Archive for the 'GG Premiere Guild' Category
— August 9, 2007
We had a “feeling” it would be today and it is. The Premiere Guild raffles are up for Commander Cody, Luna Lovegood, Glorfindel, Darth Vader Jumbo Chubby and Commander Bly. Here are the links with edition sizes. Those of you hoping for Glorfindel, note that there are only 75 available due to the low edition size of 500.
Commander Cody mini bust – 200 pieces
Luna Lovegood mini bust – 100 pieces
Glorfindel mini bust – 75 pieces
Jumbo Darth Vader Chubby – 400 pieces
Commander Bly mini bust – 200 pieces
The Raffle will start today (8/9/07) and run for five (5) days, ending on August 14, 2007 at 11:59pm Pacific. Remember, only one entry per club member is permitted.
— August 8, 2007
I just received a shipping notice from Gentle Giant that the Premiere Guild Exclusive Animated Blackhole Stormtrooper maquette is now shipping. According to the e-mail I received, it shipped yesterday, and the tracking number shows I should receive it on Monday, August 13th.
The Animated Blackhole Stormtrooper maquette was exclusive to members of the Premiere Guild and limited to 1,000. See the following posts, here and here, for our coverage of this exclusive.
— August 3, 2007
Gentle Giant just sent out an e-mail to all premiere guild members. Up for order on their web site right now is the Animated Blackhole Stormtrooper Maquette. It is limited to 1,000 and exclusive to Premiere Guild members through Gentle Giant’s web site. Below is the link, but you must be logged in to your account to access it.
Animated Blackhole Stormtrooper Maquette
This is limited to one per person and is sure to be another hot exclusive. The exclusive total this year is so high, it really makes me wonder what GG is going to do for an encore next year. Here is a picture of the Blackhole Stormtrooper maquette. Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.
Update: Gentle Giant updated their post to say that they are starting to cancel and refund duplicate orders.
Update 2 - 8/5/07: The Blackhole Stormtrooper maquette is now sold out.
— August 2, 2007
I just received the e-mail from Gentle Giant on the Premiere Guild Member Raffle Information for the San Diego Comic-Con exclusives. It looks like it will happen at the end of next week. Here is the important information.
The Premier Guild Member raffle for the quantity we held back of the 4 San Diego Comic-Con exclusives (Commander Cody mini bust, Luna Lovegood mini bust, Glorfindel mini bust and Darth Vader Jumbo Chubby) will begin at the end of next week. An email will be sent out to all GG Premier Guild Members with information at that time.
Gentle Giant will also be raffling off the Commander Bly mini bust from the Gentle Giant @ Forbidden Planet Event to Premiere Guild members at the same time.
Members who pre-ordered the exclusives for pickup at the show are not eligible. So if you did this and enter it again, you force the rest of us to wait longer while Gentle Giant sorts through the orders to weed out the invalid ones. I’m sure there are people out there who will do it anyway on the chance it goes through. Come on people. Give the rest of us a chance!
I am glad they are doing these, although my chances of winning are slim to none. I wish there was a better way to get these to collectors. Paying $50 for a bunch of raffles I won’t have a chance of winning sucks, and I will definitely not do it again next year. Keep watching this space for more Premiere Guild raffle news.
— July 19, 2007
Gentle Giant just sent out an e-mail update to Premier Guild members on the status of the Premier Guild gift. Here is the full text of the e-mail.
Hello Premier Guild Members,
I know it has been a long time coming with the first Premier Guild Gift for you all. Our goal was to have it ready to send out to you the beginning of this month. The Premier Guild Gift includes many items (both licensed products and limited GGLTD exclusive items), some of which have yet to finish production. However, the first of many parts of the gift is ready and can be picked up at our booth (3513) at San Diego Comic-Con. A Star Wars Max Rebo Band Concert Black-Light Limited Edition Poster has been produced for you. This limited poster is for Premier Guild Members only and if attending San Diego Comic-Con you can pick it up in person. If you are not attending the show and/or don’t pick it up, we will be mailing them out to you when we return. As production of the rest of the items completes, we will be sending the rest of the gift/membership welcome pack to you.
Thanks,
The Gentle Giant Ltd. Team
Update: Here is an image of the poster.
— July 10, 2007
I am starting a new feature here called “Gentle Giant Quotes” where we will remind you of infamous sayings from Gentle Giant history. Here is one left on their blog on December 17, 2006 that foreshadows ominous things to come.
We expect to have the Animated Black and White Maquettes available on our site once it is completed after the New Year. These will only be available for offer to the Premiere Guild Members.
Please note that the quantities on these pieces are extremely limited, so we are expecting to implement our brand new raffle process to ensure equitable distribution.
There you go. In December, Gentle Giant first mentions the raffle process for distributing to Premiere Guild members the black and white maquette exclusives they were releasing for Blister in Japan. Little did we know this process would be used for every convention exclusive GG planned to release in 2007. This has been Gentle Giant Quotes.
— July 10, 2007
The other day I posted on how the winner selection for the Premiere Guild raffle for the exclusive Commander Neyo bust was not random but was based on zip code. This was based on premiere guild members who won that reported on various Gentle Giant collectors forums and on auctions found on eBay.
More information has come to my attention that proves that the Premiere Guild raffles are not random at all but instead are based on criteria that changes with each raffle. This information comes from Gentle Giant itself from a comment left on the GG blog from GG employee Jewel. Here is her full comment left here.
On July 06, 2007 02:45 PM, Jewell Morson said…
Wow, 666 comments!
How the random selection works:
Each time the raffle selection process is run the system auto sorts and shuffles the entries at least 3 times then makes the selection of winners. This process is repeated until all winners have been selected. The sorting criterion varies each time a raffle is executed.
We have looked into the most recent raffles and the same process was used during the selection of the winners.
Just a reminder…
As we have stated before, the blog is available for our collectors to make comments, offer suggestions and even provide constructive criticism to Gentle Giant Ltd. However, this is not the forum to put down other blogger’s opinions or insult one another. Racial, sexist, derogatory and defaming comments made against other bloggers will not be tolerated. If this continues we will have to resort to deleting individual posts and if it persists, turning off comments all together. We will also address this situation on an individual basis.
Please contact customerservice@gentlegiantstudios.com directly, if you need additional information or if you have any questions
Thank you,
Jewell
Gentle Giant LTD
So according to Jewel, the raffle entries are sorted before they are chosen, by criteria that changes every raffle. I guess we now know that GG doesn’t understand the meaning of “random.” Just because entries were chosen randomly from a list that has been pre-sorted doesn’t mean the raffle was random. The fact that they are sorting the lists at all means that the selection process is NOT random.
In this case, the sorting criteria was zip code. So the list was sorted by zip code and entries were only selected from a group of zip codes that came from about 10 or so states all in the Northeast. Needless to say, even if GG thinks this is random, it was not fair to members who live throughout the rest of the country who entered. These members did not have a fair chance because they did not live in the selected zip codes.
Gentle Giant needs to do a few things here to correct the problem. First of all, what’s done is done. We can’t change the outcome of the Neyo raffle. So to ensure that there will be fewer problems in the future, I suggest that Gentle Giant not use the words “random” to describe these raffles, if indeed they are not random. In addition, Gentle Giant needs to ensure that whatever criteria they use to select winners, it needs to remain fair for all who enter. Ideally, the raffles should be totally random and not pre-sorted by any criteria.
But to really give the Premiere Guild members what they paid for, GG needs to get rid of the raffles altogether and give us what they promised which is access for all premiere guild members to all convention exclusives.
Full Disclosure: I am a Gentle Giant Premiere Guild member.
— July 9, 2007
In June, Gentle Giant sent out a Special Edition 100th Bust-up Chrome Boba Fett bust-up as a free gift for the first 500 members of the premiere guild. The note sent with this bust-up stated that this was not the free gift the premiere guild members were supposed to receive.
The Premiere Guild was started at the end of 2006. Nobody knows how many premiere guild members there actually are but now we know for sure there are at least 500. Rebelscum forum members speculated the number was reached months ago, but recent evidence shows otherwise. Members that joined as recently as June 2007 received the e-mail and the bust-up. But some members that joined before that time reported not receiving anything.
Again, Gentle Giant has not publicly commented on this situation.
Full Disclosure: I am a Gentle Giant Premiere Guild member.
— July 9, 2007
More than a week after the premiere guild raffle for the Commander Neyo Blister Exclusive bust was closed, it appears that the way that Gentle Giant handled the selection of the raffle winners was flawed. I say that the raffle appears to be flawed meaning the winners were not chosen randomly. Instead, the winners of the raffle appear to have been chosen based on zip code.
Forum members noticed after several premiere guild members started reporting whether or not they won the raffle, that a pattern begin to emerge. Readers saw that only members that lived in the northeastern states won the Neyo bust after entering the raffle. Last I read about 50 members reported winning the bust, all within the same few states. Here is a list of the states with corresponding zip codes.
00100 - 00999 = Foreign Countries
01001 - 02791 = MA
02801 - 02940 = RI
03031 - 03897 = NH
03901 - 04992 = ME
05001 - 05907 = VT
06001 - 06928 = CT
07001 - 08989 = NJ
10000 - 14975 = NY
17501 - 19640 = PA
The only exception found was one winner who lived in Virginia. In addition, eBay auctions for Neyo were checked. Except for those originating in Japan, all the Neyo auctions on eBay were from the above listed states.
Gentle Giant has not yet released any official statement about this situation. But many premiere guild members upset because if this is true then the raffle was not random. It is likely we will never know the facts about the entire situation due to Gentle Giant’s silence.
To sum it up, this makes Gentle Giant look bad. Ignoring the situation makes them look even worse. However, ignoring fan’s complaints seems to be their standard public relations strategy. I am baffled as to why any company would behave this way. It is likely due to the fact that their bottom line is not being hurt yet. I feel that Gentle Giant will never make any changes unless this happens.
Update: GG employee Jewel responded in their blog comments that the raffles winners are sorted by certain criteria before they are selected proving they are not random. Read the full post here.
Full Disclosure: I am a Gentle Giant Premiere Guild member.
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