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Fortnite Extravaganza: An Interview with Jazwares' Mike De Camp
350 Plays4 years ago
On this episode, Dave and Erik sit down with Jazwares' Senior Manager of Business Development and award-winning toy creator, Mike De Camp! We talk all things Fortnite, our personal connections with incredible toys, breaking into Twitch streaming, and more!
Follow Mike on Instagram @mikedecamp
Catch Mike's Twitch streams as Rekt Agent twitch.tv/rektagent
Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube
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 to Adventures in Collecting
00:00:22
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.
00:00:33
Speaker
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. All right. Welcome back. We're back. We're Adventures in Collecting. Hi. Dave, we're here again. I feel like that's the way we open every show. We're back. Hi.
00:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, we're back. Hi. Yeah. Yeah. You're like the straight man. We're the toy version of Laurel and Hardy. Yeah. Hi and yeah are my catchphrases. Well, like usual, when we have something special here, we're not going to bury
Guest Introduction: Mike DeCamp
00:01:17
Speaker
the lead. We have a guest with us today, Dave. Yep.
00:01:21
Speaker
We do. And our, our guest is, is extra special because, uh, this is his second time on the show. Uh, so, so joining us once again on the pod is the rec agent himself, Dave, senior business development manager at jazzwares and the man who oversees all of the Fortnite stuff that jazzwares puts out. I of course, I'm talking about Mike DeCamp. Awesome. Welcome back, Mike.
00:01:47
Speaker
Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be to be the alumnus of some sort. This is a killer. Yeah, it's eventually going to be hopefully like that Saturday Night Live bit when, you know, all of the past hosts who have hosted multiple times like Don, they're just smoking jackets and and meet in like the private parlor pre-show. I'm so down for that. You need a jacket. Add it to the list, add it to the list.
00:02:16
Speaker
So Mike, last time we had you on, uh, we were talking about this a little bit before we started rolling. It was February and we were, uh, in the midst of toy fair mania standing in the, the incredibly awesome jazz wears booth talking about Fortnite toys. But now that we have you here and we have you on the show proper, the first thing we always like to ask our guests is what they're collecting right now. So, so Mike, what, what, what are you collecting?
Mike's Pandemic Collecting Experience
00:02:44
Speaker
Uh, dust during the pandemic. Um, you know, the Amazon boxes have been flowing like water. It's pretty much all over the place. Uh, I fell into the slippery slope of mega constructs, micro figures. All right. Interesting. So like, uh, yeah, the Halo stuff I think is brilliant. They did all this great Star Trek and Ninja Turtle and stuff.
00:03:11
Speaker
They created a unique platform that gave them access to pretty much carte blanc with licenses. That's off to them. Yeah. They're a bit into that blind bag aspect too, right? Don't they have some stuff where you have the blind packaging and you don't know who you're going to get? Yeah. They have a great distribution. I'm finding these things at even dollar stores.
00:03:38
Speaker
They're all over the place, but for the chases, I'm on eBay too. So what's your favorite IP so far? I know you mentioned Halo, but what's your favorite IP that they're working with at the moment? I really like the Halo stuff, and they do Call of Duty as well that look just tremendously detailed.
00:04:01
Speaker
You have these shipping containers that are blind boxes. They come with assorted accessories and figures that you have to assemble. It's more or less like an activity and a toy, so I really like that during these times. Yeah, I think I heard somebody refer to them, because I've definitely seen them before in the toy aisle, but I think I heard somebody refer to them as articulated Legos.
00:04:30
Speaker
There is tremendous the amount of engineering they've put into that stuff. It's incredible. Just blown away.
Journey into the Toy Industry
00:04:38
Speaker
So, Mike, before we get into all things Fortnite, tell us how you got into the world of toys. You know, it was it was a gentleman that you may have had on the show or you should probably have on the show's names, Jesse Dostasio.
00:04:54
Speaker
And he has his own YouTube show called Toy Pizza, and they do a action figure of the month, the kind of collector's club, and his IP that he has originated with, another gentleman, Nicholas Fum, is called Knights of the Slice. So Jesse was somebody that I went to art school with way back in 1999 or 2000, and
00:05:21
Speaker
We started collaborating. I was a comic book, aspiring comic book illustrator. And Jesse was like this insane idea guy, like a toy collector. So he got hired at jazzwares when jazzwares is still extremely small. And I was his intern. So jazzwares shortly after they picked up the Pokemon license and
00:05:47
Speaker
and rolled over from being a housewares company, which is where the name of the company actually comes from. My boss's initials, J-A-Z, and where's was for housewares.
00:06:02
Speaker
He brought me on as basically the technical artist before the whole universe of CAD and 3D programs. I was the guy I would sit there and do front, side, top, bottom, and exploded views of characters by hand that we would pass over to our Hong Kong associates for sculpting and tooling and that type of stuff.
00:06:27
Speaker
So in those early days when you were doing some of that stuff by hand, do you have any of those toys that you originally worked on? I do. I have a lot of them. I'm one of those crazy hoarders slash archivists. And fortunately enough, my boss is too. So we have a vault in the central area in jazzwares that houses two of everything we've ever made.
00:06:55
Speaker
And I have my own personal collection of some of the highlights, but I can always rest assured that I can at least go to work and kind of pick up and smell some of those really, really early toys.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah, that that that's huge. And I mean, you don't have to apologize here for being a toy hoarder. Remember, you're on a show about collecting toys. So, yeah, it's always cool to see, too, like that, you know, the people that make the things that we collect love them just as much as as we do, just to kind of almost like keep that that historical collection of stuff.
Jazzwares' Brand Portfolio
00:07:33
Speaker
It's tremendous, you know, the toy community is so
00:07:38
Speaker
giving and a sharing bunch where like now that jazzwares has kind of matured and transformed into this global company, like on places like Instagram and Twitter, through our hashtags, I'll see, you know, very young kids collecting the really early stuff like street fighters, somebody just DM'd me on Instagram with a picture of like a Ryu street fighter action figure. He's like,
00:08:04
Speaker
I just noticed this has jazz wares in the, in the legal line on this thing. Holy crap. I never knew. Yeah. And I mean, you guys, it's an understatement to say that you guys are everywhere now. I mean, you, you really are everywhere. We, we were fortunate enough to have Jeremy, uh, power on a few episodes ago. And we were talking mostly about the AEW line and a lot of the Pokemon stuff, but it's one of those things where when we visited you guys at toy fair.
00:08:33
Speaker
Like we left the booth, like scratching our heads for like micromachines and Pokemon and nerf. And like, where, how did we not know all of these brands were jazzwares brands? And then of course with the AEW line and the, and the UFC stuff coming out, it's like, you guys are, are literally everywhere. Like you are covering so much ground. It's, it's incredible. Yeah. We're, we're led by some visionaries, a gentleman like Jeremy and where they just have
00:09:03
Speaker
a sixth sense for, you know, what like Jeremy and his investment grade collecting and Judd, who's very much a long, lifelong kind of geek with a vision for bringing unique things to the marketplace. I just have the fortune of kind of learning from those guys and gaining experience through them by our relationships.
Personal Toy Memories
00:09:33
Speaker
has been a company that looks at long-term prospects and tries to forge very meaningful long-term relationships. We still work with some of our very first factories, and as we've grown, they've grown. So I feel there's a little bit of karma involved with our success as well.
00:09:57
Speaker
So going back to your relationship with toys, in all of the toys that you've produced over the years and continue to, do you ever go back to some of the toys that you had as a kid for inspiration? Constantly. Absolutely. My parents divorced when I was very, very young. I think I was only two or something like that. So my grandfather, we lived in New Jersey, my grandfather,
00:10:26
Speaker
moved in with us. He was very upwards in age. I'm the youngest of everybody. People always thought my mom was my grandma and stuff like that. But toys were very much my surrogate father to a certain degree. Once he split, my mom was working basically around the clock, like two jobs.
00:10:50
Speaker
I got introduced to toys very early in my youth. My earliest memory is I found a Lone Ranger and Tonto doll under my grandfather's bed and they were in the package and they were beautiful. He just let me have them and let me play with them when I showed interest in it. I couldn't believe that Tonto's knife came out of the sheath and the Lone Ranger's hat and mask came off and they had real clothes and that type of stuff.
00:11:17
Speaker
So like very, very early on, I had a unique appreciation for that. The amigo stuff, the world's greatest heroes, Battlestar Galactica, and all of those things are things that I look back to. I mean, I feel like Star Wars and GI Joe will perpetually be the yardstick that all toy lines are measured against. And with Fortnite, I think especially you could probably see a lot of those influence come through my
00:11:49
Speaker
So now with that influence, you see kind of the range of almost like scale in the Fortnite
Fortnite Toy Line Strategies
00:11:59
Speaker
line. Three and three quarters, six inch, 12 inch, all of those figures come into play. What goes into planning the figures to determine how and what form factors to produce? That was it. That was it. That's basically the Kenner stuff created those benchmarks, GI Joe,
00:12:20
Speaker
starting off in a 12-inch, definitely created those benchmarks. I knew that 12-inch had to be a part of this line from very, very early on. And I was fortunate to have the support and vision of Judd to make that kind of decision. And then also, you know, the lead guy, his name's Donald Mustard. He's a really tremendous thinker. And if you follow him on Twitter, the amount of
00:12:50
Speaker
story that he injects into the game mirrors my appreciation for story injected into play. So it was in that very first meeting when we decided that we were going to pitch for the brand and we actually had to get invited to pitch for the brand. They were only allowing a few companies access to Epic to actually pitch.
00:13:18
Speaker
I felt like that was the ace up my sleeve was that, and I didn't know it until the meeting, but we just kind of fell in love through those early influences. You know, Donald and his brother grew up playing with GI Joe and Star Wars and immersing themselves into that. And when they saw the plan that we had in store, it was basically like the greatest first date ever. You know, there was like butterflies and music and, uh,
00:13:47
Speaker
I think we all knew right away that this was the partnership. Yeah. And I mean, it's, it, it was evident to me. So, so I'm admittedly like I'm, I'm late into the world of Fortnite, but I remember when it first came out, um, thinking and like seeing some of the, the imagery of it, it's like, man, these would make amazing toys. Like the, the toy attic of value of like.
00:14:14
Speaker
the different weapons, the different costumes, the skins, excuse me. Um, just the way that the game functioned, like at its, its actual level, like why just watching videos of people playing it on YouTube, thinking, wow, like these, this, this is a toy. Like this should be a toy. This character should be a toy. And then I remember starting to see the three and three quarter ones show up and I was like, Oh, they're the size of like,
00:14:41
Speaker
the real American hero GI Joe figures. That's perfect. And, you know, you know, I, I, that can't be a coincidence or I knew that couldn't be a coincidence. It is, it is a toy guy's kind of dream come true when it comes to an IP, like very, very early. Um, and I've, you know, I, I usually hashtag my stuff, the luckiest kid, because I very much am, you know, like, uh,
00:15:08
Speaker
My influences just dovetailed with my opportunities on the level where I grew up and Street Fighter was my ultimate fanboy thing. I had my own destination at the arcade and people would have to court me to actually get me to 1v1 them. And that was very early on, the first license that I worked on predominantly. And then from there, Mortal Kombat, and then from Mortal Kombat,
00:15:36
Speaker
Mega Man and then for Mega Man Sonic the Hedgehog and it was like almost my life story in toys, you know. And Fortnite just happened to be the perfect storm of all of those different influences. And it continues to be because it's this 10 week ever evolving cliffhanger ending that just like there's new stuff injected through the game all the time and I feel like
00:16:04
Speaker
They have all the right notes for longevity. There's a few things that have this evergreen staying power, and I don't see the shine wearing off this anytime soon.
00:16:19
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, think about it, right? It's, it's free to play and the, the plus ups. So, you know, even if you, if you never purchase a skin, if you are Jonesy
Fortnite IP Collaborations
00:16:31
Speaker
forever in that game, it puts you at no disadvantage. You can be just as good as anybody else. And.
00:16:38
Speaker
It's available on so many different platforms. It has, to your point, serial-based cliffhanger storytelling, incredible visuals, and then on the Epic Games and Fortnite side of things, they're, you know, bringing in all these super interesting IPs and like bashing them together. Like right now, you know, you could
00:17:03
Speaker
Where be wearing a Deadpool skin and bump into Aquaman or or or as of today right black black Manta they just they just introduced the skin for him you could you could bump into one of them as Deadpool or cable or Psylocke or Batman or John wick and You know have a shootout. It's it's incredible. It is absolutely incredible
00:17:27
Speaker
you're giving me goosebumps by just, you know, and, and that's what I really appreciate about what they've done is they're rewriting the book. I mean, when you look at these things and, uh, they, they came to us with the opportunity to make the action figure for the Travis Scott. And that's, you know, he's one of my favorite artists. And I was like, Oh my effing God. Like I can't believe this is happening. And then it just happens again. And they introduce something and
00:17:55
Speaker
They have this really kind of telltale stylization that they apply and they clearly have some of the best visual and character-based thinkers in the industry, like deploying that Black Manta, for instance. I was never, I mean, from the Justice League and the old cartoon, Black Manta was a real fast favorite of mine.
00:18:21
Speaker
And they've evolved that character and they've made it appropriate for 2020. They had details to his arm that we've never seen before. He's just tough as nails. You know, I was like, Oh my God, it's just, it keeps getting better. Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
Like even and like what they did on Independence Day when they had Captain America, where if you bought the skin, they actually changed programmatically how the character uses the pickaxe, right? Because he would take the shield off of his back and use the shield as the pickaxe and then actually like re
00:18:59
Speaker
Connect it to his back and that's like a new thing so like somebody had to had the forethought of like hey if you know you're Captain America you can't be holding a shield and have a shield on your back at the same time so you know we have to figure out how that works and yeah they did it like flex they flex their platform because Captain America is an opportunity for them and like there I don't know if you if you know that Donald Mustard was actually in endgame you know like he was
00:19:28
Speaker
not only collaborating with them through his opportunities with Fortnite, but him and Kevin Feige, like they hit it off. And then the next thing you know, he's one of the, uh, one of the doctors, uh, magicians in the scene and he's doing fighting on the set. Like shit. I didn't know that. That's awesome. That's really cool. Donald mustard is actually the only person in history to be in both a star Wars movie and the Marvel cinematic universe.
00:19:59
Speaker
So he had a speaking Stormtrooper role in The Last Jedi, and he was also featured in Endgame on screen.
Donald Mustard's Influence
00:20:08
Speaker
Man, very cool. Goals, right? Hashtag goals. And so Fortnite is like this quickening of it all. I mean, I remember between gentlemen, right, when we
00:20:22
Speaker
got the opportunity and I was building my pitch. It was during season four of Fortnite. And the lead, the most successful thing from season three was the Reaper character. That was this really clever pop culture kind of tip of the hat that they did to John Wick. Yes. And that was the informal name for that character. Everybody called him John Wick. Nobody ever called him the Reaper.
00:20:49
Speaker
So one of the first things that I did was we created, I actually kit-bashed and hand-painted this John Wick action figure in 6-inch. And it was in our pitch. It was one of these things where they're like, oh, you know the game, and this and that. But this figure is never going to happen. And I was like, what do you mean? And I'm like, well, it's an IP thing, and 20th Century Fox, and Legendary, and this and that. And we've got a cease and desist, and blah, blah, blah.
00:21:20
Speaker
Almost a year later, they're sitting across the table from Keanu Reeves. And then the next thing you know, we have the reaper versus John Wick. And John Wick is in the game. So it's, again, they're just kind of always rewriting the rule book. And there's no denying that it's just a quickening of sorts.
00:21:44
Speaker
And I mean, one of, one of our favorite things about being, I guess we can call ourselves like a toy blog now. Cause we, I guess we kind of are, but one of, one of our favorite things that we like watching is now toy photographers tag us in the work that they're doing and like the mashups that, that people come up with where they're.
00:22:05
Speaker
you know people people love buying um the the the fortnite legendary uh serious figures uh the the guys i always forget their names i'm sorry the ones that have like the the cards wildcards wildcards because their bodies are so they're so well built they're nicely articulated and they work so well with other lines everything scales really nicely
00:22:28
Speaker
You can pop heads on, you can kit bash. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a Deadpool body with a Jonesy head on it. Just because it's a fun mashup and it makes for these great photos where people are recreating their dream battles.
00:22:45
Speaker
from from either the game or like you know what they wish could happen in the game and I remember doing that stuff like we did that stuff as kids with our wrestlers like I remember like my our spawn figure held like the Intercontinental title for a little bit and like our toy wrestling league when there were those GI Joes and then they made the Street Fighter and the Mortal Kombat figures too like yeah, oh my god Dave you're so on the money with that one dude
00:23:12
Speaker
It's just, it's amazing. I love how, and regardless of what scale you collect, like the moment I got my Jonesy figure, and I actually think I DM'd you the picture like right away. The first thing I did was pose him with all the Marvel guys and just have him, you know, pointing the shotgun and the plunger at people and, you know. It's so inspirational to me. That's the stuff that
00:23:39
Speaker
I mean, I'm just completely glued to Instagram and to social media. And it's really just starting to get crazy. Like people are just really that the head swaps are happening all the time now. Like he, like he so pointed out and the high stakes characters, the wild cards that are basically the Royal flush gang and they're, they're surrounding everybody's Joker. Um, I just can't get enough of that stuff. And, and.
00:24:08
Speaker
The fact, I mean, there's no coincidence in that the line sits head and shoulders next to the Marvel Legends stuff. The toy that is Marvel Legends is the line that I collected most of. I think I have series one through eight in package and out of package. I have all the build figures in package and out of package. The hand on the line, his name is Dave Cortez.
00:24:36
Speaker
He sculpts and his team actually engineers and paints everything from the four inch to the six inch, the 12 inch we do separately. But he is the hand that has sculpted my favorite action figures from that line, the bullseye, the Spiderman, the Spiderman 2 18 inch super articulated thing. So again, I'm just the luckiest kid to have fallen into a place where
00:25:06
Speaker
I'm working with the team that did my original favorites and now he's given the notes to our line to make it look and be an evolution of, you know. Me too.
00:25:27
Speaker
So what are some of the challenges you face bringing the game that's just so successful and so very popular into the real world, kind of off the screen and into 3D, basically? You know what? It's a blessing and a curse, right? Fortnite is a game that evolves every 10 weeks, give or take. They have some seasons that they've extended.
00:25:53
Speaker
But as a rule, it's basically a 10-week season. They did 10 seasons, and now we're in Chapter 2 and Season 3 of Chapter 2. Within each of those seasons, they introduce 33 characters at least. I think right now we're hovering around 40. So the thing that keeps me up late at night is which ones to execute on.
Character Selection Process
00:26:19
Speaker
I have to constantly be immersed in the culture and in the trends to see not just what is making sense from the data, like the choices that Epic provides, but what am I observing as a fan? So here's an interesting story.
00:26:40
Speaker
When we were granted the license and we sat down with Epic and like, here's the time when we have to make it real, they lean into their data. You know, they have some of the best data nerds on the planet and they said like, okay, these are the 12 characters and these are the ones that, you know, through our metrics are going to be the most successful and they're instantly recognizable X, Y, and Z. And I looked at that and I put my hand on my chin and I was like, God,
00:27:08
Speaker
Where's the Rust Lord? He's my favorite character. Where's the Rust Lord? And Donald looks me in the eye and he starts to blush and he goes, Rust Lord's my favorite character too. And I was like, well, so they were like, well, he was one of the very early battle pass skins or outfits, you know, so he didn't measure up because you got him very easily.
00:27:34
Speaker
But I mean, he's the star lord with a motorcycle helmet with spikes on it. He's just so cool. So Donald was immediately like, you know what? Rust Lord's got to be in the line. So he was our 13th edition. And 13 is my lucky number and blah, blah, blah, like Kismet. And so I do my best not only to take what I'm seeing in the data, but also rely on some instinct to say like, this is what's
00:28:03
Speaker
ahead of us, but I'd also like to propose this because of my observations. And so the challenge is, you know, I basically play the game all day, every day, or I'm watching the streamers play the game all day, every day. And in some way I'm connected to this community, whether I'm asleep or awake. Yeah. And it's, it's evident that
00:28:26
Speaker
from the characters that you selected. So the summer wave of the Legendary series came out, just announced. And the characters are perfect. It's the exact ones from previous seasons. Because I know, obviously, I've been very vocal about the one that I want. And I'm sure there are other people in the world that want a meowsles figure as much as I do.
00:28:56
Speaker
But the ones that are part of this most recent wave are perfect. They have that great toyetic value. They have the colors that pop, the interchangeable heads, everything that you need to be there for that toyetic look. But it amazes me how you make those correct selections each time when you do have that many to choose from.
00:29:26
Speaker
And I was going to say, too, for me, the colors are the thing that stick out because it kind of makes it where you see that and you go, OK, I know what this is. Even if you aren't quite sure, you know that just from that color palette, this is Fortnite. That's probably one of the other challenges, right? And I would venture to say that you won't be disappointed in the future without confirming or denying anything.
00:29:56
Speaker
Another challenge that mirrors this conversation is the level of secrecy, right? Because Epic is one of these games that we observed very early on, does very little marketing. And Minecraft is another one where we had experience to say like, this is bucking the trend and this is against kind of the traditional culture of marketing, but
00:30:25
Speaker
it's very clear that it works. So Fortnite keeps a high level of secrecy. They're litigious in their adherence to that secrecy. But there's also a whole community of people that are driving that interest organically. So with me, that's a little bit of the curse is that we have the keys to the kingdom, but more often than not, our bandwidth is
00:30:53
Speaker
beholden to our product development and our aggressive speed in product development. So we don't do a whole lot of marketing or pre-marketing to the drops. But just today, for instance, the new Forage figures showed up at a place in Texas, just outside of Dallas. And immediately, there's interest. And people are talking about it.
00:31:20
Speaker
finally chime in and take a big exhale and say, OK, I vouch for this. You guys are on it. So it's interesting because, like Dave pointed out, you can tell immediately that it's a Fortnite character from the end of the aisle. And the newness stands out in an environment that's basically run by black or white. Fortnite comes in and it's pink and green and yellow.
00:31:48
Speaker
So we're fortunate to have their excellence to lead that charge. And then we are tasked with doing justice in a physical light. Now, one of the other things I wanted to ask you about, we talked
00:32:05
Speaker
pretty much at length at Toy Fair about the accessories and how you do the loot boxes and things like that. What we really didn't get a chance to get into was the vehicles and the set pieces. Another huge part of the game and experience in the game is the gliders, the battle bus, which was just a... Finally, we've been talking about it since February and like, sorry, we have no pictures, we can't show you.
00:32:33
Speaker
Finally, the Battle Bus pictures come out. But is that also challenging to find a way to work in the vehicles and the environment, the building aspect of the game? How challenging is that to produce with the figures in a way that's playable? We're fortunate to have some really good engineers behind all of that stuff.
Integrating Vehicles into Toys
00:33:00
Speaker
the addition of vehicles to the line, I mean that completely validates the four inch scale, the three and three quarter inch scale. I look constantly at my old collection and G.I. Joe was a character based line, but it was given life through the vehicles, the whale, the water moccasin, the his tank, I mean the flag.
00:33:23
Speaker
When you think about G.I. Joe, it's synonymous. And even with Star Wars, the iconic X-Wing, the Snow Speeder, the AT-AT Walker. So it has to be incorporated in what we're doing. And the game has given us all of these great moments to try and bring to life, like the ATK and the Battle Bus. Finally, I mean, the Battle Bus is something that is going to be, I feel like,
00:33:52
Speaker
the whale of this line. So we had to invest. We had to make sure that everything was perfect. And of course, the fans are going to hold us to a very high standard. So it was no lack of effort. You know, we knew that the balloon had to be inflatable. It had to have party music. There were all these key things that had to be incorporated. But with Fortnite,
00:34:16
Speaker
I don't know if you guys pay attention to the things that are happening now, but it's just getting started. We're going to be seeing drivable vehicles in the seasons to come. So cars, and semis, and vans, and the reboot van, and the ballers. So this is just getting started. Up until now, we've introduced wave after wave of action figures. And in the 4-inch, I think we're around 150 or 200 action figures each.
00:34:47
Speaker
It's insane. So adding vehicles to the mix will allow us to create special relationships now with the vehicles and the characters. And we've already, the Stinger ATK, which is a wrap applied to the previous ATK, just hit the airwaves yesterday. So it gives us another opportunity to introduce even newer characters like the Copper Wasp.
00:35:11
Speaker
who's kind of a tip of the hat to the old street fighter, Mythos. He's got the gee, he's got his black belt, but he's kind of like a Gundam. It's so much fun. I think that sums up Fortnite characters pretty well. He's got a gee and a black belt, but he's also a Gundam. 100%, you know? And thank you so much. I saw your post about that, and it just, it let me feel even some
00:35:39
Speaker
some relief to know what like, uh, I saw your post and you're like, yeah, we can finally talk about this. We got to see it in February. And I was like, yes, thank you so much. You know, and congratulations on 500 on Instagram, dude. That's not an easy thing to do. And now I feel like the snowball is going to begin rolling downhill for the show. Like it's great show.
00:36:00
Speaker
I love what you guys do and your voice in the community. Thank you so much for the support, man. Thank you. That means a lot. Yeah, it really does. Thank you. We, you know, we, we try, there's a lot of negativity in the world and, you know, especially, you know, even, even in a very, very positive toy community, there can be some toxicity, you know, now and then. So we try to keep it as positive as we can. We want people to come on and talk about how much they love toys, not necessarily the things that they hate. Like.
00:36:29
Speaker
We understand there are pain points and, you know, that, that people who create toys want to hear feedback. And, you know, there's definitely a place for that here. You know, you know, we had, uh, we've, we've, we've had people on before where we've said like, Hey, you're doing a really great thing, but, um, you know, and we still keep it positive. So thank you. We really do appreciate those kind words. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, they're toys. They're supposed to be fun. So, you know, why not keep it fun?
00:36:57
Speaker
We can smell our own, definitely. And when I listened to your show with Jeremy, it was just you guys had great chemistry, you guys asked the great questions, and it's always from a place of love. So it definitely shines through in your show. Thank you.
00:37:14
Speaker
Well, the one thing I wanted to follow up with you on from Toy Fair, speaking of Toy Fair, I'm still waiting to see those pictures of the zip line that you had set up in the hotel because you said you took photos of it and I want to see that that three and three quarters zip line. I don't know if you still have the photos, but I'll dig them up for sure. You know, it's one of those things where I get so nervous, you know, like like with with what I'm doing now, I just started a I just started a live stream.
00:37:44
Speaker
And before, especially with like building the Fortnite line and the plan before the launch, not only am I under NDA with jazzwares, but I'm also under NDA with Epic Games. And I get so nervous to talk about things, you know, and when, when things kind of, uh, when I get asked the tough questions or, you know, somebody in the chat says something like, Oh, I remember you said this. And I'm like, Ooh,
00:38:13
Speaker
Did I say that? You know, like, so like the stuff that I, when you guys came into toy fair, like I've had my own little locked room with security guards and, you know, no photography all over the place and stuff. So sometimes when I meet guys like you, I tend to let the beans spill a little bit. So I might've forgot that I promised you those photos, but I'll take them up for sure. It's so much fun.
00:38:39
Speaker
you showed us the little zip line and like the from point A to point B on the shelf and then you were like, but yeah, I mean, you guys, you guys can break that story here. You know, I don't think anybody's really caught on to that. That if you get the expedition outposts that comes with the mission specialist, it includes like a dinky little six inch plastic zip line that by itself is like, man, what the hell? This is nothing. And
00:39:06
Speaker
The behind the scenes, the insider info on that is like we can't sell string over like seven and a half inches or it becomes a choking hazard. It's a strangulation hazard. We have to age our testing up. We have to spend more money on product testing and this and that. So if you get that set and it's out there, it's available, you remove that piece.
00:39:30
Speaker
And there's a hole in the attachment point that you can tie any string you want to. So the key is to get that thing and set it up and then tie a string.
Creative Toy Innovations
00:39:43
Speaker
And the thing that plugs into the back of the characters has ball bearings in it. It goes right on the line itself. And those things
00:39:52
Speaker
spin and the character goes like the dickens down. So I had like a pocket full of four or five of those things and a couple action figures. And the hotel had this amazing open aviary in the middle with trees and stuff. And I'm out there with a couple white claws and like action figures like sliding things. I think that was on the 10th floor.
00:40:15
Speaker
It was so much fun. I'll definitely dig them up now that you're reminding me to be on my cloud somewhere. And then we could start a hashtag challenge. We could start a zipline challenge. Dude, seriously. Even if I can't find them, I'm going to one-up myself. I'm going down to Fort Lauderdale Beach and sending them over the Breakers Resort or something. Yes.
00:40:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the other things that's cool too is just like, you know, you have that ability to with the squad packs just to kind of like, almost like, instead of trying to find like different bits and pieces of characters in the collection, you have that ability to kind of start with something already built, which I think is really cool. Oh, man, the fact that like the squad is the ultimate social experience with Fortnite. It's my favorite way to play the game.
00:41:10
Speaker
Even if I'm just jumping in by myself, you can set it to assign you random people from all over the world. And like one of my favorite streamers, his name is Dakotas. That's his thing. He jumps in there and he puts on random squads. And I've heard 10 year old kids that just found out their aunt has cancer. You have kids, it's their birthday. You know, you have people that are having a baby.
00:41:36
Speaker
And it's just incredible. And you're ultimately bound together. You're forced to work as a team. And if it's not like your day, you can just dance.
00:41:50
Speaker
So I have, I have neighbors that, that play, and sometimes when they don't have a fourth person, I jump in their, their squad and I just let them run the show. Like I turn, I turn my microphone off. I turn their volume up and I just listen to whatever they asked me to do. And I just, I just go with the flow with them and it's a blast. It is, it's so much, I'm sitting there on the couch. My, you know, my wife and my daughter is sitting next to me and like, you know, they're obviously, they're our neighbors. So we all know them and they're, you know, they're laughing their asses off because like.
00:42:17
Speaker
you know, they're having, they're like running headlong into like, just the worst situation possible. And I'm just like, rinky dink following along, trying to, trying to keep them afloat. You know, oftentimes they're far better than me, depending on who's playing. So it's, it's just to your point that the squads aspect of it is such a huge part of why the game is so much fun and that anybody really can enjoy it. And that's the gift that like, uh,
00:42:48
Speaker
like Dave pointed out is that's the gift that it gives to our line is that there's infinite possibilities with character arrangements. Like we did one that was like future themed and you had the bunker Jonesy and rocks and or we have like the OGs and there's there's a lot of these squad packs coming out that you guys are going to be blown away by. And it's just like it captures that silliness and that that quirkiness and like
00:43:17
Speaker
That's definitely one of the things that I think has given this game the legs that it has is it's more of a social media platform than it is a game.
00:43:28
Speaker
Definitely. So speaking of social media and the things that you're doing to further the community, I have one more Fortnite toy direct toy question for you. Is there, and this is, this is, I guess, like the tough question. Here's, here's the hard hitter. Is there anything that has not been announced yet?
00:43:48
Speaker
that you can either give us a hint or our audience a hint at what's coming or anything that you are at liberty to speak of. And if the answer is no, then the answer is no. That's a totally fine answer as well. Well, the stuff that hit the air today is probably not as widespread. So we've been sitting on a glut of development since the COVID crisis started. And there's been a little bit of an abbreviated presence in the toy aisle.
00:44:18
Speaker
Within the last 48 hours, we've had four six-inch figures drop, and that's a doggo drift in his level five with the skateboard. Who else do we have? We have the Eternal Voyager, who's like the redo of the Dark Voyager, but with the Ghost Rider head.
00:44:42
Speaker
There was also the Ex-Lord, who's kind of the 2020 version of the Rust Lord. And I like to say that they used my abs as the model for this character, but it's completely not true. We had the redo of the ATK vehicle, the stinger rack with the copper loss faction figure come out.
New Fortnite Releases
00:45:02
Speaker
Today, we dropped the new hot drop with the ultimate knight and his gold appearance, which
00:45:10
Speaker
is a replacement or a refresh to what we've done earlier with the early game survival kit. And now a whole new series of solo four-inch action figures hit. Well, they just showed up in some collector's hands today, but they're not officially announced yet. And that's Midfield Maestro Tempest, who's the Mysterio of the universe there.
00:45:38
Speaker
We have yonder, who's like the updated version of DJ yonder. And, um, one other one, one, one, I'm struggling here. Let me see. Yeah, I'm actually, I'm actually pulling up my feed right now. I, I, and the first thing that popped up was, uh, it was midfield master. It's the first time I'm seeing it in person. That's awesome. I love the, all of the soccer skins, the soccer player skins. That was a great, uh, And that's like, uh, that's a Pandora's box because we know there's like,
00:46:08
Speaker
four different various soccer skins that you can play as. And as soon as we've opened tooling on something, we have the opportunity to kind of change Deco and change head scopes and it's, it pays forward. Oh, the four inch tomato head. So tomato head, of course, is a, a lister in the community. He's going to be an Amazon exclusive for their battle bus. So, um, beyond that,
00:46:36
Speaker
Uh, there's not much that I can say again, just because of my various, uh, non-disclosures and stuff, but, uh, I would love, love to be able to give you guys a scoop on anything, um, for your support and as a show of gratitude there.
00:46:52
Speaker
We're totally, totally happy to, to help with that. If there's ever anything that you, you want to get out there, you know, uh, definitely let us know and we'll, we will shout it from the rooftops, the digital and otherwise rooftops for sure. Yeah. Thanks guys, man. That's amazing. I do appreciate the support and the friendship. It's awesome.
00:47:15
Speaker
Thank you. Part of the relationship with Fortnite is the bond with the community. And you were saying before you started streaming, you started the rec agent streaming account. So how did that really kind of come to be? It's funny, you know, it's it's an evolving thing. From very early on, in my experience with jazzwares, when we first got the Minecraft license, and we through that relationship realized there was a whole like
00:47:44
Speaker
Minecraft, in its early infancy, didn't spend any money, not one dollar on marketing. What they did was they opened their platform for anybody to take the characters and create machinimas and create original content, and they didn't limit that content. So I fell in love with YouTube. I fell in love with vlogging. I used to have a daily vlog that I did.
00:48:12
Speaker
But as soon as we got in the running for Fortnite, the level of secrecy involved prohibited me from doing my daily vlogs. So I did like 218 or 220 daily videos that I uploaded to YouTube. And my passion for content has never really subsided, but I didn't have a voice because of the level of secrecy and the relationship that we had before the line was published.
00:48:40
Speaker
Now that everything's kind of out there and things are flowing around, I've fallen in love with Twitch even more. It's something that you can do that's spontaneous. There's a level of improvisation there. And through the COVID crisis, I've been basically in seclusion just shortly after we met in New York. I'm pretty sure that I actually had it. So I was in Hong Kong when it first started.
00:49:09
Speaker
I was in Germany when it spread to Europe. And then I was in New York when it came to the United States. I'm not saying I'm patient zero, but I may have been very close to patient zero. When we returned from toy fair after maybe two or three days, I got extremely sick. The Florida Department of Health came here. I was quarantined without, you know, any recourse. And I was, I faced a lot of medical challenges ever since.
00:49:38
Speaker
Now, seclusion is natural to me. I've always been kind of the recluse. I've always been kind of the introvert. But through my content creation, I've had a voice and a social life and a calling for that. And in the current situation, I figured that I need camaraderie, I need to build a community, and I need to talk.
00:50:03
Speaker
In 2019, in support of the Fortnite line, I assisted sales meetings and I was basically the brand ambassador for the brand Outward Facing for jazzwares. I went on more than 40 trips internationally. I've seen Australia, I've been to India, I've been to Japan, Korea, everywhere. And then all of a sudden, I came home and I got sick and I had nothing.
00:50:31
Speaker
So I started a live stream to, to reshape myself and to, to make new friends and to have some type of a semblance of a social interaction, social life. So rect agent came about because I was like we, like we talked about a little bit ago, I was uncertain in, uh, the level that I could share and I've always been apprehensive. Like I don't want to be.
00:50:58
Speaker
person that leaks something. For me, it's better to partner with people like you and let you guys get the scoop and the exposure. It's not up to me to announce things. So, direct agent, I'm a cosplayer. I've been into cosplay. It's a form of escapism that I appreciate. And almost all of my cosplay is masked. I've done Kylo Ren and Darth Vader and all these different characters that kind of live
00:51:26
Speaker
outside of my own self. So I built a Rustlord costume. It's my favorite character from Fortnite. And my initial plan was to have a live stream in character. So I wouldn't be accountable for the things that I had to talk about, or I wouldn't be the person. I wouldn't be Mike DeCamp.
00:51:50
Speaker
I was inspired by characters like Dr. Disrespect. I don't know if you know the streaming world or Ninja, for instance. Yeah, I'm familiar with Ninja. So I had them as role models and I built the wreckage and persona around that. But when I got it rolling, A, you can't hear a damn thing when I have the helmet on. So
00:52:15
Speaker
I relented and I put myself out there and it's a very vulnerable, it's a very personal stream. Not only do I talk about Fortnite and I talk about the action figures as much as I can, but like we talked about off stream is I'm a musician. So I'm writing songs now. I love to play video games with friends. And for me, beyond my girlfriend and my cat, it's really the only interaction that I have
00:52:46
Speaker
outside world. And that's a prattling explanation that I hope I got it across. No, I mean, it's well, first of all, we did not know that you were ill following all of your travels and everything. We're so happy to hear that you are okay. That's terrifying. And, you know, yeah, very happy to hear that you are
00:53:11
Speaker
recovered and, and everything that's, you know, that's a nightmare situation. It's one, it's one of these things where we know so little about it. Like, um, I've had everything from, uh, the, the, the traditional symptoms, like we're all familiar with the high fever and all that types of the trouble breathing and all that, but I've had all these anomalous undiagnosed symptoms, you know, I had.
00:53:36
Speaker
chronic nerve pain, I've had ringing in my ears since February, abdominal pain, all these things where the doctors have no explanation. Even as far as having false negatives in my antibody tests, the thing, whatever this COVID thing is, we know so little about, and I've taken it more or less upon myself to continue isolation
00:54:06
Speaker
Because of that right like I have my I have two children and I haven't seen my children Since the beginning of the year and i'm supposed to have a visit with them shortly But i'm considering delaying it because florida is just so it's a dumpster fire right now, you know I read an article today that one out of three children tested in florida is positive for covid
00:54:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's scary. It is very, very scary. One of the things that I loved about when you kicked off the stream, you made that little trailer for the channel. I think you originally had posted it on YouTube. But I love the fact that you, a lot of the other people that we've been so fortunate to meet in the toy world,
00:54:57
Speaker
you kind of embrace this vulnerability and you put yourselves out there for us crazy collectors to interact with directly and get to know you and really get a sense of the passion that goes into these, not just what you do creatively for toys, but to your point, your cosplay, your music.
00:55:22
Speaker
It's just, it's so interesting to love a product and collect it and stare at it every day and take pictures of it and then get to meet and bond with the people that make them. And as fans of what you do first and foremost before anything else and collectors, like
00:55:43
Speaker
I know I speak for the vast majority of us, we appreciate it. It is so nice to be able to get that level of insight from the people that create the things that we love. That's great to hear, man. I really have had the luck and the fortune of having tremendous role models, even throughout my experience from a broken home.
Industry Influences and Mentors
00:56:06
Speaker
So early on, even though Jesse's younger than I am, he was an early role model.
00:56:13
Speaker
in his time and with opportunity. And then from there, we started our relationship with Street Fighter and through Capcom. And it's interesting, we had this hybrid business where we partnered actually with Soda Toys. And through Soda Toys, I met Jerry Macaluso. And Jerry, he made the original toxic Avenger prosthetics. He was this prolific sculptor, but he's also a tremendous person.
00:56:40
Speaker
And through Jerry, I met Eddie Wires, rest in peace. You know, Eddie was one of the most giving, knowledgeable toy collectors I've ever met. And then from there, I met, like, Damon Nee and Jesse Falcon and all these guys now that have elevated to these meteoric heights, like at Disney and Marvel. And I've always had something greater to aspire to. And it's through honesty and vulnerability.
00:57:10
Speaker
My thing that I talk about probably the most with my community that's growing on Twitch, etc., is that by elevating the people around you, you elevate yourself. And it has to be, for me, that's the ultimate. Before we let you get back into making amazing toys and producing more content, we always like to ask what the most special piece in your collection is and what's your weirdest or rarest piece?
Special Collectibles Discussion
00:57:39
Speaker
Wow, this reminds me of James Lipton and his infamous, you know, when you get to heaven, what do you hope God says to you? So my most special piece, that's a tough one, you know, it's probably the MeeGo 12-inch magnetic Batman with flyaway action. So when I was very, very young,
00:58:09
Speaker
That was something that was gifted to me by my mom. And Batman was something that, to this day, I haven't had the experience of making a Batman action figure, but it's high on my list of priorities. So I got this. It was a tremendous action figure. The soft goods cape, the roto head, you know, and Batman and Robin, they have magnets embedded in their hands and feet. And the package had this incredible, almost like psychedelic
00:58:39
Speaker
Please Google it. I love it. He had this attachment that went onto his back underneath his cape, and you would thread two strings through it, one on the left and one on the right, and then you would tie them off to something. And then by pulling the strings apart on the far end, the figure would slide away from you and appear to fly away. That was to fly away action.
00:59:06
Speaker
So I immediately took the figures, I had Batman and Robin, and I took them down to a playground by my house. And I was playing with them on the monkey bars and experimenting with what surfaces were magnetic, surfaces weren't. And I climbed all the way to one of those kind of domes apparatus that you can climb all over. And I stopped the figures up there and I started playing blah, blah, blah. And I left them there.
00:59:31
Speaker
Like my mom, the street lights turned on and I got the call out the window, get home or you're dead, you know, whatever. Um, and I ran home and I left them there and I lost them. They just, you know, that was it. And, uh, so eventually I was able to track them down and I spent, you know, way too much money on them to get the mint in the package. So that's probably the most special piece that I have because after I lost the action figures, I would literally just,
01:00:00
Speaker
look at the box. I would just fantasize and check out the package and read it and reread it and hope that someday I would have those action figures again.
01:00:20
Speaker
And I had, I actually had the fortune, I had the fortune of meeting Marty Abrams and talking Migo and really getting to know him through Judd that they've had a long-term meaningful friendship and somewhat of a mentorship there.
01:00:35
Speaker
Yeah, I finally got them. I just looked them up. There's actually a super cool vintage commercial. When this episode of the podcast airs, I'll make sure that that week I post the commercial as our throwback. Amazing.
01:00:52
Speaker
So that's definitely the most special by far. It might also be your rarest piece. But if you have another answer for a weird or rare piece in your collection, by all means, we'd love to hear it. All right. I'm going to get myself in hot water here, but I like you guys and I'm going to do it. So.
01:01:15
Speaker
We made a ton of Fortnite figures and collectibles and this and that, and the volume of action figures and things that we've done is just tremendous. But when you have a prolific line, there's always what we call a unicorn, right? Something that somebody fucked up.
01:01:37
Speaker
We made a gigantic jumbo llama that had some really great action figures and collectibles and backblings and everything in it. But within that llama, we have a collectible series called the domes. And the domes are kind of like smurfs in a bubble. And you can stack them and you can put them in the display. So in that jumbo llama, you'll find a dome called Frozen Jones
01:02:09
Speaker
Do you guys know what makes Frozen Jonesy so special? No. There's no such thing as a Frozen Jonesy. So somewhere along the lines, I saw some really convincing fan art or whatever it is, you know, because like, even, even in my stream, I have this kid, he's 14, he's from Canada and he like made me my own version of Russ Lord by
01:02:38
Speaker
downloading and ripping the outfit and applying new texture maps to it, blah, blah, blah. So somebody dreamed up a frozen Jonesy. And not only did I fall for it, but everybody fell for it. Epic proved it. It got made. So if you can find you a frozen Jonesy in the dome, I promise you that will be the rocket firing Boba Fett from this slide. All right.
01:03:06
Speaker
There, there you have it for frozen Jonesy. We're on the hunt for him. So before, uh, before we, we sign off for the evening, Mike, which by the way, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, this, this has been incredible, absolutely incredible. Um, tell our audience, please tell our audience, where can we find you? Tell us where we can find you on Twitch on Instagram, all the places where we can find you.
01:03:33
Speaker
Yeah, I'm on Instagram under my name, Mike DeCamp. I have an alt that's under rect-agent, but there's very little happening there since it's just growing. But rect-agent is the thing. It's across Twitter, Instagram, and Twitch, and YouTube at the moment. So, R-E-K-T, agent.
01:03:57
Speaker
I love it, and I love you guys. Thank you for having me back a second time, and congratulations on all the success. I really can't wait to see more, and I'm sure the world thanks you for providing entertainment in such troubling times, so do keep it up. You guys are killing it. I'm humbled by being here, so thank you.
01:04:21
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.
01:04:38
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.
01:05:01
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.
01:05:33
Speaker
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