@John:
I understand how you feel, because I’m feeling the same way, but I have come to the conclusion that they can’t pump these sets out as fast as they thought. On average, at the rate they are going, I see 2 or 3 a year sets is the most they could produce a year, because they have so many other products they are doing. […] I want them as bad as you, but I decided couple months back not to give my hopes up, because production is so slow.
This is a good point which raises a pretty fundamental question. If HBG over the past year or so has been experiencing bottlenecks with regard to the ability of its overseas factory to produce unit sculpts, while at the same time HBG has been developing (or thinking about developing) many different new sculpt sets (both as stand-alone sets and as part of boxed games like Amerika), has a situation developed in which HBG is getting too far ahead of itself? In other words, are we in a situation in which the ratio of projected sets under development versus completed sets actually leaving the factory is becoming too lopsided?
The potential problem with having too many projected sets stacking up relative to the rate at which they can actually be produced is that it can create the kind of frustration that people experience when they see a desirable product in the front window of a store that’s closed for renovations. It’s also been contributing on this forum to many debates (I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call them arguments) about the order in which the projected sets should be manufactured. If the sets were being produced at a rapid clip, it wouldn’t matter very much if such-and-such a set comes first while a certain other one comes, let’s say, fifth, because even the fifth one would end up in people’s hands within a reasonable timeframe – perhaps even a timeframe that could be estimated with reasonable accuracy. If, on the other hand, sets come out slowly, then it becomes a much more serious matter whether a particular set is first or fifth in the cue, and customers will therefore be tempted to press the case for why their particular favourites should me moved up in the production order.
I certainly don’t want to see HBG drop its production and QC standards to get pieces out faster, since the quality of their products is one of their prime selling points. I do, however, think it might be a good idea for HBG to put a temporary moratorium on announcing concepts for new sets of sculpts until it’s made headway on clearing the traffic jam of existing projects. Adding more cars at the tail end of a snarled traffic line at rush-hour just results in more frustration for more people, without making the cars already in the line roll any faster. Personally, at this point I’d prefer not to know what long-range plans HBG is considering for additional sculpt sets beyond the many ones that it has already announced or about which it has asked this community to vote to express its preferences.
