Why is innova trying so hard?

[jubuttib]

Frank got it in the very first line of the very first reply:

They makes what sells.

[phatbeater]

I was opening a discussion not just a one liner thread

[jubuttib]

True I suppose. You just had the bad luck of opening a discussion that has been pretty much beaten to death around here, on multiple fronts.

[phatbeater]

Yeah for sure, I knew that it was a gamble either way lol.

[swel304]

Just taking stock of all this great info and wanted to make sure I got it straight. discraft adding two letters to a mold name = good. innova creating a new name= pure evil. Stamping reef on an APX fucks it up, and innova is not focusing on making me the perfect valkyrie every day of the week because they want my game to suffer. Oh and if the question is "why does innova try sooooooooo haard to keep putting out new discs", the answer "because they sell" is not an acceptable answer, even though it is clearly true of every company that produces anything. Enlightening...

[Flipflat]

Well shit, you could have just let this thread die. I'm sure the op poster got more than an earful.

[Dbuntu]

especially when they are only throwing out max distance drivers, when they should be perfecting what they already have.

Because people assume that the shortcomings in their game is the disc's fault.

[JHern]

Innova and Discraft both know how to make a killer run in dream plastic...when they want to do so. For example, look at the difference in quality between 1st run, CE, and (some) CFR runs, vs. the regular production discs. I have a 1st run star TeeDevil that has the best star plastic I've ever experienced, but I know for sure that they put the special effort into the 1st run, and that the 2nd, 3rd, etc., will never be the same.

Same goes for Discraft: I could tell many stories about the insane inconsistencies for DC. I have a 1st run Stalker (blue pearly, a lot like old Innova pearly CE) that beats the crap out of any other Stalker I've ever thrown. I found one recent Z Stalker that is also nice, and was hoping it would be a good back-up, but after throwing it a few times I've noticed that the disc has micro-cracks in the rim and that the rim might eventually break off the disc! This is a major flaw...DC shouldn't even be selling these, but they still let them out the factory door and onto store shelves. And the Buzzz (arguably DC's best disc) is all over the place. I've had over-stable ones, stable ones, and under-stable ones (out of the box) in the same Z plastic. They beat in differently every time, had slightly different glide characteristics, etc.. Perhaps the Titanium Discraft plastic will put an end to this madness? If the track record is anything to go by, then probably not.

So, they keep making more molds. They're betting on sales driven by curiosity, rather than reliability. A production mold costs something like $10K to make. I'm not sure how much they make on every disc, after overhead costs (facilities, labor, electricity, supplies, marketing, etc.), but it can't be more than a few dollars apiece. But after selling their first several thousand, they've recouped the expense of making a new mold, and the rest is profit.

In any case, the business models will probably change in the near future, since there is so much new competition in the market, and that is going to force disc manufacturers to think outside-the-box if they want to maintain a good market share. It would be smart for established companies like Innova to push the frontier, and start to produce the best versions of their best molds in the best plastics with uber-consistency. They have to experiment to get the right formula, but once they get it, don't change a thing! They would probably have another name for this line of plastics, and these would become their flagship production runs.

The Ricos started Legacy in part because they were tired of waiting for the big manufacturers to make the kinds of discs that players were seeking, with a range of high quality plastics. I think they're already headed in the right direction from the start, and after they get a larger line-up of core discs, they'll be very strong. I like that they're taking their time to develop the molds very carefully, to get it right the first time.

Anyways, we'll see what the future brings...in the future.

[jubuttib]

The Ricos started Legacy in part because they were tired of waiting for the big manufacturers to make the kinds of discs that players were seeking, with a range of high quality plastics. I think they're already headed in the right direction from the start, and after they get a larger line-up of core discs, they'll be very strong. I like that they're taking their time to develop the molds very carefully, to get it right the first time.

Anyways, we'll see what the future brings...in the future.

Judging from the batch of Legacy discs we got for testing, they're right up there with Latitude in inconsistency. Every disc is a snowflake.

[ornithoid]

I can't say that my game is so pinpoint precise that I've noticed such wide variances in the flight characteristics of my discs.
Long ago, I threw Discraft XLs and XSs, and then I realized that I much preferred Innova products over Discraft. There are various reasons I have. One of them is the way Discraft was (I don't know if they still are) putting raised printing on the inside of the rim where my fingers go. That, forgive me for saying so, is an idiotic manufacturing decision. Every time I would go to throw a Z-XS, for example, I would have to adjust my grip to get my fingers off those raised letters because they were obnoxious.

Now I notice that the vast majority of the (admittedly older) Discraft plastic that I have in a cardboard box in my bedroom has this weird HAZE all over it, that shows up when you lightly scratch a fingernail across it. Only a small few of my Innova discs have anything like that. Not sure what causes it, and I haven't been able to make it disappear by washing the discs. Anyone with ideas, I'd like to hear 'em.

[garublador]

It's not so much what Innova can't control (inconsistencies in plastic) that bothers me but, rather, what they can control i.e., tweaking popular molds without telling anyone.

That's one of the few valid complaints about Innova that I ever hear. Their ridiculously confusing naming conventions (how many unique "Roc" and "Aviar" molds are there?) are another. Consistency is not one of them because it lines up with what other manufacturers choose to do. Discraft has the history of discontinuing really good molds and mold/plastic combinations, but at least there's only one Buzzz and Challenger mold in production.

The issues with consistency will follow the popularity of the sport. With how few disc golfers there have been the companies have had to try to make each mold appeal to the maximum number of golfers. Everyone wants consistency, but they all want things consistently different. With a relatively small group of consumers you need to make all of them happy, so you make what all of them want, which is a bunch of different runs with different flights of the same mold. Some want flat, some want domey, some want stiff, some want flexible, etc. Once you start getting a larger group of consumers and a wider array of discs you can make each mold consistent and still sell to enough people to make producing and stocking the mold worth it. I think the speed war ending with a maximum rim width will help, too. If you aren't worried about making new, faster molds every year you can start focusing on figuring out just how many molds an plastics you can make and inventory for each speed of disc.

It seems like we're seeing the start of it now with all of the +, SS, L, OS molds coming out. If you have the option of a Teebird+, a Teebird and a TL rather than just a Teebird then you can pick the one you want and Innova can, theoretically, make each of those molds as consistent as people will pay for (larger runs will help) and the consumer can choose which of those molds suits them the best. That's opposed to looking for specific runs of just the Teebird.

[jubuttib]

but at least there's only one Buzzz

Nowadays. 1st run and 2nd 1st Run Buzzzes were a different mold. Then the old and new mold Predators, and I'm sure there are others. But yeah, they're nowhere near as bad as Innova in that regard.

[garublador]

but at least there's only one Buzzz

Nowadays. 1st run and 2nd 1st Run Buzzzes were a different mold. Then the old and new mold Predators, and I'm sure there are others. But yeah, they're nowhere near as bad as Innova in that regard.

Isn't that implied by "in production?"