Unfortunately this isn’t the first time the Ghostbusters have been worked over by He-Man.
A sad day for Ghostbusters nerds, but not all that surprising. Most of us saw the writing on the wall after Matty cancelled the Club Ecto subscription plan. Scott Neitlich, Mattel’s brand manager in charge of the Ghostbusters license confirmed the cancelation:
After we did not receive enough sub holders in 2012, we could not get additional development resources for more figures so we move the most fan demanded figure that was already in development to the SDCC slot. Fans really do vote with their purchase and the sub not selling was a big red flag that we don’t have enough customers for the 6″ GB line right now.
In other words: Not enough money coming in to justify producing new figures. The Ghostbusters line was outsold by the DC Universe line, as well as the Master of the Universe line. There is a lot of speculation as to why this is the case.
Honestly, had GB sold in the realm of MOTUC or DCU we could talk more figures, but at the end of the day, we just don’t have enough customers to keep the line going. Only the core movie 1 figures sold at the numbers we needed, and really of these, only Peter did well. After that, all figures, including fan demanded figures like Vigo, just did not sell the number of units we needed to produce more figures. We can only make figures when their is a customer base buying them.
If you want my two cents on the matter I think Matty focussed on quantity of figures released over quality of them. While there are some real gems in this set, there are just as many recycled figures. I understand these measures were taken to help save some money with production costs rising. For me, it feels like Matty came just short of awesome on most of their Ghostbusters releases. My latest review for the Rookie figure is a great example of this. Another could be the Ghost Trap with the grinding gears or Stay Puft with the liver condition that turns him yellow.
All of this said, I am still really grateful that we got something. There was quite the drought for a long time for fanatics of the series like myself. I think now my pocket book will be thankful that this line has been discontinued. On a positive note, Matty has said it will address some form of a refund for fans that purchased the Stay Puft. And the “thank you” for those of us that signed up for Club Ecto is still in the works. Matty also announced it plans to continue producing larger Ghostbusters items next year. And in the unlikely event that Ghostbusters 3 does happen, they will be all over it.
Thanks to Proton Charging for the great write up that brought this to my attention.