On Feb 17, 2018 Hasbro introduced us to Haslabs. Think of Haslabs as Kickstater, but run by Hasbro. Hasbro describes it as
“HASLAB is Hasbro’s new crowdsourcing platform that hopes to bring dream products into the hands of fans. With your support, our goal is to make products that are trophy items both in significance and size that fans have been clamoring for. Once the campaign is backed with the minimum number of backers as listed by the deadline, Hasbro will bring the product to life.”
Essentially Hasbro releases a cool idea (such as the MASSIVE Jabba's sail barge) and then interested people pay up front. Get enough to people to pay and BAM you get a cool and limited numbered product. You even get your money back if they don't make their goal. Hasbro's first campaign was the Jabba Sail Barge and it was a successful with 8810 people funding it. Hasbro needed 5000 people before before they put it into production, so I would say people liked the idea.
I'm excited to see the ideas. With Hasbro having many inactive toy lines this could mean huge things for the line. I mean who wouldn't like to see some new toys for MASK, Jem, Visionaries, etc. Haslabs may be how fans get to see life in their old franchises. I mean if Bucky O'Hare can get a new toy, I'm sure some of the other random lines of toys can.
Now if we can just get the GI Joe General funded....