Final total: $606,317
What a success!
Seriously. It went from 'we're just going to barely unlock the lizard dragon' to basically blowing past the unlock almost to the point of needing another stretch goal. Really exciting to see this much support and love for what really amounts to an '80s/'90s loveletter of a KS.
I ended up not adding in anything extra beyond what I'd already pledged for, but I fully intend to see what kind of finances I can put together for the Backerkit period. If I have it my way, I'm probably looking at another 500USD or so in the Backerkit. But that seems excessive so... have to see what I can do.
Congrats to everyone who backed this. I can't wait to live vicariously through your posts here and youtube reviews when the first wave of this stuff ships. Love David's stuff, but have too many other lines going on right now to grab one of these.
I would surprised if he didn't do up some of the trikes or other dino's he's released already with some armoured upgrades to go with these, as this wave is pretty carnivore heavy.
I would surprised if he didn't do up some of the trikes or other dino's he's released already with some armoured upgrades to go with these, as this wave is pretty carnivore heavy.
He's definitely doing that and has said as much. Additionally, some of the species already confirmed for Cyberzoic II include stegosaurs and pachycephalosaurs.
What a fantastic kickstarter! I'm ranking this one up there with RoboSkull and Savage Crucible in terms of how fun it was to be a part of and watch it develop.
I ended up blowing way past my "$1000 limit" lol, but all good. Really excited to get these toys eventually!
@theknightdamien yeah, if I had to choose any kind of negative feedback on this one, is that the Dragons & Dinosaurs just don't mesh. All of the toys look incredible, but it feels like two different lines. Luckily we can pick and choose what we want, and what we do with our toys. Our little Knights will finally get a proper dragon to slay, and I'll finally have a "dino riders" collection. Very stoked!
@reefer-shark In that regard, I will give David credit in that he did a very servicable job connecting dragons and dinosaurs with the world-building material. If you can take all that stuff at face value, then it makes sense - oh okay, dragons are native to this planet and to fight them humans cloned a bunch of mind-controlled dinosaurs. Boom. Done. It's a very 'toyline' explanation and story, but that's exactly what this is so it's hard to fault it for not being War & Peace or some shit. At least he tried to make sense of why all this stuff is together.
Frankly, and with total respect to David and his team, I'll say the same thing I find myself almost always saying: If you want a story for your toys, hire a goddamn writer. I really don't understand why writing fiction and world-building is seen as the one thing where there are professionals who do it professionally, with professionalism - and yet everyone thinks they'll do just fine if they just kind of wing it and do it themselves.
Writers aren't out here sculpting their own action figures. But sculptors are like 'pretty sure I can write a compelling narrative for a completely made-up world. How hard can it be?'
You can't. It's always bad. Even some actual writers struggle to write good material, so trust me when I say that you - a not-writer - are probably not going to do a great job. Especially when the written material isn't really what you're focused on or even interested in if you're a designer, or a sculptor, or a painter, or whatever. There's plenty of talented writers out there just doing shit like fanfic and working regular jobs because writing doesn't pay the bills. It's potentially not even all that expensive to get someone like that involved. Even a decent fiction EDITOR, for a few hundred bucks, can take a pass over your stuff and make some notes on how to improve it.
And yet. AND YET... almost no one does it. It's the one thing that Kickstarters and toy people almost always merrily cheap out on. And even though I'm complaining - I get it. It's basically the least important part of making a toy. But if you still think it's important enough to do it at all.... maybe do it better.
You make a solid point with that. If these toymakers want anything more than just a basic "good guy/bad guy" story, they really should tap some writing talent. Otherwise they'll end up with a Boss Fight style thing that really just exists have have some kind of connection of a story with the toys, regardless of depth or quality.
Im not judging this story until I get a chance to read the comic (if I ever get it, that is), but the premise does sound pretty cool. we'll see how they do with the details, story nuances, characterization, etc.. Same can be said for the Savage Crucible with what I've heard from their story. It sounds neat, but will it be well written? Im not sure if they hired a writer or not, so that may not apply here I suppose.
For me the dragons vs cyber-dinos is a 100% aesthetics, though it does make sense that they don't match in according to the lore.
The thing about that is, they're not really selling the story. If you can't monetize the written aspect of it, then you can't hardly justify sinking money into it. We're a bunch of nerds who want our toys. So some poorly written copy on the box won't make me skip a purchase. But one that's X% more expensive to cover the cost of a fiction writer to make the package story more compelling will definitely negatively impact the amount of sales your could generate.
@fuzzybluedemon Definitely, most of us are here for the plastic. I know I am, and will enjoy these toys regardless of the lore.
In their livestream, Dan did mention that they would love for this to branch out into other media though. As awesome as the character designs are, it will need a solid story in order to make it as a movie, video-game, series, etc.
It’s always weird to me when people adhere to “the lore” of a completely made up just to be toys toy line. Like there’s a cartoon or movie or an on going comic, sure I get that, but when it’s three lines of text on a box I’m throwing away, naaaw I’ll just make up some head canon…
Anyway here’s the only “lore” I need…
The Eagle Force Bruno brothers (and a Jurassic Park baby Rex) are going to absolutely wreck these cyberpunk dystopian dinosaurs!
Getting me an armored Dryptosaurus and getting me an extra set of Dryptosaurus armor to put on a Bistahieversor (jesus, I hate real dinosaur names almost as much as the fake fantasy ones in Mythic Legions) to flank an armored Carnotaurus!
Oh Dybukk? You’re the big bad of the story? Sorry, pally! You’re a Goomba now and there’s three of you! Get on your goddamned armored dinosaurs and catch those plumbers!
Nice - cool that you're having fun with your toys. I was mildly interested in the Bruno brothers, but now I'm more tempted since your pics look better than the BBTS mock up pics. I don't think they stand a chance against the fire and Tech clans though lol 😉
As far as "adhering to the lore", what's the difference between lore behind action figures or anything else? 3 lines of text? You're way off on that with Cyberzoic. These guys created a full on storyline because they want this property to delve into other forms of media. Take it or leave it, they want there to be a big established story so it is worth commenting on.
The thing about that is, they're not really selling the story. If you can't monetize the written aspect of it, then you can't hardly justify sinking money into it. We're a bunch of nerds who want our toys. So some poorly written copy on the box won't make me skip a purchase. But one that's X% more expensive to cover the cost of a fiction writer to make the package story more compelling will definitely negatively impact the amount of sales your could generate.
(Just my thoughts on this topic overall below - it's wordy so feel free to just ignore me and carry on with your day with the TLDR being 'I don't agree with you.')
Respectfully, I don't think this is the right way to look at it. You're not selling the story - the story is selling your toys. That's why they do it. People making toys aren't producing story copy on websites and the packaging because they love the extra work. It's because they think if they can do something interesting or compelling, they can sell you on an idea, a figure, a set of figures, whatever, that you might not otherwise have bought.
Think about MOTU and G.I. Joe. They only have stories at all because someone decided having a good story was a better way to sell people on more of the toys. Now? Beloved franchises with deep, rich stories that have kept us buying new toys for 40 years. No Duke action figure is carrying a 40 year torch of success based solely on how good of a piece of plastic it is. Even if you look at collecting stuff like Marvel - how many figures does the average ML collector own simply because of the -story- associated with that character or costume. Are people buying MJ figures because she's such a GREAT action figure, or because it's Spider-Man's wife?
So poorly written copy absolutely can make you skip a purchase, because it's a 'skipped purchase' if the story fails to engage people and they lose interest in the larger line. Getting people invested in the entire world you've created and the stories it contains doesn't guarantee success, but it makes it more likely, it seems.
As for the extra cost - I would hazard to say it would be so negligible that not only is it really wrapped up in 'advertising' cost, but that it wouldn't really reflect on the final product. It's basically no different from the 'send it to me in a plain brown box' argument. We have online-only toylines with beautiful box art being shipped to people that are going to tear it open and throw all that hard work in the garbage.
Which is potentially more important to selling your toys - a compelling story that makes customers interested in all the characters, or packaging (for a toy not intended to be on store shelves) that they're going to throw away? The 'it'll cost more' argument is no different here. They pay for materials, extra steps at the factory in packaging, a packaging director/designer, an artist - etc. All for something I'm barely going to look at in 90% of cases. So why bother making me pay that extra percentage? Partly because they're never going to just tell you what the percentage is. You don't even -know- how much you're paying for that toy to have nice packaging. It's a non-starter of an argument. In my opinion, of course.
Also worth noting that when questioned about this very idea, a few different smaller toy companies have outright told us that the amount packaging adds to the entire process is so minimal that just shipping toys in a ziploc bag would barely affect the final price to consumers. And if all the stuff associated with packaging, mentioned above, -barely- affects the price of a figure, I can't see how having a writer -would-.
Moreover, some of these lines could probably get by with just a good editor to offer suggestions on the stuff written by the creators. And toy companies already have editors - they need those for the copy that goes on the package already. So just like.. hire a better one? Someone with experience in editing fiction. Viola. There's lots of solutions here that are better than 'toy designer with zero writing experience creates an entire world and storyline with zero input from someone that's a professional at that thing.'
And maybe, just maybe, one of these little indie dudes with a cool idea could end up creating the next MOTU or G.I. Joe. But without a good story, they WON'T. Full stop.
It’s always weird to me when people adhere to “the lore” of a completely made up just to be toys toy line. Like there’s a cartoon or movie or an on going comic, sure I get that, but when it’s three lines of text on a box I’m throwing away, naaaw I’ll just make up some head canon…
I would argue that the issue is more that some toy collectors just aren't very creative or imaginative (in this specific way) and therefore they respond better to having some kind of story set out -for- them. It's not that you -have- to follow it. It's that having it there creates engagement. And even those of us that do kind of.. do whatever we want even with established IPs, we're not immune to that kind of engagement either.
Like my above Marvel example - I have definitely owned a LOT of Marvel figures just because of a storyline connection I liked and not because the toy itself was particularly desirable. But I also tend to have entire head-canon for long-standing IPs that vary drastically from what's official. You can have both a connection to existing story and your own personal story. They're not mutually exclusive.
Is there a way to see the spreadsheet of what items everyone ordered? What's the most popular stuff here; pure critter orders, combo sets, maybe armors for pre-existing critters, or action figures? Getting a snapshot now and comparing against the BackerKit closure might be interesting at some point.
I got orders in for every dino/armor/rider combo that was available. Wanted to just get those paid and out of the way so I can focus on any new stuff the gets solicited through the backer kit.
I'm definitely grabbing the green dragon, and possibly going for an extra 3 pack of the Deinonychus sets in the backerkit as well.
Man, now I'm kinda wanting to see BossFight's Queen Solan riding that green dragon. That'd be some shit, imho.
Oh hell yeah, that would be super cool with her green shiny armor and all.
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