It’s already been a big day for First 4 Figures, as the much-loved livestreams with Alex and Chockles returned in honor of pre-orders opening up for the Exclusive Luigi’s Mansion 3 PVC Statue! But hold on–that’s not all that our F4Fearless leaders have for us today: it’s the first episode of an all-new stream!  Who knows what might be said or shown during the inaugural First 4 Figures Live and Unplugged #1? Not I…! But I’ll be recapping it nonetheless, so if you’re interested–stay tuned!!

First4Figures Live and Unplugged #1 Notes:

• [I don’t know precisely what form this new show is going to take, so I’m just going to recap this as a bulleted list for now…]
• Chocks tried to watch the new Spider-Man and My Hero Academia movies twice during flights, but got bored and couldn’t watch movies while flying
• Alex’s shirt felt tight when he put it on today–he needs to hit the gym!
• Have the F4Fans missed the streams? It’s been weird to have gone dark for the past two months.
• Chocks brought Phoenix Wright to PAX West just for Kevin Bookbinder, but Kevin didn’t even come to the show. 🙁
• Alex is sending the bill for PAX to Kevin Bookbinder, but will call it square if Kevin picks up Luigi
• This is NOT a Q&A–it’s just “chill out” time with some questions answered here and there
• Huge developments happening behind the F4F scenes! Alex is super pumped!
• After 7 years, Alex is finally going to be getting 1G at his house!
• Now that Alex will be getting 1G around Chinese New Year, he’ll be able to do Let’s Playsearch from home rather than having to go into the office to do them. That means Alex won’t have to be at the office until 3AM to do Playsearch, making more Playsearch streams a possibility!
• The last two months have been so interesting for Alex! He’s pulled back from the club and social media to focus on the company more.
• “SOP” basically means to write shit down so that things don’t fall through the cracks; Alex has also been focusing and Tuesday and Thursday company meetings which allow him to focus on the things that happen in those meetings on Monday/Wednesday/Friday
• Maybe M/W/F could be a potential day for Playsearch streams!
• Luigi stream was straight to the point with no BS; Chilling and chatting will take place outside of the designated slots for product launches
• The future of live launches will be like the Luigi’s Mansion 3 launch; don’t want people coming to hear about a product launch and then having to listen to Alex and Chocks droning on about the Week in Review/Snack Review/Q&A/etc
• Will have these hangout sessions after the product launches so that the rest of the staff can go home after official business is complete
• Hopefully there will be more short 30-45 minute shows as the new studio becomes ready to use
• The new studio setup hasn’t gone according to plan yet
• Bowser, Ornstein, Shovel Knights, Aku Aku Masks have all been shipping since the last stream
• Guts is about to start shipping, as is the GNFToyz Sonic vs. Chopper statue
• Two months doesn’t seem like a long time to not be streaming, but it felt long to Alex
• Chocks felt like every single day went quickly because he’s had things piled up that he’s been catching up on; not being on social media as much is helping Chock to look to the horizon and see the vision of the future for the company
• New CS people have joined the team with Phil since the last livestream
• There’s a big company lunch once a month for First 4 Figures, and the 7th and 28th floor employees were sitting across from each other with many of them not knowing each other because of how big the staff is getting now
• Really pumped about the future; Chocks joined in May 2016 and Peggy has been around for almost a year to the day now and has flourished and learned how everything works
• First 4 Figures has managed to book the same Peggy actress for every single event, which has been fantastic!
• Miguel will be joining the marketing team in the next week or so
• Some off-the-wall stuff coming up in the future
• Alex knows the club has been quiet and the community feels like it’s died a little bit, but that’s actually quite normal for other companies–there’s a sense of expectation that First 4 Figures goes above and beyond
• Alex used to focus on the minutiae and read every single post and comment, but he just doesn’t have time to look at every single post and PM the way that he used to; can’t handle helping people with their Flexipay or CS issues anymore since there are teams for those things; just doesn’t have the time anymore and doesn’t want to focus on those things until F4F is firing on all cylinders again
• Alex will be PMing *us* and not the other way around once everything is running smoothly
• Will chat about potential 5K run sizes for resin statues during another Live and Unplugged stream when a resin statue goes up for order–makes more sense to have that discussion then

The Evolution of F4F Documentaries:

• No documentaries for the Luigi launch; there may not be any more documentaries in the future in the usual format we’ve become accustomed to; Alex wants it to be more professional and he wants more of the staff and project managers to be involved in the documentaries
• Next resin launch is a “he” and will be quite “beastly”/”big”
• Alex has been holding onto the creative/sculpting leadership with an iron grip up until now, but all of a sudden Alex isn’t the be-all and end-all of First4Figures making all of the decisions anymore; he now has a much bigger team on the creative side and is working with some amazing artists that are really bringing up the quality of F4F’s work
• Alex is not an artist, so the things that have been done before could be improved upon–First 4 Figures is being taken to the next level by hiring a team of incredibly talented artists
• Documentaries will be more about other people talking in the future and not just Alex
• Alex doesn’t give the direction anymore, he just signs off on what can be done while staying within the target pricing range for a product; this isn’t something an artist can just know from the beginning–it has to be learned over time
• This is the evolution of the documentaries–Alex wants them to be better and to highlight the talent of the First 4 Figures team

Q&A!

• “Is this every Friday?”
• No–will most likely be happening after launch streams on Fridays when product launches occur
• Think of “Live and Unplugged” as a second program to happen on launch days
• Alex wants to have gaming time with members someday in the streams; wants streams to be much more planned out and structured
• Shorter and less frequent streams will help Alex and Chocks with their work-life balance
• The Q&As were becoming stale with the same information being given, and too much information was being given and Alex wants to dial it back
• Chocks is thinking about wearing the F4F tie I gave him but unbuttoning his top button so he can be semi-profesh
• This stream will be cut off at one hour–trying to keep it manageable
• Felt a little bit nervous doing a live stream for the first time in months
• Validation will still happen the week after product launch–there just won’t be a validation stream anymore
• Kei Nanase got a job today! He’s a doctor now! Doctor Nana!
• 5 Pre-orders being juggled in the air; Luigi has landed first, but not confident enough in a plan yet that X product will be ready to launch on X date; thinks it will be another 5-6 months before there can be 5-6 products already photographed in such a way that a release plan schedule can be ready months in advance
• “Any updates on SOTN Richter Belmont?”
• Unfortunately not; the artist working on Richter has been working on other things; Dracula and Death are both coming up sooner than Richter so there’s still a ways to go; Richter is still in 3-D
• Miguel Galvez will be officially joining the team in a marketing capacity and you’ll see him in the club in the next few days or whenever; the new marketing team will be Chockles, Cheggy and Mickles
• “Is F4F looking into GamesCom Singapore 2020?”
• They know the event is a thing that is happening–don’t even know the dates
• Not going to do hashtags for the new streams but will still have feeding frenzies
• No “Who Dat Who Dat” this episode, but perhaps in future ones
• “Is a PO every two weeks still the goal for F4F?”
• Absolutely, but not at that stage yet; they did it for a while but it’s going to be once every 3-4 weeks right now most likely
• “Where is Skull Knight?”
• Skull Knight got stuck in customs at GamesCom and didn’t end up being able to be displayed at the show
• “Banjo-Kazooie status?”
• Alex hasn’t had a chance to visit this factory lately; BK is deep in production behind Guts and Shiranui at the factory
• “Any more gaming sessions coming up?”
• Not just yet; two-player Luigi’s Mansion 3 could be cool, as could Mario Kart Tour online
• Shipping price for Guts will be reallocated in much the same way as Ornstein, with any reduction in price being given as a coupon code
• Alex misses the feeling of being in the club and knowing about all our lives, but he needs some “me” time
• “Will there be a resin Luigi?”
• Nothing in confirmed
• One last thing: First 4 Figures isn’t big potatoes as a company, but the stakes are much higher as the company has a big number of employees now. Small problems get multiplied by the number of people on the team, so any small misstep could be as issue. Have to make sure to walk the path clearly and focused, and Alex feels more clarity now than he has in a long, long time. He’s excited–Chock is excited and you can tell by his face–and he thanks all of us for being here on this journey with him.

…and that’s a wrap for the first-ever F4F Live and Unplugged Recap! Be sure to check out the Luigi’s Mansion statue launch photos and information, and see you again for the next product launch… someday!