Over the last three months, I’ve had the uniquely world-altering experience of living outside of the F4F Official Collectors Club Facebook Group. As such, I’ve been a little, well, “out of the loop”, as to what’s going on in the First 4 Figures world! But when I saw that the Okami Divine Descent statue was going up for order today in Definitive and Exclusive Editions, I figured it was time to tune in to the latest episode of F4F LIVE and Unplugged to get up to date and learn the answers to such pressing questions as:

WHAT ever happened to the Spyro Ripto’s Rage PVC?

WHEN will Conker be shipping out to collectors in the US?

WHO has joined the F4F team in the agency’s BOGO Sale?

WHY has progress been so slow on Yu-Gi-Oh?

IS a new version of Alucard in development?

AND did someone say “Darksiders”….?

F4F Live and Unplugged Recap: 1/17/2020

• Peggy went back to the acting agency, but the agency had a Buy One Get One Free sale, so Dave and Liz are joining the marketing team and have been on the team for two full weeks now
• Dave is the digital marketing guru in the office and will be posting tons of stuff to Pinterest
• Dave came to his interview wearing a suit and looking all profesh and impressing Alex, and was offended that Alex questioned his geek credentials during the interview
• Stepped back to see what could be done and improved at the end of 2019, and digital marketing was one area where F4F could be improved
• Liz has been working with the marketing team on and off with a few projects; is very new in this industry with a lot to learn with the support of Dave and Miguel; will be working on events as well
• These are exciting times for the marketing team with an extra person on board now, and Alex looks forward to seeing how it goes
• A new project manager also arrived in the begining of January: Joe, who was previously in the functional toy industry and was limited in what he could do creatively, got an emancipation by fire from Alex
• There’s now four project managers on the team who work directly with Alex
• Alex has become a little more professional when it comes to planning things; wants to be able to stick to a timeline and plan for what projects will actually be up for order and when
• If Joe started making a project the day he was hired, his first product wouldn’t go up for order until Q4 2021 because there are so many projects in queue
• Alex told Joe on Joe’s first day that it would be bonkers to have him working on projects that wouldn’t come up for sale for nearly two years
• Instead, Joe is going to take 40% of work away from Buffy and Chris (20% from each), and also work on things that are not figure-based
• Joe will be developing projects as the driving force for the CORE line, a range of projects that are not just the usual statues and figures; Alex is really excited about this
• 3 Topics That Alex Wants to Go Through:
• 1) Customers will have to start paying taxes based upon where they are; this is the law and sales tax will be added depending upon where you live in the United States, Europe, etc.
• 2) Shipping fee prices will be decoupled from pre-orders now; it’s too difficult to estimate a year-plus in advance how much shipping is going to cost in the future with the way shipping costs are rising; pricing will now be calculated differently based upon your country/location
• 3) Will be moving away from live product launches; going away for two reasons: there’s no interaction with customers now anyway, and there’s no reason to do the product launches live and be nervous of breaking the statue live when an edited version could be aired instead as a watch party in 4K
• If the launches are pre-recorded, the projects managers can come in on-screen and contribute to the videos since they actually worked on the statues
• Alex and Chocks being in Hong Kong on Fridays is going to be harder and harder with them being all around the world, so streaming pre-recorded video launches make sense
• What is the best time to launch? 10AM launches in the United States, afternoon for Europe and late for Asia is what First 4 Figures have been doing, but there’s more flexibility to move the launch to any time if it’s taped; Alex would like to see the launches during Hong Kong office hours
• F4F Live and Unplugged will still happen, as Alex loves this king of interaction with the fans

30 Minutes of Q&A!

• Alphonse is in production at the casting stages; Chinese New Year is coming
• Alex’s dream license is Final Fantasy
• Liam cannot have 100,000 points
• Ripto’s Rage Spyro PVC is now physical, had to have changes made to it and is a much better piece as a result
• Zelda PVC launched in November
• Expect more pre-orders in 2020 than any previous year–two per month or more
• Working on something Mario Bros.
• Meta-Ridley is being challenging; expecting to get the final factory counter sample after Chinese New Year
• Conker may be a while reaching the US because of Chinese New Year delaying shipments for a month; Canada and other countries will be Conker earlier
• There is no pre-order schedule to share publicly until it’s locked down internally; want to have about 10 pre-orders in hand and locked down before sharing
• Let F4F know if you want a Guts LSB
• Probably gave up on doing a bigger version of the Sonic PVC statue; may do a white version of PVC Sonic as a convention exclusive–still need to think about that
• Human error sent one lucky customers 12 statues instead of one; F4F is in contact and working with the customers and everything is cool
• Planning a new Shiranui PVC but no resin unless there’s huge demand for it
• Gamescom 2020: Chocks hopes so
• Bayonetta statue is still in development, as are Snake and Guts busts
• Any updates on launching plush? “Joe: Get your ass in gear!”
• Typically about 4% damages/defects rate on resin statues is expected; if it goes over this 4% tolerance then First 4 Figures knows something has gone wrong
• Working really hard on Bayonetta and Yu-Gi-Oh
• Would love to work with Pokemon
• Nothing new to report on My Hero Academia right now
• Very happy with the sales of PVC figures and happy to reach different types of customers and be more inclusive to other demographics
• Castlevania Death and Richter are in the works; potential true form Alucard is also in the works and the concept is mind-blowing (with potential variants!)
• No news to confirm on Rider Link pre-order launch
• This year is going to be very busy
• Want to have an online tournament in Smash and/or Mario Kart; “Miguel: Set your status to ‘Hiding from Alex'”
• Yu-Gi-Oh is looking nice, just taking time; Female Dark Magician is being worked on right now
• At least one new license will be announced this year
• Luigi is the best-selling piece on the First4Figures website ever
• PVC/Resin combo Banjo-Tooie is absolutely being looked at
• Chocks is still alive and not reading from a script; he is not being held hostage and does not need any help
• No plans to bring back fierce Deity Link
• True Form Midna should start shipping from the Asia warehouse right after Chinese New Year
• Skull Knight pre-order very soon
• Mega Man PVC is coming along nicely
• Dante is coming along very slowly
• A lot of projects coming along for Yu-Gi-Oh, but coming along slowly because new senior artists brought in are making the pieces a thousand times better than Alex’s original concepts
• Would love to do Hollow Knight, Meta Knight and Wolf Link PVCs

Darksiders!

• So happy to announce that Darksiders collectibles are coming to First 4 Figures! Congrats to OCC member MAD for his unwavering loyalty and dedication to rallying for Darksiders! Alex and MAD will be having conversations about this license off-screen!
• THQ Nordic is watching the stream today, and Chocks will be following up with them after the stream today!
• War and Death are both coming as 1/6 resin pieces with crazy presences; can more effectively tell a story with a piece at the 1/6 scale and price-point than at the 1/4 scale
• Didn’t want to announce the Darksiders license too early; have been working on Darksiers for a long time now and are now deep in development; 3-D has already been approved on War and is being printed now to the physical stage
• Excited to welcome THQ Nordic to the family of First 4 Figures licensors

…And that’s it for the first F4F Live and Unplugged of 2020! And be sure to check out the Divine Descent Amaterasu Exclusive and Definitive Editions while the Early Bird Pricing Discount is still in effect! That nearly $70 discount on the DE definitely makes the Devout Beads and Infinity Judge a whole lot more palatable price-wise!

Learn anything new that gets you excited this week, F4Fans?