Neca's Players Select Thread

[Popoman]

Having just beaten God of War Ragnarok I am in that phase where I really want to buy action figures for it but have zero options and that is very sad

[TheSameIdiot]

Yeah, the video game action figure market is sadly barren.

What I wouldn't do for a Zagreus, Lara Croft, Shepard, Vault Dweller, or Dovah-Kiin.

[Mister Skeezler]

Yeah, the video game action figure market is sadly barren.

What I wouldn't do for a Zagreus, Lara Croft, Shepard, Vault Dweller, or Dovah-Kiin.

Bayek, Kassandra and Eivor would also be nice.

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[Shinigami_PL]

Didn't Todd make a bunch of AC figures in his 5" days? I wonder why they haven't renewed the license.

[Popoman]

Yeah, the video game action figure market is sadly barren.

What I wouldn't do for a Zagreus, Lara Croft, Shepard, Vault Dweller, or Dovah-Kiin.

I would LOVE action figures for Hades. They've got some Nendroids coming but that's about it. I would have liked Aloy from Horizon Forbidden West as well. Only merch I ever got from that was the Tallneck Lego set.

We've got a few mass market lines that seem to be doing okay like Halo, Fortnite, Mario, and Sonic. But most of those offerings are sub-par.

Not sure if McFarlane's Witcher 3 line is dead yet, but I was enjoying those and would like to finish out the main characters and maybe get a Leshen.

[Mister Skeezler]

Didn't Todd make a bunch of AC figures in his 5" days? I wonder why they haven't renewed the license.

I think so, but I don't remember them being all that great. I think they were minimally articulated. Plus, the weird 5" scale made them kind of useless.

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[TheSameIdiot]

Yeah, the video game action figure market is sadly barren.

What I wouldn't do for a Zagreus, Lara Croft, Shepard, Vault Dweller, or Dovah-Kiin.

I would LOVE action figures for Hades. They've got some Nendroids coming but that's about it. I would have liked Aloy from Horizon Forbidden West as well. Only merch I ever got from that was the Tallneck Lego set.

They also announced a Pop-Up Parade statue for Hades, but somehow no Figma. I'm down bad for Hades merch. So much so that I may stoop to a Nendoroid or statue.

I would definitely think about getting an Aloy. I was lukewarm on the first game so I haven't played the second one yet.

[Amazing_Spider-Man]

Forbidden West is more of the same but everything has been improved. So if you're lukewarm on the first one, it might be worth getting the new one sale.

I saw something from Spin Master that gave me hope that maybe their Playstation figures won't be utterly disappointing, but I forgot what it was.

[Popoman]

I hadn't heard that about Spin Master but I looked it up and apparently they have the global master license for Sony toys, as of this past summer.

Wonder if we'll ever get anything good from them...Their DC figures are aimed at children.



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[TheSameIdiot]

I'm not holding my breath.

[KnightDamien]

Spin Master couldn't do any worse than NECA. It's just a trade off. Do you want ugly toys with giant hands and minimal articulation that you can touch, or do you want beautiful figures that crumble into dust when you sneeze in the same zip code? Pick your poison.

[TheSameIdiot]

Well, that's fair, but nobody else has really shown any interest in video game toys. I'd like to see Figma try it and expand beyond their usual fare.

Video game figures must not sell well, but I have trouble believing that one-offs like Dovah-Kiin, Lara Croft, etc. wouldn't do well enough to justify licensing.

[KnightDamien]

Well, that's fair, but nobody else has really shown any interest in video game toys. I'd like to see Figma try it and expand beyond their usual fare.

There is Jada now, right? Doing Street Fighter and Mega Man. IF those turn out well, they could be the company everyone starts turning to as the default 'I wish X would make Y' when it comes to video game stuff. Right now it seems like everyone wants NECA to carry on with more, but I honestly don't understand why. Even DST would be better. Sure, in terms of aesthetics and engineering, NECA teabags DST all day long (I made a gaming joke!), but at least DST figures don't have a long history of falling apart while the company blames you for daring to touch the product with your gross 'collector' hands.
And DST is just as unlikely to do anything beyond a main character or two for any given franchise, just like NECA.
In that regard, McFarlane would also be a contender. He did a couple of Geralts and other major characters from the Witcher game, and he's doing Arkham game figures. Granted, these are attached to licenses he undoubtedly got for other reasons, but it's certainly possible he'd expand into other video games if those sell well with the video game crowd. Which they won't.

Video game figures must not sell well, but I have trouble believing that one-offs like Dovah-Kiin, Lara Croft, etc. wouldn't do well enough to justify licensing.

I have no difficulty believing it's not worth it. We've seen time and again that popularity of a thing doesn't necessarily equate to popularity for that thing's merchandise. Particularly toys. While there's definitely overlap between 'gamers' and 'toy collectors' - I think it's really ONLY the overlap that those toys appeal to. Most non-Witcher game fans aren't going to buy Witcher video game toys, for example. And I'd wager that (based on like 40+ million games sold) MOST Witcher game fans don't really care about toys and may not even be in the know enough to be -aware- of Witcher game toys.
15 years ago, I think, there were a lot more toy collectors that would just buy cool stuff. With the ever-increasing prices, I don't see very many toy collectors going out of their way to buy action figures based on video games unless they also really like those games, and I definitely don't see non-toy collectors buying video game action figures when they could be using that money for more video games and related gear.
Even my 8-year-old son has largely abandoned asking for any action figures in favor of asking for gaming stuff.

There's something to be said for the statement someone made once that gamers buy games. Most of the people I personally know that -really- are into video games don't buy almost any non-game merchandise for those games. And maybe that's why mass retail toys for even some very popular game franchises (MK and Street Fighter) consistently fail. Even stuff like Sonic and Mario only seem to carry on at retail because they're actually pretty inexpensive and tied to two of the best known and most popular video game franchises of all time.

Do Lara Croft fans want an action figure of Lara? Kind of seems like the more hardcore Tomb Raider fans -tend- to fall into one of two categories: The ones that just like to play video games and don't even care about toys, and the ones that would much rather buy a 400-dollar statue of Lara with her clothes being torn off by a pile of tentacles or something....

[thefamousnicknaro]

Well, that's fair, but nobody else has really shown any interest in video game toys. I'd like to see Figma try it and expand beyond their usual fare.

There is Jada now, right? Doing Street Fighter and Mega Man. IF those turn out well, they could be the company everyone starts turning to as the default 'I wish X would make Y' when it comes to video game stuff. Right now it seems like everyone wants NECA to carry on with more, but I honestly don't understand why. Even DST would be better. Sure, in terms of aesthetics and engineering, NECA teabags DST all day long (I made a gaming joke!), but at least DST figures don't have a long history of falling apart while the company blames you for daring to touch the product with your gross 'collector' hands.
And DST is just as unlikely to do anything beyond a main character or two for any given franchise, just like NECA.
In that regard, McFarlane would also be a contender. He did a couple of Geralts and other major characters from the Witcher game, and he's doing Arkham game figures. Granted, these are attached to licenses he undoubtedly got for other reasons, but it's certainly possible he'd expand into other video games if those sell well with the video game crowd. Which they won't.

Video game figures must not sell well, but I have trouble believing that one-offs like Dovah-Kiin, Lara Croft, etc. wouldn't do well enough to justify licensing.

I have no difficulty believing it's not worth it. We've seen time and again that popularity of a thing doesn't necessarily equate to popularity for that thing's merchandise. Particularly toys. While there's definitely overlap between 'gamers' and 'toy collectors' - I think it's really ONLY the overlap that those toys appeal to. Most non-Witcher game fans aren't going to buy Witcher video game toys, for example. And I'd wager that (based on like 40+ million games sold) MOST Witcher game fans don't really care about toys and may not even be in the know enough to be -aware- of Witcher game toys.
15 years ago, I think, there were a lot more toy collectors that would just buy cool stuff. With the ever-increasing prices, I don't see very many toy collectors going out of their way to buy action figures based on video games unless they also really like those games, and I definitely don't see non-toy collectors buying video game action figures when they could be using that money for more video games and related gear.
Even my 8-year-old son has largely abandoned asking for any action figures in favor of asking for gaming stuff.

There's something to be said for the statement someone made once that gamers buy games. Most of the people I personally know that -really- are into video games don't buy almost any non-game merchandise for those games. And maybe that's why mass retail toys for even some very popular game franchises (MK and Street Fighter) consistently fail. Even stuff like Sonic and Mario only seem to carry on at retail because they're actually pretty inexpensive and tied to two of the best known and most popular video game franchises of all time.

Do Lara Croft fans want an action figure of Lara? Kind of seems like the more hardcore Tomb Raider fans -tend- to fall into one of two categories: The ones that just like to play video games and don't even care about toys, and the ones that would much rather buy a 400-dollar statue of Lara with her clothes being torn off by a pile of tentacles or something....

Toy companies probably need to do a better job of advertising to gamers, as well. I’d bet most never even hear about the products until it’s too late, if at all. I listen to a couple gaming podcasts and collectibles pretty much never get mentioned, and if they do, the hosts generally don’t know or understand enough about the hobby to effectively explain them.

I don’t know if that’s the only reason more crossover doesn’t happen, but I do wish video game related stuff was more popular. Games make up a disproportionate amount of IPs that I personally want worthwhile figures from that still haven’t been done justice.

[KnightDamien]

Toy companies probably need to do a better job of advertising to gamers, as well.

You could probably even generalize that to 'toy companies need to do a better job of advertising.' I know people that DO buy toys that still get surprised by X or Y item, including a big TMNT fan that had no idea Super7 existed, and another TMNT fan years ago that didn't know about the NECA movie figures (although DID know about the other NECA stuff somehow). I've also more recently met huge G.I. Joe fans that had no idea there were new G.I. Joe toys. It kind of seems like toy collecting is something that toy -companies- take for granted. They just expect that if you have any interest in this stuff then you're probably following all the fan sites, Instagram, official sites, etc. That's just not necessarily true.

Same is true, I expect, with video game stuff. NECA (just to keep picking on them) probably just assumes that if you're into God of War enough to buy a 20-dollar action figure and an 80-dollar video game, then you're probably just generally paying close attention to that IP. The one doesn't necessarily follow the other.

I listen to a couple gaming podcasts and collectibles pretty much never get mentioned, and if they do, the hosts generally don’t know or understand enough about the hobby to effectively explain them.

I feel like that says a lot right there, though, you know? Even the gaming podcast people, who are presumably SUPER into some of these IPs, just don't pay much attention to action figures. And not only that, they don't even consider it an important enough aspect of the hobby to be able to adequately mention it.

I don't know -why- there seems to be so little overlap there, but that definitely is the way it appears.

Games make up a disproportionate amount of IPs that I personally want worthwhile figures from that still haven’t been done justice.

I've been LONG banging the drum of wanting BFS to do BioWare HACKS, because HACKS versions of the entire Mass Effect and Dragon Age universes would be amazing, and I think the HACKS system is basically the only action figure system that would actually work for customizable character games. But I doubt it's ever going to happen. Stupid BioWare fans just seem to want VIDEO GAMES for some dumb reason. Have they seen what video games are like these days?