darkSpyro

I actually like Gill Grunt's new look the most. They are all quite nice, truly, but I'd still rather have more brand new characters. That's halfway off-topic, but it'd be nice to have missions in which we are going to recruit new Skylanders for the next game. They could tease a few new characters that way

I like Gill Grunt too

Hey gang. Been awhile.

As usual the "collector's" and "completionist's" perspective is often self-serving and totally dismissive of what TfB needs to do to turn a profit. Normally, hardcore players only form 5-10% of any grouping. The average kid going school shopping for a back pack and grabs the Skylanders Back Pack doesn't own every Skylander on the back pack. But since the pictures are there for them to see everyday, they are often inspired to search out those figures for the game.

These end up being the bulk of the purchases, not the collector who may have stipulations on what he buys (no reposes, no alts, no LC, or whatever guidelines he follows). Lightcore went away because they weren't selling as solidly as they wanted (they sold fairly well, but the cost per figure was higher and moving the lower volume just wasn't worth it). So having 4 different Gill Grunts when the child is flooded with pictures of Gill grunt still ends up profitable.

At this point, on all non-video game merchandise, there is a primary figure for most elements:

Fire: Eruptor
Water: Gill Grunt
Life: Stealth Elf
Undead: cynder and hex are neck and neck
Magic: Pop Fizz has taken over since Giants
Tech: Trigger Happy
Earth: Terrafin
Air: Jet-Vac

It's no surprise these characters have multiple versions. It would be moronic to not prep for the increased demand in these figures. You may not like it, but it's good business. That really can't be argued. Revamped characters seems like a much better way to go if we're to get a 5th Gill Grunt (who kids are gonna want if they don't have one yet). This also makes more of the "no repose" collectors break down and snag the figure as it will play differently from the previous versions beyond one small wow pow variation. They are targeting a larger portion of the possible/probable buyers then just simply kicking out a "brand new" character at the end of the day.

If the game fails, it will have little to do with capitalizing on the characters blanketed on children's lunch boxes, and far more to do with the direction of the series and general skylanders/figure based games burn out. Sometimes people want another 25 levels to play with their Skylander's and not have to deal with whatever silly gimmick they produce (the swappers were only swap to unlock the grid, but we're always played as if they were whole figures at my place after some initial tongue in cheek fun).

bbpf.