UPDATE: Unanswered Question Now Answered!

During our Q&A With JTA #4, a question was asked about why the new The Vintage Collection figure card backs can't look more like the original vintage figures (with the complete group shot of the entire collection). JTA reader Bob Sokol impressively comes through for us and recalls where and when Hasbro answered this question. Click through to check out the answer. And check out our Q&A With JTA column #4 if you haven't already!

This question was addressed at Sir Steve's Guide in an interview with Derryl DePriest HERE. This is what is says:

SS: On The Vintage Collection cards, the design on the back follows strictly the Vintage-style layout from the last 6 years: commemorative text, a historical representation of the original card, and a small co-sell area with 5 figures or so. But this line is the first Vintage-style line to act as a basic figure line rather than a small sub-line. Why not add bio text, and what about using more of the space to display more figures from the line - at least all of the wave since there are generally more than 5 new figures in each wave? Or how about doing a group image of the line up to date, similar to the Kenner days when it was "Collect all 92" and a checklist? That would certainly have vintage credibility with the fanbase.
DD: This is really a 2-parter. On The Vintage Collection cardbacks, the first really deals with getting a biography on the figure out, this is a really excellent question, and when we went in to design the back of the Vintage Collection figures, we had to make a couple of choices. We asked ourselves what the most important elements of this packaging really were, and there were really 2 considerations. Since this line was a global... the original Kenner line was a global mega-line, there was familiarity with that original, great vintage Kenner line look all around the world, and we decided that, on the back of the card, we really wanted to romance the first time that those figures appeared in that vintage form. Now, in many cases for the new characters that are existing for the first time, or when they're updated they may be updated they may be updates of a figure appeared on The Power of the Force for the first time, so that space is actually romancing a more recent cardback. But we decided that the important thing is really to romance that first appearance, to trigger that nostalgia for the figure and get people excited about the updated figure that's included. So we decided not to give a ton of space over to what we call the cross-sell, which is where you have all of the other figures available in that wave. The second reason for not having a bio on the back, other than that they take up a significant amount of room, is that international translations for that, as we become increasingly global in our thinking for Star Wars, things like bio really is more difficult for us to address because we actually have to translate it in many languages. And one thing we've done with Vintage is, since it is collector-targeted, we're presupposing a familiarity with the characters from the collector audience, or if they may not be familiar with the characters, we assume they're interested enough in Star Wars to go find out more about the character - you know, like the Jabba's Palace denizens or something like that - so they'll kind of do their own research to find out he is. But basically we gave over the back of the card design to romance that original figure without having to be bogged down by the need to translate that in all the other languages we would have to do that. Now, on the cross-sell itself, this is a big point of debate on the team, because there are some of us - I'll put myself in the camp too - that immediately wanted to go do the original Kenner-style cardback where you might have 20 figures laid out with cool different color backgrounds, you know, red and green and blue and yellow, to get as close to that nostalgic feeling as possible, but we actually ran up into a legal wall, believe it or not, with that. And the reason for that is, everything that we show for the cross-sell area on the cardback must be available when that card debuts, when that card ships, it must be available within a 6-month time period. So basically, the more figures we include on the back, it's impossible to control to make sure that all of the rest of those figures are going to be available at retail at the same time. So basically, we don't want to get into a situation where it's very confusing, where we have 20 figures on the back and some of those figures may not have appeared at the shelf in the last year, say, so it comes down an issue where, to be truthful and not confuse fans, we needed to keep that cross-sell to very few figures. So that's why we didn't go to the original Kenner-style back, and instead we chose to show the packaging.
SS: Very interesting!
DD: Yup! So, long answer to a short question.
SS: That's why I like these kinds of things, so that you can elaborate a little more...
DD: A lot more detail!
SS: Yeah. Because otherwise people just don't realize everything it takes to make it happen.

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