In late October, 2023, I backed a funding campaign within the first hour of opening for the Hasbro Haslab Plasma Series Ghostbusters "2 In The Box" Ghost Trap and PKE Meter. On December 17, 2024, 4 days before the Solstice, I received it.
During the more than a year to receive, Hasbro was dead silent for the bulk of it. They did hold an online Q&A conference with Influencers that was later released to the public. It was nice to see, but left additional unanswered questions. On Ghostbusters Day, a team member was on site at the famous firehouse in New York City to "Talk Up" the units and their capabilities. However, there was no working electronics within the devices as the exhibited devices were only engineering prototypes. Essentially, the electronics were still under development. From that day on, dead silence until presence at Cons towards the end of Summer. And still, it only consisted of static displays and the same engineering prototypes for getting a physical feel by some visitors. The silence picked right back up. Then people received e-mails about a month before shipping occurred saying the wait is nearly over and to be ready. When shipping did occur, there was no shipping notification. People has to already know the precise shipping address given to FedEx to check. And even then, there was no record on file. Then, one day, an e-mail was received stating the package has left the building. Still no tracking number provided. And then, suddenly 4 days later, an e-mail came in from FedEx reporting a deliver was schedule the next day and it had to be received by a person as a signature was required. I had a previously scheduled a doctor's appointment a year, beforehand, and had no choice but to reschedule it. Yeah, I could tell FedEx to just leave it, but as I live in a condo, it could easily have been "Porch Pirated." I hadn't been told it had "left the building" until it was, already halfway across the country. Hasbro was BEHIND THE BALL... LATE in notifying people! In the entire experience, Hasbro was not the least transparent to any acceptable degree with the exception of the minuscule "Talked Up" details they deemed ANYONE, both campaign backers and regular consumers, to be worthy of receiving. As a backer, I was entitled to more and detailed info. Nothing outrageous, but bullet-point like project updates. Nope, nothing, I'm a peasant and I was being shown that then entire time!
I then received it. Was I supposed to be all like, "Wow, that was QUICK! They're awesome?" Apparently. I know better. And what we have is not "Two in the box," but "Two in two boxes in a box in a box in a box." That's a bad dad joke.
Here are the photos I took(split into two posts).
The first is the overall package in the usual Hasbro shipping box. The 2nd pic shows the dual layered corrugated cardboard ensuring a thick container layer, a proper approach. The 3rd pic shows an interesting addition, corner plastic protectors. The proton pack did not contain these as some people complained about damaged boxes. Albeit being plastic, I would have preferred a dual-corrugated cardboard style of these as cardboard is bio-degradable. So, they, at least, tried. The next pix is the next shipping box, the box in a box. For the proton pack, this box has an instruction to open it from the bottom, a smart thing to do. There was no such notice, here, as you can plainly see. People had to, "just know' to do it as you can see in the next pic showing the same dual-corrugated cardboard use and seeing the bottom of the product box within. The next 3 pics show different sides of the product box. It has a lot of nicely done artwork, but makes no practical sense. Who would leave oozing slime and not having had cleaned it up? The note from Janine was nice, but would not remain very long having been adhered with a single little piece of masking tape. The evidence tag was nice, but adhered in the same manner. Amazing it was still there. There's no lock on the case, just the hardware for one. It screams, "STEAL ME!" The caution tape is the classic black and yellow, a stick-on label for the warning, "DO NOT look directly into the trap." Inside shows two more boxes. Ok, this is getting interesting. It wary considerate to provide pull-tabs to assist in removing the two inner boxes as these are packed very tightly and securely.
The two inner product boxes are marked with a serial number. My trap box is marked with one number while the PKE meter box is marked with another, ten numbers away. What in the...? These are supposed to match! Whoever packed these, clearly, did not pay attention and was only concerned with "getting it done!" This was clearly a job that was very difficult and too complicated to keep straight. Being a manufacturer mistake, the collector value may have gone up, as a result.
The trap box contains the flat paper and foldable items: instructions in blue-print style, a blue-print style poster, the required Legal-eze paperwork, a sticker sheet, ESP cards similar to the ones used in Ghostbusters 1 and a custom access card to the Paranormal Research Center. Folks must be aware this is not a real card with a magnetic stripe; that would cost too much as authenticity is expensive. The inner packing material is a custom-designed cardboard packing covering. Below the covering is the trap and stand and pedal cable. Custom patches are also contained. Folks have identified these as "iron-on." They are not, so be aware.
The second box contains the trap pedal, stretch goal steel holster plate, PKE meter, PKE meter holster stretch goal, trap inner grill, pneumatic-like dust covers connector doo-dads, strap for the trap holster, etc.
We see the overall package's contents, and then a closeup of the open trap and finally the PKE meter.
The Proton Pack Haslab was a much more pleasant experience. Albeit, it was run nearly the same. But, when it "left the building," it really was about to leave the building! This one... um, no. Hasbro decided to give preferential treatment to Infuencers BEFORE everyone else. We should all have been treated the same. Meaning, Influencers received theirs, first. That didn't go all that well because there was very little content created and published before Hasbro released the bulk to the BACKERS. Yes, influencers were backers, but they only had that one extra characteristic which means nothing in the grand scheme. Influencer or not, a backer is a backer and we all deserve they same treatment. Clearly, the influencers received preferential treatment so they could "Talk Up" the product more for Hasbro and hasbro doesn't have to pay them, though they may have in some instances, perhaps? Whatever, it doesn't matter.
In the end, although I am left happy that I have received this product and with the items, themselves, I am not overly convinced I would want to be a backer of any further project campaigns. One possible exception would be for a containment unit. I would have to think long and hard about it. The lack of "Backer Transparency" is put too far to the front of being silent throughout the process. It may be true they may not want any details getting out and/or leaked, but that part of putting trust into the customers. They don't trust us... and it shows.
\[This was NOT a review of the ghost trap nor PKE meter, but a brief description of the contents of the boxes and a brief description of my experience.\]
#TehAnKorage #Ghostbusters #Hasbro #HasbroPulse #Haslab #PlasmaSeries #2InTheBox
