Club Eternia almost didn’t happen for 2015 as Mattel originally had 77% on August 18th, and they extended the deadline one more weekend and reached the needed 100.9% to go the full year and finish off the vintage line in Classics style. It took everyone once again this year to come together to pull this off. Some fans, including Toyguru, stated they purchased multiple subscriptions (Toyguru said he bought 4) to make this work. Fans of this line were lucky to even get the minimum needed compared to the DC subscription that only had about 60% subscribers needed.
Every year when there is a price increase, we noticed that there is a panic of the line not going through the following year as people back away because of the price increase, international shipping charges, and various other reasons. Despite the price increases, Master of the Universe Classics was lucky to always get the minimum needed (except Club Etheria 2014 that had 97%, but still went forward anyway).
If there is going to be a 2016 line, Mattel needs to be smart about this and offer fans something more than a He-Man 2.0. While other updates to vintage characters, Filmation, 200X, NA, Mini-Comics, Concept characters are possible, it might not be enough to save the line if Mattel were to offer a full 12 figure subscription with A-list variants, beast sized, 2-packs, and whatever else they can come up with. Don’t get us wrong, we want this to happen, but we are very concerned that without anymore vintage characters that are new to the line, fewer people will likely throw in the towel and say they are done with the line. If the 2016 subscription, does not go through because of this, Mattel will probably release what they show as quarterly releases and a San Diego Comic-Con exclusive. We don’t want to see this happen.
So, our suggestion to Mattel for 2016 will be to offer more mini-subscriptions like 4-7 instead of the full year. As for characters, go look at fan polls and requests that you’ve been getting since 2009. In our opinion, this is the safer route to go to get more figures released overall.