F4F Q&A #92 Recap: 2 Weeks in Review! MCM! Kingdom Hearts! Keto!

It’s been two weeks since the last F4F Q&A (and longer since my last recap–apologies!), but the First 4 Figures Q&A #92 Recap with CEO Alex Davis and Lieutenant Chockles has now arrived! Alex and Chock are sporting their new custom, one-of-a-kind First 4 Figures Alphonse shirts, care of Martin John Palmer at MCM London 2018, and what happened at MCM will not stay at MCM! Questions answered in this week’s Recap include:

WHO went into the Vault last week?
WHAT is the reason F4F still doesn’t know what the next item up for order will be?
WHEN will be seeing the Phoenix Wright statue pre-order?
WHERE might we be seeing F4F at conventions in 2019?
WHY is Alex super disappointed in the Kingdom Hearts and Xenoblade polls?
HOW much weight has Alex lost on his Keto diet since August?

…And more!

Announcements and The 2 Weeks in Review:

Alex is in the process of contemplating getting SMILE eye surgery done to perfect his eyes
It has been a busy two weeks, but also a depressing two weeks
Guts, Spike, Warp Star Kirby and Psycho Mantis Exclusive Editions are all still available for pre-order on the website
The Dark Souls Torch Torch Hornet Ring is also now up for pre-order; some close-up videos and a video may follow once First 4 Figures has a sample in the office
Alphonse Exclusive and DE pre-orders are still open until the 16th of November
Spyro PVC EX Pre-Orders would have closed on November 2nd, but the pre-orders are still open for now because 3000 pieces have not yet been sold
First 4 Figures will send out E-Mails if they can see that they’re going to hit 3,000 units so that collectors can know that Last Chance Week is arriving and orders will be closed; if Spyro EX never reaches 3,000 units then an E-Mail will still be sent letting collectors know orders are closing–either way, advance notice will be given that orders are closing
On Monday 10/22/18, Alex’s 4th child Clementine joined the F4Family!
Alex loves nothing more than teaching kids stuff when they can understand; when they get to the age to try to make the kids into gamers, Alex has their back
The IT guys are on a roll–you can now see what your orders are for from the “My Orders” page without having to click on each individual order!
Moving forward, as PVCs become more a focus of the company, First 4 Figures will ask for the ability to make resin statues and PVCs when acquiring a new license
Alex has a hard time committing to both 1:6 and 1:4 scales for the same statues, as sales can vary wildly and thinking long-term, this strategy would likely cause a problem; instead, F4F can make both a small PVC and also a larger resin of some statues
In order to eat the $50,000 tooling cost for steel molds for a PVC, First4Figures needs to know that there’s an audience for that piece in advance; however, if the revenue stream for one project includes both resin and PVC versions, it’s easier to cost out the PVCs since they share one development cost
Banjo-Tooie PVC is coming up, and the exact same statue will also be made in a larger size for the resin
Resin and PVC attract a wildly different customer base because of the drastic difference in price, so a larger pool of potential buyers is being attracted and people who wouldn’t have purchased an expensive resin statue will purchase a PVC version
Chocks would prefer to have the PVCs come out before the resins, as they can come to market much faster than resin statues once the tooling has been made; Alex is okay with both the resin and the PVC being put up for PO at the same time now that orders aren’t limited to a 2-4 week window
Now then First 4 Figures gets a new license, there will 99.9% likely be both resin and PVCs released for that license if they’re allowed to do both by the licensor
PVC Reignited Spyro and resin Reignited Spyro will be completely different poses–they don’t match
Alex isn’t worried about cannibalizing sales of the resins by launching the PVCs first
Alex is pretty disappointed in the poll results of the Kingdom Hearts Character Poll right now in the OCC; Alex doesn’t think that anyone cares about Kingdom Hearts
Xenoblade Character Poll isn’t performing very well yet either
1:54:26
Ornstein is now in production, which is good news
Hoping to get gift cards done soon
Are OCC members interested in “The Promised Neverland” anime coming up next year?
Being able to see position on the Wait List on the website is another hotly-requested feature; shouldn’t be as much of an issue in the future as there will be less Wait Lists and Wait Lists will be converting much earlier
Faye has been kicking Alex’s ass–there’s still a lot more work to be done on her
On Window Shoppers Giving Feedback: “I don’t give a shit if you’re a window shopper, if you have no intention of buying it… I don’t give a fuck if you’re the donkey around the corner or the fucking queen of England or if you’re not buying it or you are buying it, I don’t give a shit. If someone is giving feedback and it’s valid, it’s my job to filter the bullshit and the non-bullshit.” — Alex Davis
Banjo’s revised base is finally at the physical stage, but “that shit should have been in production right here, right now”; delayed by making changes
Response to a new Ryo Hazuki Shenmue face sculpt Alex posted last week was terrible–only 27 comments and 58 Likes; “Unbelievable”; “Half the comments are talking about other stuff… rubbish”
Snake Interior Shipping Box is awesome
Got flagged by Facebook for having Spike’s cigarette in an ad; had to RIP that ad
No More Objections to Phoenix Wright! Capcom approval to everyone’s favorite lawyer has been given, and the response within the OCC has been solid to the announcement. 244+ likes and 50+ comments!
Phoenix has a sweet black base, and Alex absolutely loves it; Phoenix Wright was first revealed in 2015, and the 2015 Alex Davis developed black bases; “curb your enthusiasm Nanase”
Banjo-Kazooie changes are being worked on–hair has been shortened and base is revised and at physical
Phoenix Wright DE (Definitive Edition) is just an extra add-on; completely different from the Midna and Alphonse DEs
Sonic and Tails Diorama hands holding sneak peek was shown last week
“Absolute and complete frustration. Really, really frustrated. Really, really no direction for the last two weeks. The moment we found out that Dracula wasn’t going to make his 26th of October launch, we were scrambling. It’s been doing my nut in to discover all of the inefficiences that F4F has to get past… We’re sitting here twiddling our thumbs and doing nothing, when we should be having a new pre-order every two weeks. The future is so exciting with all the PVCs and resins and licenses we haven’t even talked about, and we know they’re going to be huge. But it’s going to take so long to get to that stage.”
“I don’t even know when the next order is going to be. I don’t even know what the next order is going to be. It is what it is, but you don’t have the same buzz and it gets stagnant.”
Conker and Aku Aku are both ready, but F4F wanted to save the Mini Aku Aku Masks for when Crash resin is in-hand; Conker is looking amazing; Green and Black Shovel Knights may also be ready

On MCM London 2018:

First 4 Figures has been prepping with Animegami for a few months for MCM London 2018 (since April 2018)
F4F has previously displayed Guts and Solaire SD at Animegami’s booth at various cons, and decided to share a booth with Animegami at MCM London October 2018 to see how F4F would fare at “ShittyCons”
Not intended as a flagship booth–just a punt as an experiment to see if First4Figures could recover covers and make a slight profit just selling PVCs at a small con; if so, F4F can kick off a “con tour” and visit a lot of different shows
New York Comic Con 2017 was a disaster, but it never really had a chance because F4F wasn’t really selling any PVCs or anything else at that show
GamesCom 2018 had a whole elaborate system integrating “Pre-Order Packs” and such, for ultimately absolutely zero reason–resin statues just don’t sell at con; resins statues take up so much space and can get broken and are so difficult to pack–and then they don’t sell at cons
First 4 Figures doesn’t need cons to sell the resins–they’ve been successfully selling them via the website without taking them to conventions for many years
MCM F4F Booth was no frills or banners–as many PVCs stocked as they could at the booth, along with out of package Snake SD, Spyro, Artorias SD, Link and Crash PVCs
As soon as con-goers saw the Amaterasu LSB resin, they were amazed–and then like “Whoooooaaa! That’s crazy!” when they saw the price, as they’re not resin collectors
More and more, it’s clear to Alex than PVCs are key to the expansion of the First 4 Figures brand
Had some problems where local stores went to their First4Figures distributors and said that they couldn’t continue to buy wholesale if F4F was going to price their PVCs in that way in the future because it’s too difficult to compete with that pricing stratagem
Alex can understand how that’s detrimental from a retail point of view; and 50% off may be too deep of a discount to sell PVCs that have been out for less than a year at–it just doesn’t make sense to release something in June or July and then slash it to half price in August for a convention
F4F brought 650 PVCs to MCM London and sold over 550 of them, which isn’t bad since MCM is just a “Shitty Con” attendance-wise compared to GamesCom
MCM London did well enough for F4F to hopefully attend PAX East, ACGHK, GamesCom and something else like Lucca or NYCC in 2019; if those conventions go well, then F4F could hire people to just organize the logistics and attend conventions for First4Figures all over the world, as it’s not feasible for Alex and Chock to go to every show themself
If 580 people bought PVCs at MCM, Chockles would be thrilled if even half of those new customers come into the club
Alex thinks maybe there should be little “business cards”/’postcards” of all the PVCs that people could just put into their wallets or bags, with an image on one side and all the dimensions/specs on the reverse side of the card
People were taking the leaflets without having to be asked at MCM London, and Chocks was also putting one into the bag with every PVC sold there
Alex isn’t convinced about Lucca at this stage because the setup for the event is horrendous; may look into another con in the October/November time
First 4 Figures expects their PVCs to have a shelf life of at least 3 years, and expect constant re-orders every 6 months after release; if the level of re-orders isn’t where F4F wants it to be, that’s when the company needs to start hitting more and more cons, where they know they can sell them
Alex doesn’t think F4F will return to October MCM London 2019, as next year they’ll have the same 3 PVCs plus Solaire, Spyro and maybe Amaterasu–there’s a large possibility that the same people will be back next year who won’t be impressed with only half of the PVCs there being new; could bring 6 PVCs to Canada, Australia or wherever where all of the PVCs are new to everyone in attendance; Alex thinks that swapping around cons attended is key
Alex would feel more comfortable going back to New York in 2019 now that F4F has stuff to actually sell at the show
F4F likely wouldn’t go to any international shows that are less than 4 days long
Would love to squeeze in PAX East 2019 if possible on short notice; will look into it closely soon

Temptation Thursdays and The King of the Ring:

Blood Plus TT #124: 241 Votes, 206 ‘No’ and 35 ‘Yes’
Contra TT #125: 146 Votes, 140 ‘No’ and ‘6’ Yes–A New Champion! Contra has fared even worse than Wing Commander!
Brothers A Tale of Two Sons TT This Week!
Seven Deadly Sins Anime TT Next Week!
This Week’s Hashtag for a chance to win 500 Rewards Points: #F4FMOS (‘Mos’ for ‘Mosquitos’–as in things are stagnant right now!)
King of the Ring II Has Begun! 4,000 Rewards Points are on the line! [You can see my picks and preview for the tournament right here!]
There are a whopping 67 Entries for KOTR II; but with 12 invalid entries for a total of 55 valid participants
Match #1: Sif vs. Sonic 25th Anniversary: Sif is currently winning by a mile with 70% of the votes in his favor; 84% of the valid entries predicted that Sif would win

Chock’s Snack Review and Alex’s Keto Diet!:

Real Strawberry ChocoBall!
“Freeze-Dried Strawberry Chocolate Yogurt Flavor”
Only a few in the bag, even though they were relatively expensive
There’s a freeze-dried strawberry in the middle
More yogurt-y than chocolate
Only 57.6 grams of carbs!
As of Friday, Alex has spent 400 HK dollars a day for two weeks for someone to come and deliver his food specifically tailed for him for his Keto diet to keep him to 1500 daily calories; scientifically broken down fat, carbohydrates, etc.
Alex brings this up because the total carbohydrate count for the entire day on his diet is 50 grams or less, and Chocks’ snack has more carbs in it than that
Chocks on Alex’s Snack: “It smells like… prawns.”
Alex also has some avocado and egg salad thing as a snack
Alex has already lost 3 kg since he came back from GamesCom in Germany in August! Went from 72.8 kg to 68 kg in just two and a half months! Went from 160 pounds to 152 pounds! 8 pounds!

The Q&A!:

Alex has never gotten into Virtual Reality because he’s waiting for the time where there’s a retina display and not pixelated stuff
“MCM would have been a success if [Nanase] was there.”
Phoenix Wright Pre-Order: “Sooner rather than later”; Ting’s teaser and reveal trailer haven’t been started yet; prototype isn’t back in the office yet
The more Alex thinks about doing Lucca, the more he doesn’t like it
No new Yakuza updates
Phoenix could be next PO or could not be
Alphonse sales are around 7.5 gold bars right now–not much movement since last update (sales around 450-ish)
No updates on mini-figures just yet
Difference between black foam and white styrofoam in boxes–black foam is cheaper to make, but also not as good, as there’s a lot more movement inside; a lot of the Fierce Deity Link breakages were due to the black foam
Club has been stuck at 54.9K members for a while
Alex believes MCM London might be viable to revisit two years from now; “a lot of potential”
Faye: “Gonna have to keep working on that.”
Upgrade from tape to straps on packaging? Alex doesn’t think it doesn’t make much difference; each has their own pros and cons
Chances of new Shenmue Ryo are a lot lower now than they were before Alex posted the new sneak peek
No plans for Shenmue PVCs right now
Alex’s fried eggs always turn out bland; but his egg-fried rice is super-easy and comes out well
Nothing to report on My Hero Academia
It’s not that the UK isn’t viable to visit again–it’s that it doesn’t make sense to visit it again so soon
Wait Lists won’t offer the full one-year payment plans, as F4F doesn’t want to keep statues in the warehouse for an additional year
What group of fans in the OCC is the most rabid? “Depends on the day.”
Alex hopes F4F will revisit Zero Suit Samus, because she’s a “stain” on F4F
Meta Ridley revisions will be sent to the Big N
Confirmed that the Blue Yoshi is going straight to the Vault to hold hands with Blue Warp Star Kirby
Hunter x Hunter: No plans; Crowded
Sailor Moon: “Talk to me when the TT is at 1000 ‘Yes’ votes.”
Alex came up with the idea for Peggy on the fly
No updates on Midna–she’ll be at the Majora’s Mask factory and should start production in a couple months [This is the Spyro/Shovel Knight/Aku Aku Mask Factory]
Alex is visiting the Crash and Alucard factories this week
Alex always welcomes advice from OCC members
Bowser will ship in two boxes: one for his base and one for Bowser himself
Team hasn’t gotten back to Alex yet on the mini metal figures
There’s a lot of Dark Souls in the works, but it’s taking longer than expected for reasons that F4F can’t get into, which is why Alex is locking down information for right now
Cuphead TT needs to do better
Horizon Zero Dawn is unlikely; more of a Gaming Heads 3
Would only do Witcher 3 SDs PVCs, not resins
Nothing to update on Persona 5
Amaterasu Resin Version 2 will have the same style of base as the first Shiranui and Amaterasu
License reveals are about announcing things at the right time now and not about tying them to milestones in the club
Conker looks so good
Alex didn’t dress up for Halloween: his kids dressed up as a pumpkin and Ariel (the Little Mermaid)
Alex’s favorite horror movie is “Triangle”–if you consider it to be horror; it is like amazing next-level–don’t look it up, just watch it
Okami upcoming pieces are all in different stages; Amaterasu PVC next, followed by upscaled resin from the PVC, followed by Chibiterasu diorama, followed by Oki Wolf Form
Alex will be looking at plush more seriously in the next month or so
Morrigan is coming along very nicely and Ivy should be wrapping up pretty soon
If Phoenix Wright does very well, a certain prosecutor can be considered as well
Blaze and Super Shadow are becoming closer-ish to being something to consider
Modern Amy Rose–Alex needs to get the Kickstarter approved
Ammy PVC and Resins will probably be the only Okami pre-orders in 2019; Chibiterasu still being developed
Factory has been selected for Shiranui
Next Spyro piece will be Reignited Spyro Resin
F4F is keeping their cards close to their chest on Dark Souls until they can get the pieces that are announced out
No chance for Bloodborne statues at this stage
Kingdom Hearts: There were reasons for that character poll. Seriously looking over F4F’s resources and trying to determine if demand for Kingdom Hearts is real.
Gap between waiting for Sonic 25th Batches 1 and 2 is due to waiting for electronic parts to arrive and because the factory is super-slow
Aku Aku Life Size Mask is going into production now
First4Figures Instagram is being updated daily now; beginning to look at Pinterest as well; would like more activity on Twitter and Youtube as well
PVC Classic Badniks from Sonic the Hedgehog? “We can do a poll. Why not?”
Chances of Guts and Ornstein being ready at the same time are zero since the same factory is making both
Not sure when Aika Kickstarter might happen
Banjo-Kazooie: 100% not swappable eyes, but the eyes will be slightly turned
F4F has nothing to do with Amiibo
Faye pose is still up for discussion
Banjo PVC ‘Yes’; Jinjo ‘No’
Dracula PO won’t be for a while
Gabriel PO won’t be for a while; Vampire form has already been done (as Dracula)
Bowser EX ES has been increased to 1100
Genos will hopefully be a 2019 PO
Recent Kingdom Hearts poll was legit and not just bait; to see if F4F should really push for it
Oki Wolf Wolf from Okami is confirmed
Can do more Darkstalkers if Morrigan does well
Chocks had to wear reflective vests for setup on the first and last day of MCM London; had to buy the vests for 5 quid each; “I’m glad they didn’t make us do anything else like wear a helmet or some shit like that.”
Not sure when Banjo-Kazooie Last Chance Week will be
Don’t even bother with an Onimusha TT–F4F was denied back in the day because of likeness reasons
Amaterasu Life-Size Bust will still be a while before shipping; it’s going to be a while; Wait Lists will convert a bit quicker than normal
Killer Instinct TT did really, really badly
F4F Mario on Yoshi was going to be done in Blue as well as Green, but Blue is in the Vault now–F4F is sticking with Green
First 4 Figures had a good run with pre-orders almost every two weeks in 2018, but they’ve hit a bit of a brick wall right now so it may be a bit until the next PO
There was going to be a Who Dat and a Chill, but there’s a conference call with a super secret licensor that Alex needs to take; so the Q&A is coming to an abrupt end

…And that’s it for this week! See you back next week for Q&A #93! Learn anything that catches your excitement this week, #F4Fans?

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