images and it's a little bit hard to see you know what's out there But I can tell you this I can tell you that yes, we are going to be doing a master grade series
00:33:26
Speaker
And this is an opportunity for us to sort of, if, you know, if you don't mind, you know, tell how great jazzwares is, you know, we do so many lines other than Fortnite, you know, we do Pokemon and Halo and a whole bunch of like, you know, AW UFC, really cool action figure lines. And so we're, we're dedicated to making Fortnite not only a great
00:33:52
Speaker
you know, toy line that represents Epic Games and the Fortnite game in a really great way, but just amazing action figures.
Master Grade Series Innovation
00:34:03
Speaker
And so, you know, when we sit back and we think about what does it mean to be a master grade figure, you know?
00:34:14
Speaker
And how far can we push the envelope with a four inch figure? So what you're going to see in the MasterGrade series is you're going to see us push the limit of what it means to be an action figure. And I know that's maybe a little bit lofty, but you know, let me give you just some potential ideas, right? So in the game in Fortnite, you know, they have so many cool skins.
00:34:37
Speaker
The one that just comes to mind is galaxy, right? So galaxy literally has a galaxy in the chest. So, and there's like stars and like, how do you recreate that? It's kind of like a lava lamp, you know, it's kind of weird. And there's reactive skins, right? Where the more kills you get, the sort of more deco, if you will, or graphics appear.
00:35:00
Speaker
So we're looking at how can we deliver those experiences in an actual toy, you know? One of the things that we're looking at, again, can't promise anything or get into any specifics, but when I look back again at history and I look at some of my favorite action figures, one that like always jumps to my mind is Mossman.
00:35:26
Speaker
from Masters of the Universe because he was flocked, right? And you could like, you could feel the fuzz, you know, like a little chia pad. And so, you know, like in Fortnite, you know, you've got cuddle team leader, like what if, you know, she's a bear, like what if she had flocked skin, you know? Again, not something that we're necessarily gonna do, but that's how we like to look at the Master Grade series. It's like, how can we most accurately
00:35:54
Speaker
recreate the amazing like truly cool outfits that you see in the game. Now are these for the most part that these master grade figures are they going to be on the same kind of body with like the same kind of articulation that people can that people have expected your that people expect from the four inch line or is that also going to be something that's enhanced for the master grade.
00:36:18
Speaker
Mike can probably speak more to the technicalities of getting the product put together. I think that the answer is yes and no. Just from what I know, certain technologies do require limited articulation. So just imagine we're making a toy that lights up in the chest or something. All of a sudden, maybe he doesn't have a waist articulation. So sometimes we'll have to remove one or two points.
00:36:49
Speaker
But in other opportunities, man, I almost gave it away, but one of the very cool figures that you're going to see in the first wave, you know, has different sort of assembly, if you will. It's hard to talk about it without really talking about it. But yeah, so I think you're going to see both. I mean, Mike, what do you think about that?
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, you're gonna see very soon. And the challenge that we've put upon ourselves with the MasterGrade series is to treat each outfit specifically and design around that outfits, the things that make it beautiful or the things that make it special. And so you won't see a carbon cut articulation pattern across all figures.
00:37:38
Speaker
They do, in scale and in faith, marry into the rest of the four-inch line, but each one is treated like a piece of art. And it's an opportunity that's grown throughout the company with the inclusion of
00:37:53
Speaker
the big brains of JP, Jeremy's willingness to get behind out of the box experiences and collaborating across other brands like Gregory Mitchell and Magic Almost and really putting the best and brightest minds that we have at our disposal behind each individual character and putting something like Master Grade on them I think really typifies the philosophy that we're putting into developing these guys.
00:38:22
Speaker
So what are some of the challenges that you guys face without the ability to have key touch points like a New York Toy Fair? And what are you doing to compensate for that? That rips my heart out, man. It really does. For guys like us, Enrique has been in the business as long as I have. This will be my 22nd year, I think.
00:38:50
Speaker
It's like being detached from my family, even all the way down to some of the people that just work at Javits. I've been seeing them time and time again, year after year. I haven't traveled to Hong Kong now in going on three years. It's my favorite city on earth. I'm gutted by not being able to be there and interact with people. And that's not even speaking to our friendships and the friendships like our friendships.
00:39:20
Speaker
It's it's taken a lot to to figure out alternatives and you know jumping on this podcast with you guys is a Band-aid and an alternative because and we're thankful to you guys for stepping up and putting this together breaking your schedule to make time for us because We have a very tough job ahead of us if this is gonna continue, you know, I
00:39:45
Speaker
We posted, when we heartbreakingly posted the news that New York Toy Fair was being canceled again, some of the comments were like, oh, well, the virtual stuff is great because it shows people who normally don't get into Toy Fair, it shows them more transparency. It feels like they have more access than they would have had New York Toy Fair occurred as it would.
00:40:14
Speaker
And it's tough because having been, Dave and I obviously are first and foremost toy collectors and we enjoy toys, but having now done this for two years and having been to a toy fair and then having now two years where we haven't been to one,
00:40:33
Speaker
I know it sounds silly, but they're toys. They're meant to be held. They're meant to be looked upon. There is something about being in that building.
00:40:47
Speaker
going into the jazzwares booth and going behind a secret door into the Fortnite room and you know being face to face with the people that are making the products and like seeing them and like you know when you showed us that battle bus for the first time.
00:41:03
Speaker
Like, you know, now it's been on the shelves for like months. So like people are like, okay, like it's the battle bus. But like when we saw that four inch battle bus for the first time, we're both sitting there or, um, actually Frank was with me. Uh, Dave was not there that day, but like we're sitting there with our hands over our mouths like, Oh my God, I can't believe that they pulled this thing off. Yeah. There's that, there's that level of awe to it where it's like, yeah, you can get, you know, you can think that a picture of a render is really cool and it is.
00:41:33
Speaker
because you're seeing the evolution of what's happening. But there's just something about just seeing the physical presence of, you know, that figure or that toy there, where it's just like, wow, this is, you know, that's the first time you see it. Like, you can't... There's nothing that replaces it. Yeah, there's nothing that replaces it.
00:42:02
Speaker
It's it's such an amazing feeling. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you guys. There's so many there's so many cool things I and you know, you you mentioned sort of like, you know, their toys are meant to be held and meant to be, you know, gazed upon and played with and stuff and I it sounds a little silly. I still play with what I by the way, I have
00:42:22
Speaker
I have a lot of my figures from when I was a kid. I have a hundred muscles and a bag and a box somewhere. I bust them out and I still play with them. It's so cool. Even for me, and I'm sure this echoes with you guys as well as Mike, but I'm like a kid in a candy store at a toy fair.
00:42:44
Speaker
a few years back. Um, actually, man, time flies, maybe it was more than a few years back. But at licensing show, which is a very similar show to toy fairs and whatnot, I saw Stan Lee, and just walking on the floor. And I lost my mind. I was like, Oh my god, it's Stan Lee. And I ran up to him and like I shook his hand and I said, Hey, can I take a picture of a big fan? You know, and it's just like,
00:43:14
Speaker
there's no way to replace anything like that. And I know only a limited amount of people can actually enjoy those kinds of shows, but let me tie it back into the product a little bit. I'm gonna give you guys a little insight scoop here. We're talking about New York Toy Fair. And one of the things that we like to do as manufacturers is sort of like put out
00:43:38
Speaker
kind of like a thank you, you know, to the community. And we do it in various different ways, you know, sometimes we'll do like a...
00:43:45
Speaker
fan's choice, you know, or like vote on this or something like that. You know, for this particular show, we developed an exclusive micro figure to sort of, one, commemorate the show, and then two, sort of like create buzz and news around our micro segment. So I can tell you guys to, and all you fans out there and listeners and whatnot,
00:44:13
Speaker
Keep your eyes and ears out because very soon, in the next probably, sometime this month for sure, because we're February 1st, but sometime this month for sure, keep your eye on social media. We're gonna be dropping that exclusive that was supposed to be given away at New York Toy Fair. We are figuring out a way to get it into your hands. So keep your eyes and ears out.
00:44:42
Speaker
Awesome, definitely looking forward to that. Very cool. Well, with that, I think we're gonna head into some Q&A. This segment is brought to you by our friends at Chubsy Wubsy Toys. A traditional mom and pop toy store in Little Falls, New Jersey, Chubsy Wubsy Toys brings you the best new toys from the brands you love without the hassle of pounding the pavement, searching for them at larger retail stores.
00:45:10
Speaker
Visit them in person at 106 Main Street in Little Falls, New Jersey, or online at ChubsyWubsy.com. That's C-H-U-B-Z-Z-Y-W-U-B-Z-Z-Y.com. And tell them Adventures in Collecting sent you.
00:45:27
Speaker
So once we had officially locked in this time with you guys, we posted a post out on our social media asking if any of the Fortnite fans out there had any questions for you guys. And the response?
00:45:43
Speaker
No joke, this is the best response we have ever had to a Q&A in the history of doing the Q&A segment on this show. So thank you to everybody that asked questions. I wish we could get to them all, but we picked a bunch to ask. These are all really good questions and we're really excited to get them answered for you guys. Dave, would you like to take... Actually, you know what? Because I see what the second one is, I'm going to take the first one. All right, fair.
00:46:13
Speaker
Alright, so at bat 2472, which by the way, bat 2472, this kid is like, he's a 16 year old kid in Canada, and he does some of the coolest Fortnite renders I have ever seen.
00:46:32
Speaker
He sent us one that he was working on and I thought at first he was sending us a leak of something and I was like, sorry man, we don't post leaks. But it was something that he had an original thing that he created. Definitely check him out. He's, he's super cool. But with that, he asks, are you considering making more plush lines? Something like the Klombo would be an amazing plush.
00:46:59
Speaker
Well, you want to take that one. Let me just say, I was excited for you to take it. Shout out to the baddy boy, you know, he actually helped me set up my discord server. So I know exactly who you're talking about. He's a great kid, and he's extremely creative and gifted.
00:47:17
Speaker
Um, so yeah, over to you. I think, you know, what's so funny is, um, you guys were talking about how cute, um, you know, in a, in a cool way, right. Um, the Colombo is, and I think we, I think the world sort of.
00:47:35
Speaker
at the exact same time had the exact same thought was like, this is perfect for plush, you know? And so, you know, we thought of it like right away. Whether we'll be able to do it is a little bit tricky. It is something that we're working with Epic on.
00:47:57
Speaker
They have concerns about doing too many plush items because they don't want to be perceived as too young, but we think this is a home run. Agreed. I think just between gentlemen and your audience here is that Klomba is something that could work in plastic as well. There's a lot of strong playable features that could go into something like that.
00:48:26
Speaker
The trick and the tricky part with something like Clambo is we don't know how long it's gonna last. Sometimes these things come in and out of the game at lightning speed and for us to commit to something this early in its life cycle with Fortnite is just a challenge. It's crazy. You never know what's gonna stick. With the game, you really never know what's gonna stick.
00:48:52
Speaker
And I mean, like, what's cool is like Clambo, even when he's like chasing you down when he's angry, is still adorable. So it's like very, as they say, right, it is a very toy attic character, very toy attic character. Yeah. So friend of the pod at Yuma Booma asks, Are there any plans for blind experiences with the two and a half inch micro line?
00:49:21
Speaker
You know, yes and no. Again, Epic has a very particular stance against things being truly blind. So you saw it early on in the line with the llamas and with the accessory packs where there is a blind experience, but everything has to be sort of labeled and categorized.
00:49:42
Speaker
What everybody wants is the purchase decision to be easy and fulfilling for, you know, everybody who's investing into the line. So it's tricky because they're not generally and gaming in general are moving away from things like loot chests and loot boxes and stuff because of the gambling type of overlap that they're not 100% comfortable with at all times. So it's a tricky one.
00:50:14
Speaker
Do you have anything to add to that, Enrique? I think you nailed it, Mike. I think to sort of maybe pivot the question just a tad, I do think that we want to do more
00:50:34
Speaker
I guess you could call it an unboxing, you know, and maybe it's not truly a blind pack, you know, as Mike says, because of the way the relationship is. But I do think that there's opportunity to create, you know, an experience where you can, you know, go to retail and buy a little box of something and still have an experience.
Community Feedback & Future Releases
00:50:57
Speaker
We are definitely looking at that.
00:50:59
Speaker
Well I mean like you guys did the llama where you know instead what was on it but like you had this you know kind of compartment thing where you know it's actually busting open the pinata and then everything is individually bagged and like you don't know which bag you're gonna get first like like there definitely is an unboxing excuse me unboxing experience with those that you know I think is kind of like blind box adjacent right exactly exactly well put well put
00:51:28
Speaker
Shout out Yuma Booma. Yay, Yuma Booma. What a guy. Our next question comes from at Malgus Prime. Are there any lessons that you guys learned from the six inch legendary and brawler series that apply to how you move forward with the four inch and two and a half inch lines?
00:51:51
Speaker
Yeah, 100%. I mean, that was such a mold breaking experience for jazzwares to produce this caliber of figures that the legendary series and eventually the brawlers became. And there's no way to move forward, I think, with any decision on any other line that won't be seen through the lens of all the ups and downs of what the six inch legendary series and the brawlers were.
00:52:19
Speaker
Another friend of the pod, Khalil, at Caster's Corner, asks, FNT-0645 Fusion was the last figure in the old line for the 4-inch figures, but he never seemed to hit anywhere for retail and now asks a pretty high amount on the aftermarket. Is there any plans to get him back out for a wider release?
00:52:43
Speaker
Well, that's really great feedback to hear. It's tough for us to track how far things penetrate, I think, from our POS data and all of the different types of sales reads that were granted as manufacturers. So to hear that and to hear community members like Caster's Corner really lobby for things like that is a big help to us.
00:53:11
Speaker
within the four-inch line in particular and some things that Enrique highlighted earlier with the micro line is we partner with our retailers in really meaningful ways so we offer a lot of exclusives that sometimes end up in the UK only or end up somewhere like Australia.
00:53:31
Speaker
We do have the opportunity to kind of repackage that item or offer it in a squad like later on in the sale seasons or in the sales year. So it's great to hear those feedback moments from somebody like Caster. He's such a huge supporter of the line. He's one of the first always like breaking news and giving a lot of positive feedback on things. So we can't help but listen.
00:53:58
Speaker
Huge shouts to Khalil. He's you know one of our one of our best friends out there
00:54:04
Speaker
Um, and, and, and yeah, and, and, and to that point, Mike, I mean, we're always telling people, um, you know, don't be afraid to comment. Don't be afraid to like leave feedback to let, you know, to, to like, kind of like let it out. If you're, if you're having a hard time finding something or if it's not getting to you or, uh, you know, because it's, it's the way that the toy community works on internet, on the internet now, like people.
00:54:31
Speaker
are watching, like people are reading, I've said it once before on the show, actually I've said it more than once, I'll say it again, like, I promise you, the people who are behind these toys are engaged. So, you know, like, let us know and we'll make sure that it gets in front of the right eyes.
00:54:55
Speaker
And to come at us with an item number like that, I mean, you start saying FNT and I go to check my email, you know, like, oh my God, that's the language of the people who really care, you know, and it means a lot.
00:55:11
Speaker
Next question, at its Lewis Nelson asks, what are the chances that a skin that has so far only been featured in the now retired legendary or brawler series shows up in four inch or micro would love a four inch regular meowsles? This is exactly the kind of feedback we want. You know, we talked throughout the show a little bit about
00:55:39
Speaker
how expansive the the fortnite universe is and there's so many skins now um and we do have you know like as a fan right like you asked me and there was actually a question a little while ago about you know do we ever get heads up from from epic about what's coming and i can tell you obviously they know what's working you know from from a popularity perspective
00:56:08
Speaker
online and we don't necessarily get a lot of insight in that way. But I'll tell you this, we were coming out with a series for the winter and they said, hey, maybe you should swap that. And at the time, we didn't know what that was going to look like. So it was literally just a line on an Excel spreadsheet.
00:56:31
Speaker
and it was like what the heck is a polar pili you know so so yeah there's there's so many you know and then obviously it came out and we saw it and you know it's awesome right yeah so you know that's the kind of thing that there's always money in the banana stand
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah, right. Yeah. So there's always there's a room for meowsles. Absolutely. You know, there's a room for more puleys and more trigger fish and fishies and, you know, skull troopers, of course, you know, as long as you guys want it, we're going to keep making it. So follow up, I literally just thought of do you see any for especially for the skins for characters where it's like it's a different color scheme or anything along those lines?
00:57:14
Speaker
Do you see an opportunity for a Chase-style figure? Oh, I like that, Dave. That is a great question. And let me see if I can answer that question. I'm looking at the- We're old-school style collectors. We love a good Chase variant. Love, love a good Chase variant.
00:57:40
Speaker
Well, you know what? Let me say this, and I don't know if this will actually answer the question, but let me just say that, you know, I think I like, you know, obviously talking to big fans, you know, and people who know the industry. And I think we're all sort of collectors at heart, you know? I'll tell you this. I also worked on Squishmallows for a while. I went with my kids recently to just this weekend to Five Below. We bought a Bumblebee. And in the car,
00:58:11
Speaker
my little, my daughter noticed that the wing was upside down. And my gut reaction was, holy smokes, that's going to be worth a ton of money. And it was so cute, right? Because it's like, it's a little butterfly wing, but it's upside down. And like, you know, this stuff happened. So
00:58:29
Speaker
Is there an opportunity to do variants? Definitely. And chasers? Absolutely. That's something that's near and dear to my heart. And I know it's a double-edged sword, because by definition, anything that's limited edition, not everybody's going to get their hands on. And so we want to ride that line very carefully, where we do really cool, collectible, valuable items.
00:58:59
Speaker
But then, you know, sort of balance that with keeping everybody happy with what they want.
00:59:16
Speaker
Yeah, you know, there's there's always everybody has their favorites and everybody has, you know, something that like really excites us about because there's so much variety and I think we're we're approaching 1200 outfits or something introduced since the game started. So I definitely had some grails, but you see them in that first wave of micro, you know, we have
00:59:43
Speaker
the recruit, you know, Love Ranger, Wukong. Wukong has been something that I've wanted to get made in every scale. He's just, you know, like I said, Hong Kong is one of my, is my favorite city on the planet. I've spent a lot of my formative years in China. And the Monkey King is just something that really resonates with me, you know. So yeah, there's, there's a lot of opportunities like that. There's some stuff that's like,
01:00:13
Speaker
for whatever reason is just completely bonkers. And if I don't know how I would even suggest it in a meeting and have anybody entertain the thought. But yeah, there's a few that got away, but you'll probably see them in upcoming waves too. Well, that's one of those things. When I saw this question pop up, I was thinking like,
01:00:40
Speaker
like just kind of trying to think of like the most outlandish ones I could think of and think like just from an engineering point. How challenging they would be be to make only because of just like the structure of the actual figure, right? Yeah, I mean, like the fish stick was was a challenge his legs are so skinny and his feet are almost non existent, you know, but the brought
01:01:08
Speaker
Yeah, I still don't understand how you guys got that figure to where it can stand. You know, I definitely have to shout out the creative team like the designers on this line are always with their A game, you know, and and sometimes it's like a well oiled, you know, playbook that they go by and sometimes it's like a lot of late nights and these, you know, the
01:01:34
Speaker
Some of the people on, you know, the engineering side and in the China side, they all just constantly bring their A game on this line. Lines. All right. And our last question for Q&A here, friend of the pod and let's be honest, friend of the toy community writ large at Preternia asks,
01:01:59
Speaker
The 12-inch line continues to see releases overseas. Is that line continuing, or are we just seeing the runoff at this point? Yeah, that's a bittersweet one for us. 12-inch figures are not only cool, but unaffordable.
01:02:24
Speaker
They're extremely popular worldwide. They're not as big in the US as maybe they are in other markets. It's in a bit of a no man's land right now. We are definitely done manufacturing the 12-inch line.
01:02:43
Speaker
Um, maybe, you know, it's something that for sure I would like to see continued. Um, it's, it's beyond our, uh, our rights. So it's something that Epic would have to figure out. Um, but yeah, hopefully, you know, it continues, you know, we're not, we're not selfish and, you know, want to keep everything at, you know, four inch or micro or anything like that. Um, there's other scales that we know are super popular and people want to continue with. So hopefully it's something that they can, um, you know, push forward.
01:03:15
Speaker
There you go. I'm sad to bring that answer, but I'm glad we have an answer for it. So yeah, definitely bittersweet. Yeah, for sure. All right. So you guys have survived the Q&A. That's it. You made it through. All right. Congratulations. Not bad. Congratulations. Some tap dancing, but we would love to. I mean, I would love to just take my hat off and let it all fly.
01:03:44
Speaker
Listen, we understand. A victory crown for everyone for surviving the Q&A. Yes, there you go. I just want to shout out everybody, friends of the pod, people that I haven't met yet that submitted questions. Thank you. It's what really makes the machine move forward and to know that there's so many people out there passionate and thinking about the decisions that we make behind the scenes every day in really meaningful ways.
01:04:14
Speaker
means everything you know. Well thank you guys for making yourselves available to come on the show and talk about some of these things. As we had kind of talked about off air when these microfigures dropped there were a lot of questions. People had a lot of questions and I know that some of the questions that we've seen both in the Q&A and honestly the questions that were kind of made up of the bulk
01:04:44
Speaker
were from, or made up the bulk, were from questions that we had either seen or received after we started posting pictures. So thank you guys for helping get the information out there. But before we let you go, tell us, where can we keep our eyes peeled to get the latest information about Fortnite? Where can we follow you guys? Let us know where we can find the information on the interwebs.
01:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, let me make a couple of... I just want to make sure fans out there kind of know what's happening. So I mentioned this New York Toy Story exclusive. Keep your eyes and ears open for that. Make sure to visit GameStop. We've got something very cool.
01:05:37
Speaker
dropping there and it's going to be a very rare figure so you're gonna have to go there often and maybe have to elbow a little bit here and there but something very very cool coming very soon I think by the end of this month.
01:05:55
Speaker
Obviously, micros dropping, it's going to be at Walmart starting probably. So, you know, we talked a little bit about the flush factories being out there. But figures, I think they pushed back their planagram set. So I think in the next couple of weeks, that'll be out. And we've got more stuff coming from Solo, what we call Solo, but basically our four inch single packs.
01:06:18
Speaker
cool kind of variants. You know, maybe we can come back once you guys know what those are so we can talk about kind of what the strategy was there too. But lots of cool stuff coming. Keep your eyes open. Obviously, we have our own jazzwares social media, but we also partner with Epic. So just kind of obviously, you know, a podcast like yours and just, you know, keep your eyes and ears open and there's more cool stuff coming.
01:06:47
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely want to second that. We produce so many figures, different scales, and we're constantly working with Epic to get these things blessed and concepts figured out and everything. So sometimes, like in the instance of the micro, our marketing falls a little behind because of whatever it might be, rush approvals on the new sculpts and the decos and everything.
01:07:17
Speaker
Follow jazz where's that stuff is gonna start hitting the airwaves like briefly after this podcast airs and it's just one of those things where like like you guys said earlier. A few pieces hit the market but there's a lot more following that it's gonna be a very long train it's gonna have a long tail.
01:07:35
Speaker
So our marketing and announcements and everything will be lockstep with what you're seeing on shelves soon. It's just, in this instance, we were caught a little bit off guard by how quickly the product actually made it to the shelves. So kudos to Target, shout out to them for doing an amazing job of getting stuff into the ports and out of the back rooms and into the hands of everybody who is waiting for something new.
01:08:00
Speaker
But you know and thanks to you guys for helping us get in front of the people with the questions and put a little bit of those concerns to bed like as quickly as we could.
01:08:11
Speaker
Well, as always, it's a pleasure having you guys on. Yes, thank you so much for coming on.
Future Podcast Plans
01:08:18
Speaker
And like we've said in the past, Mike, and now Enrique, we'd absolutely love to have you back on. Once there's more new stuff to talk about, let's do it. Let's come back and do some more Fortnite chat. Cool, cool, cool. Absolutely.
01:08:39
Speaker
Thank you, dear listener, for hanging out with us today. Subscribe, rate, and review us wherever you listen, and then tell your friends to do it. Thanks also to Joe Azari, the golden voice behind our intro. Our music is Game Boy Horror by the Zombie Dandies. Find more about them both on our show notes.
01:08:56
Speaker
Follow us on social media at AIC underscore podcast on Instagram and Twitter. Stop by and say hi. Show us your toy hauls and share your toy stories. Maybe we'll talk about it in a future episode.
01:09:19
Speaker
This has been a non-productive media presentation. Executive producer Frank Kablaui. This program and many others like it on the non-productive network is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives license. Please share it, but ask before trying to change it or sell it. For more information, visit non-productive.com.
01:09:51
Speaker
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