The Facebook debacle & other issues

I liked the robotic frame idea, but in general I like robots so *shrug*

I remember getting my hopes up when I first saw it, then someone informing me it was just an April Fool's joke, me being disappointed, eventually bringing it up on an instagram post a year or two later and getting the "we didn't have enough resources" response, which is fair if he wanted to move in a different direction I guess, but I still harbor vague hopes of getting into robotics enough to make my own robot doll (or other miniature humanoid robotic companion; I wanted to get involved in "social robotics" before that sort of died out in the USA kind of- anyone remember Jibo or Kiki? probably not). Quite the ambition, I know lol.

I do remember there being stuff about how the smaller 60cm compared to the larger scale (Mirai Plus, then Mirai Mannequin Machine, or was it in the other order?) had issues with getting parts small enough to use that were cheap enough to mass produce. Though in retrospect the moving of the concept to the larger 1/2 scale (before demoting it to "mannequin"), may have been stringing it along a bit. I was naive and bought into it (not literally), but it's pretty clear at this point that there is no intention to go back to those roots- except with cyberpunk themed display parts, which I have to admit are cool and would buy if I were willing to buy from Danny.

40 minutes ago, Starwaia said:

I liked the robotic frame idea, but in general I like robots so *shrug*

I wasn't trying be critical of folks who liked the idea, I just don't think it was viable as a product aimed at the average anime doll collector. Likely it was too expensive to develop as a commercial product, and too niche at this time to recoup the costs of that development. I mean, "we didn't have enough resources" sounds like code-speak for "not enough money to make it happen", and money was coming in for that project from people buying the initial smartdolls.

It was a cool idea, but I don't really hold it against CJ Inc for not making something that would have been unrealistic. I do get why people feel it was a failed commitment, and money did change hands so there is a reason to hold someone accountable for failed commitments. I can totally understand why people would worry that the grey skinned prototype might end up as a one of a kind SmD sold off in the garage; kind of like the centaur, and gods I want to say something foul about lack of attraction but I won't.

1 hour ago, BeyondTime said:

I wasn't trying be critical of folks who liked the idea, I just don't think it was viable as a product aimed at the average anime doll collector.

Ah no worries! I wasn't offended, just a little self conscious that I'm nerdy ^w^

And yeah, realistically there doesn't seem to be a market for that sort of thing at the moment even for robot enthusiasts, unfortunately.  But I do see what you mean about lack of resources = lack of money. I just feel a little foolish that I had for a while assumed it was possible and even going to happen. But I guess hype does that, and Smartdoll seems to be all about hype a lot of the time. I do hope the plus sized dolls make it into regular production, but perhaps that's hype as well- I have to admit I would be pretty impressed if Danny does stick with it. There's still a ton of issues with how he does things but if he does market a successful line of plus sized vinyl dolls, that's more than a lot of other companies are doing. It's a shame that there are all those other issues, because if there weren't, I would be tempted to throw more money at the cute dollies. (maybe not a shame, as far as my wallet is concerned lol)

2 hours ago, Starwaia said:

And yeah, realistically there doesn't seem to be a market for that sort of thing at the moment even for robot enthusiasts, unfortunately.

When they can make a Sumomo or a Chi, Crack will look like Sanka. 
 

2 hours ago, Starwaia said:

But I do see what you mean about lack of resources = lack of money. I just feel a little foolish that I had for a while assumed it was possible and even going to happen.

Someone will eventually do it, but for now I think it's going to be limited to things like animating Miku in store displays. That said, I'm sure you will see a life-size AI android Miku dancing and singing on stage in your lifetime. 

If Robosen can make this:  https://us.robosen.com/products/robosen-flagship-optimus-prime  then a fully animatronic BJD is well within possibility.  It's more a matter of money than tech.  Will SmD be the first to the market?  I don't think Danny is interested in revisiting the project right now.  There are a lot of SmD projects in development, and revisiting the automatic SmD would add to the workload, which is against the stated corporate philosophy of the SmD brand.  Best to let the tech advance a bit more.  

 

A robotic Smart Doll would cool, but I think that’s not in the cards right now. I bet there is someone in the Smart Doll community who could figure it out though. I liked the idea of a Smart Doll with a USB port, I missed that one by a few years lol!

2 hours ago, Galvatim said:

If Robosen can make this:  https://us.robosen.com/products/robosen-flagship-optimus-prime  then a fully animatronic BJD is well within possibility.

I'm not saying it's not possible, we've had robotic R2-D2s toys for quite sometime, and they get more sophisticated with each iteration. Those R2 units did have the benefit of being built on a vast merchandising empire.
 

2 hours ago, Galvatim said:

It's more a matter of money than tech.

It's the money part that I'm getting at, but you do need to develop tech that fits an existing vinyl shell and aesthetic, basically a little mini SmD android, and that takes an amount of money you have to recoup. 
 

This is a bit of an aside  

Spoiler

 

I'll break the problem, at least as I see it, into two parts:

a) A pattern of expectations being set, and then not met; in one case, even after money changed hands. 

b) A reasonable expectation that a company can't / won't invest in something that they can't recoup the investment on. 

In my mind 'a' is more the problem than 'b', because the ideas are being hyped well before they're known to be viable, or in some cases hyped even though the person in charge isn't committed to seeing it through. It's totally reasonable for a company to drop products before they're finished, but it's not reasonable to frequently fall through on things you hype, and then still expect brand loyalty.

I think the proper way for a company to handle this is to work it in the lab until you know it's ready, and once you're sure you can pull it off, then hype it. Lot's of businesses nowadays don't do that, so it's not like CJ is doing anything different than for example what CD Projekt Red did with Cyberpunk 2077, but that stuff pisses people off. The difference between CD Projekt Red and Theranos was that CD Projekt Red redoubled their efforts and produced a working product, even though it was a product that fell short of the hype, whereas Theranos had zero hope of making the tech work and the hype defrauded it's investors. CD Projekt offered refunds to people who weren't willing to accept the new path they had planned too. 

IMO, SmD is more like the former than the latter, people got SmartDolls and they continue to be improved on, they never got the robot that was originally hyped. CJ seems happy to refund the dissatisfied customers too, even if it the refund does come with some sass.

I'd contrast to the way I think Volks handled MDD 2.0. 

The things I put in italics are my rough guess as to parts of this, so please treat them as my guesses and nothing else. What I think might be in Volks News #100 is total speculation on my part. The regular text is what we know happened or will happen in a few days.

Volks decides MDD has to change, because reasons.

Volks develops the MDD 2.0 concept a builds a working prototype.

Volks does Q&A on the prototype and fixes the major flaws; rinse repeat until the product is 100% ready or only needs some final minor adjustments. Q&A likely includes testing with existing clothes, shoes and option parts.

Volks discontinues MDD 1.0, but says nothing about 2.0.

Volks gets everything ready for official release, and begins production of MDD 2.0.

Volks pre-teases 2.0.

Volks formally announces 2.0 in the special 100th edition of their official publication. Presumably there will be body sales and possibly some sort of special project like a limited Dolpa doll, store service, or pre-order campaign to hype it with. The completion of Kaito even opens the possibility that the annual unlimited pre-order uses 2.0 and starts this Summer as opposed to waiting for Fall. (Near future)

MDD 2.0 still has to survive contact with consumers, but consumers will get the product they've been promised, or MDD 1.0 would never have been discontinued and we wouldn't even know 2.0 had been a twinkle in the Doll Design Department's eye.

IMO The CJ way can work in the short term, but is completely dependent on customer loyalty in spite of the repeated disappointment, but in the long term it's a bad model to operate on. More and more people have a bitter taste in their mouths, and the brand seems increasingly dependent on finding markets that existing brands don't compete in.

 

 

I've always found the idea of a robot doll cool, but then I think that the price was definitely out of my reach so I was depressed.

Personally, the only project that died that I regret, is the giant SD, I would have loved to have one. 

 

Anyway, as I already wrote in a post, I want to get a new one, I was thinking about getting a Tea color one, but there is none of the ones I like available and I don't understand, if single heads are available, why the complete doll no? I really don't understand, it would be enough to sell them unassembled, in each package they insert the body and the head chosen by the buyer and that's it. But no, I have to buy Courage with a semi-real head that I don't like and spend almost as much as a doll to have the anime version of the head... And we don't know if there are plans to sell it complete again this year, they seem more disorganized than when I got my first doll several years ago.

Sorry, but this thing annoys me a lot.

25 minutes ago, Morilec said:

Anyway, as I already wrote in a post, I want to get a new one, I was thinking about getting a Tea color one, but there is none of the ones I like available and I don't understand, if single heads are available, why the complete doll no? I really don't understand, it would be enough to sell them unassembled, in each package they insert the body and the head chosen by the buyer and that's it. But no, I have to buy Courage with a semi-real head that I don't like and spend almost as much as a doll to have the anime version of the head... And we don't know if there are plans to sell it complete again this year, they seem more disorganized than when I got my first doll several years ago.

Sorry, but this thing annoys me a lot.

Same here. I held off from buying a seperate head for at least 2 of the dolls I wanted. Was it not said that when body production caught up, the bodies would be available on their own and people that bought a head would get offered them before they went on general sale? It made me question how much the bodies would actually cost, since the reason for stand alone heads was due to body production not been able to keep up with heads.

Seeing the heads priced at ¥39,000 and drawing on my experince of been a production engineer for 30 years, I couldn't see the bodies, the part that took the most time to produce, been sold for ¥13,000 which would equal the cost of a full doll at ¥52,000. The math just didn't stack up.

I never understood why Danny won't commit to selling parts as a seperate option. If I damage or break a part of my dollfies, I can buy a replacement part with very little hassle (though with VolksUSA's new website... yeah); but if I still owned Starlight and damaged or broke her in any way, it wouldn't be that easy of a task. Even if I broke a tan dollfie and needed to replace the part, I could still do that. Maybe not outside of the summer months, when that skin tone is being sold, but I could still do it without breaking the bank on bid wars or Chaos Bags or whatever.

So, I bought two new SmD, one from the official European dealer and one from Danny site through a lend name, I'll tell you a few things.

From the European retailer I bought one of those that usually run out almost instantly on Danny's site, they are very available, but the dolls are sold with an exaggerated price increase, now I don't know if it's their fault that they take advantage of it or have strange agreements with Danny or similar, but the other sites that sell figures from Japan with a slight premium compared to the Japanese price.

 

From Denny I had to buy through a front man, since I was banned for having written on Twitter that for European users it was almost impossible to buy the drops released at 2/3 in the morning and this generated a long discussion with several other people who complained (never use your real name on Twitter, otherwise you will get banned from the store by a paranoid guy). 

And here I would like to spend a few words both for the ban system, which is ridiculous and useless, given that having a friend is enough to overcome it, but above all unfair, that is, I understand banning those reported by Shopify in advance, but banning someone just because he is unable to stay awake in the middle of the night to buy a doll and has complained about it, it's ridiculous, this showed me that Danny is out of this world, there are a lot of solutions to the problem, like saying the day before that Dolls/accessories will be in the drops and it would solve the thing, but no, that's not possible. In addition to the fact that if one does not want to use a frontman, he can very well go to an official dealer, so what does he gain with the ban? Boh, boh.

Then there is the system of questions after the purchase and they too are quite ridiculous, just a 10/20 minute reading in the "About" section of the site, combined with a minimum of cunning, to give him the correct answers. Used as an excuse for bots, where a captcha on the site would be enough, but it is clearly a way to ban those who are not "worthy" of buying something from his site.

 

That said, the dolls are magnificent and I love them, I like the new skeleton and it helps a lot to position them as I wish, but I hate the new stand, it's huge and impossible to use when the doll has clothes on, the previous one looked great under the shirts, this new one is useless, I was forced to move the dolls from my desk to a shelf, which if I didn't position them in a surgical way, every time I moved the desk they risked falling.

 

In conclusion, I love SmD, but I won't buy anything from the SmD world anymore and it's Danny fault, and in a small part also because anime style dolls are less and less.

 

On 5/29/2023 at 11:56 AM, LaRosePetite said:

A robotic Smart Doll would cool, but I think that’s not in the cards right now. I bet there is someone in the Smart Doll community who could figure it out though. I liked the idea of a Smart Doll with a USB port, I missed that one by a few years lol!

I also miss the USB torso option. I thought it was a fun idea to turn your vinyl anime waifu into an extension of your computer rig, even if it was a pretty niche part. You could probably DIY something similar yourself if you really wanted to. The frame itself is pretty thin to begin with and USB set-ups are getting smaller every year. A chaos vinyl torso shell in your preferred color, an X-acto knife, and maybe some glue or electrical tape to hold the USB in place, and voila! Tech-compatible SmD desk buddy.

Edited July 23, 2023 by fishbuttz

47 minutes ago, fishbuttz said:

I also miss the USB torso option. I thought it was a fun idea to turn your vinyl anime waifu into an extension of your computer rig, even if it was a pretty niche part. You could probably DIY something similar yourself if you really wanted to. The frame itself is pretty thin to begin with and USB set-ups are getting smaller every year. A chaos vinyl torso shell in your preferred color, an X-acto knife, and maybe some glue or electrical tape to hold the USB in place, and voila! Tech-compatible SmD desk buddy.

I actually wanted to do this when it first came out but decided I didn't want to cut up my girls.  Option parts weren't really available back then either so...

What I wound up doing was getting a doll sized backpack and putting a stick computer inside of it and ran the cables out the bottom.  I could then sit or stand my girl next to a computer monitor, plug her in and BAM!  Instant computer!  I did that at a doll convention one time when I hosted a panel on vinyl dolls and it blew peoples minds that I could just plug in my doll to the projector and do a power point about dolls on a big screen.  😄 

 

 

Billy

On 7/23/2023 at 11:08 PM, Morilec said:

So, I bought two new SmD, one from the official European dealer and one from Danny site through a lend name, I'll tell you a few things.

From the European retailer I bought one of those that usually run out almost instantly on Danny's site, they are very available, but the dolls are sold with an exaggerated price increase, now I don't know if it's their fault that they take advantage of it or have strange agreements with Danny or similar, but the other sites that sell figures from Japan with a slight premium compared to the Japanese price.

The pricing is not taking advantage of it or strange agreements. They actually do not get any pricing benefits, so they pay full shipping and because they are in the EU they also get customs on top of it which is calculated into the price. So the 550 for cinnamon/tea/cocoa is not that much more for a EU person than buying from the official site. And it is their business so they also need to make a bit of money although that's not that much profit really. My last doll through CJ was about 510 with customs and shipping (and we got lucky with customs).

And then again, DC is so random with releases and stuff gets sold out instantly and then marked up by 100-200 euros on the secondhand market, that I don't mind paying 40 euros more for a brandnew doll through a dealer. 

(Edit to clarify: I am in no way affiliated with that dealer, I just know how they do their pricing xD)

Editted again to add: 

I just checked the website of the American dealer and they ask 575 which roughly translates to 523 euros. Counting in the fact that AS also pays tax and customs (because EU) the markup seems more at FFD than at AS. That's just the thing for buying at a dealer. It'd be crazy if the markup was 200 euros more or so but in this case it is only a small fraction. 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Sebby

1 hour ago, Sebby said:

Counting in the fact that AS also pays tax and customs (because EU) the markup seems more at FFD than at AS.

commercial importing in the EU is sort of interesting, since each country has its own VAT/GST value, and depending on what that is you might get more or less costs towards a product being imported. for here in finland its 4.7% customs fee's, and 24% VAT for human shaped dolls, in germany the VAT is only 19% so as a baseline a product would be 5% cheaper to import and sell there. so that also adds its own fluctuation in price.

Im not 100% sure, but I believe the tax organizations only care that the VAT is paid at some point, so depending on do you add the profit margin percentage before VAT or after it (So the end customer is the one paying the VAT during the sale and not when the item is imported) might play a small part in the end price. But thats probably someting a professional importer could answer.

Edited August 1, 2023 by finnleo

2 hours ago, finnleo said:

commercial importing in the EU is sort of interesting, since each country has its own VAT/GST value, and depending on what that is you might get more or less costs towards a product being imported. for here in finland its 4.7% customs fee's, and 24% VAT for human shaped dolls, in germany the VAT is only 19% so as a baseline a product would be 5% cheaper to import and sell there. so that also adds its own fluctuation in price.

Im not 100% sure, but I believe the tax organizations only care that the VAT is paid at some point, so depending on do you add the profit margin percentage before VAT or after it (So the end customer is the one paying the VAT during the sale and not when the item is imported) might play a small part in the end price. But thats probably someting a professional importer could answer.

Yes, they calculate 19% but still have to pay the difference (like 2% for Netherlands, but 5% for Finland) when selling outside Germany. That VAT goes to the country where the customer lives, so that varies too. But they can only calculate 19%. So that is also something that affects their profit. (and that many people forget).

For the secondhand part of your comment, I cannot say if they calculate it before or after the VAT but from a Dutchie's legal POV, here it has to be calculated over the total price that is paid by the customer. So that has to include the profit margin for the seller. (but before shipping is added of course). If I sell anything in my shop I have to calculate the 21% over the final price of the item (so including work hour costs, material costs and my profit). If I don't, the tax organisation will be hunting me for fraud. But that may vary between countries. 

Unfortunately both sales VAT and import VAT are calculated into the pricing, otherwise they'd make a huge loss with each sale. 

(it's a shame though. I have worked at a resin BJD dealer for a while and they got soooo many good deals with companies. Free shipping, discounts, etc. They could keep their prices similar to the company and still make a profit)
 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Sebby

1 hour ago, Sebby said:

That VAT goes to the country where the customer lives, so that varies too.

Checked it out, and you're right, although did come across a 10k€ threshold that if you operate beneath it you can just use the local vat. (how this is followed up on was not disclosed on the source of the information, so its probably safer to do the destination country vat).

1 hour ago, Sebby said:

Unfortunately both sales VAT and import VAT are calculated into the pricing, otherwise they'd make a huge loss with each sale. 

I probably worded it convolutedly, but over here we have whats called VAT deductions for companies that do VAT based operations. So in laymans terms they are sort of passing on the importation VAT towards the end customers vat, since they are getting a deduction towards it.  But to be honest you probably need to be an accountant to make proper heads or tails of the finer details of it, or not get skewered by the tax people as you mentioned.

(and as such, I may or may have not understood the rules 100% correctly)

Edited August 1, 2023 by finnleo

On 5/29/2023 at 3:35 PM, Stupid_Hoomun said:

Seeing the heads priced at ¥39,000 and drawing on my experince of been a production engineer for 30 years, I couldn't see the bodies, the part that took the most time to produce, been sold for ¥13,000 which would equal the cost of a full doll at ¥52,000. The math just didn't stack up.

Agreed totally and I’m so glad you brought this up. Since I frequently see wigs being valued at $50-70 USD, and eyes at around $30-40 USD, bodies at anywhere from $250-350, and heads (no eyes or wigs) at $200-300, that sets the resale value of the components at anywhere from $530 to $760 compared to the cost of a full doll being currently around $360 in current yen to dollar conversation rates.
 

If you all are seeing different valuations for these parts that are way lower than what I quoted please let me know, because at this point it doesn’t look like a bad business to buy Smartdoll stuff just to sell it off in pieces. I won’t deny the quality of the wigs or the eyes, in fact I really love Smartdoll eyes in particular, but the prices for these things individually don’t add up for me at all. I’d love to understand more about what’s going on there. 

Edited August 13, 2023 by sunlightandtea

On 5/29/2023 at 4:35 PM, Stupid_Hoomun said:

Seeing the heads priced at ¥39,000 and drawing on my experince of been a production engineer for 30 years, I couldn't see the bodies, the part that took the most time to produce, been sold for ¥13,000 which would equal the cost of a full doll at ¥52,000. The math just didn't stack up.

I may be totally off the mark here, but to me this smells of luxury pricing, CJ trying to convince folks who may be used to spending lots of money on artist vinyl heads and resin heads that their seemingly mask-painted heads are comparable in quality or value. 

Or with their past attitudes, I can see it being an intentionally high price so as to discourage any enterprising hybriders. 

2 hours ago, luckyk said:

Or with their past attitudes, I can see it being an intentionally high price so as to discourage any enterprising hybriders. 

I honestly have no idea what CJ's beef is with hybrid dolls. Hybrids are a staple of the doll hobby and Danny needs to accept that. Heck, even I, who was initially too intimidated to create hybrids (fear of dying dolls for color matching and all that) ultimately decided to make hybrids myself. I have a floating artist's head that I pre-ordered a body for and I mentioned on DoA that I wanted to hybridize a Kumako head with an MDD body. This weird hatred of hybriders makes non sense anyway, considering that CJ is actively driving away a potential customer base this way.

 

i'm guessing that Mr. Danny is far more concerned with preserving the self-perceived sanctity of his personal vision than in Making Money?

2 hours ago, Tasuke said:

 

i'm guessing that Mr. Danny is far more concerned with preserving the self-perceived sanctity of his personal vision than in Making Money?

Making money isn’t his main goal. He does what he really wants to do for a living. The backdrop is that because it started out as his personal project he takes feedback personal. The more I see and read from Danny the more I understand his situation. I do think that he improves his way of communicating a bit. Also his new pear shaped girls are getting a lot of positive comments which gives Danny more positive energy to continue on that project. 

On 8/1/2023 at 10:01 AM, Sebby said:

The pricing is not taking advantage of it or strange agreements. They actually do not get any pricing benefits, so they pay full shipping and because they are in the EU they also get customs on top of it which is calculated into the price. So the 550 for cinnamon/tea/cocoa is not that much more for a EU person than buying from the official site. And it is their business so they also need to make a bit of money although that's not that much profit really. My last doll through CJ was about 510 with customs and shipping (and we got lucky with customs).

And then again, DC is so random with releases and stuff gets sold out instantly and then marked up by 100-200 euros on the secondhand market, that I don't mind paying 40 euros more for a brandnew doll through a dealer. 

(Edit to clarify: I am in no way affiliated with that dealer, I just know how they do their pricing xD)

Editted again to add: 

I just checked the website of the American dealer and they ask 575 which roughly translates to 523 euros. Counting in the fact that AS also pays tax and customs (because EU) the markup seems more at FFD than at AS. That's just the thing for buying at a dealer. It'd be crazy if the markup was 200 euros more or so but in this case it is only a small fraction. 

I had imagined that they behave like a private individual who buys them at full price and then resells them, but it is still a stupid thing, to clarify, the sites that sell figures sell them at a cheaper price than buying it from Japan, here it's the opposite, so I wonder how these figures sites sell at this price(I think they don't pay customs taxes)? And why can't the European SmD reseller do the same?

On 8/27/2023 at 2:05 PM, Tasuke said:

 

i'm guessing that Mr. Danny is far more concerned with preserving the self-perceived sanctity of his personal vision than in Making Money?

I've always thought that he lives on an income thanks to his father, I don't think the sale of SmD is so profitable, especially since he started building a sort of resort or tourist village, I don't know what to call it.

1 hour ago, Morilec said:

the sites that sell figures sell them at a cheaper price than buying it from Japan, here it's the opposite, so I wonder how these figures sites sell at this price(I think they don't pay customs taxes)? And why can't the European SmD reseller do the same?

These sites probably buy figures wholesale, so they can set the price to be cheaper than buying from Japan. Due to the nature of these dolls, they’re probably sold to resellers at full retail price, which is why they’re more expensive.

On 9/3/2023 at 9:09 PM, Morilec said:

I had imagined that they behave like a private individual who buys them at full price and then resells them, but it is still a stupid thing, to clarify, the sites that sell figures sell them at a cheaper price than buying it from Japan, here it's the opposite, so I wonder how these figures sites sell at this price(I think they don't pay customs taxes)? And why can't the European SmD reseller do the same?

Because it doesn't work the same. Anime Sugoi doesn't get cheaper "wholesale" prices like the figure stores. (also, in my country all figure stores are more expensive than directly from Japan). AS needs to pay the same as every other company and doesn't seem to really get benefits, except that they ocassionally get dolls that are not available on CJ. They're not a private individual who resells them, they are an official dealer, but they have no discounts on dolls and still need to pay full shipping and cusoms and all.