Are toys dying? How can Hasbro spice up TFs?

[Almighty Unicron]

With the news that the AoE line has been underperforming, and toylines in general have been on a downturn, I've been wondering if the day of the childhood trip to the Toys 'R' Us might be on its way out, and instead daddy may just let his kid buy $20 worth of games on his iPad or on Steam. Kids, frankly, are playing more and more video games and playing with fewer toys.

Now, there are some great games out there that incorporate toys: Skylanders, Disney Infinity and Nintendo's upcoming Amiibo figures- but they're really only toys in the absolute loosest sense. They're all basically unposable figurines without any play features.

Some of you back form BWTF may remember the short time I collected the short-lived Takara toyline Webdiver, and that toyline (already fourteen or so years old, hot diggity am I old). It featured one transforming robot who shifted from a train to a knight dude, but it came with cables and you could actually hook the figure up to your TV. Switching him between modes would activate different games on your TV (albeit rather simple, with SNES era graphics at best), and you controlled the game with controls on the figure and even manipulating his arms (which was the greatest weakness: you had to push his arm up to fire missiles in the game, and the joint on the arm was made out of translucent fucking plastic so it'd just snap off after enough use). Other figures in the line could combine with the main figure and give you power up weapons in the game. It didn't sell well, but I really think it was before its time. Combining the play patterns of transformers with the videogames kids love would be a great way to revitalize not just the brand but the entire toy industry, and if Hasbro doesn't do it with TFs, I hope some game/toy crossover comes out that has actual play capacity somewhere down the line.

[Tigermegatron]

Create a newer TF cartoon series with toys based off the Generations TF toys sculpts/Designs.

Combiners, Which there doing in 2015. Perhaps create a 2nd TF cartoon called "Combiners" to further help these toys sell better.

Bring back the toy catalogs inside the newer TF toys.

[Tigermegatron]

With the news that the AoE line has been underperforming, and toylines in general have been on a downturn, I've been wondering if the day of the childhood trip to the Toys 'R' Us might be on its way out, and instead daddy may just let his kid buy $20 worth of games on his iPad or on Steam. Kids, frankly, are playing more and more video games and playing with fewer toys.

Now, there are some great games out there that incorporate toys: Skylanders, Disney Infinity and Nintendo's upcoming Amiibo figures- but they're really only toys in the absolute loosest sense. They're all basically unposable figurines without any play features.

Some of you back form BWTF may remember the short time I collected the short-lived Takara toyline Webdiver, and that toyline (already fourteen or so years old, hot diggity am I old). It featured one transforming robot who shifted from a train to a knight dude, but it came with cables and you could actually hook the figure up to your TV. Switching him between modes would activate different games on your TV (albeit rather simple, with SNES era graphics at best), and you controlled the game with controls on the figure and even manipulating his arms (which was the greatest weakness: you had to push his arm up to fire missiles in the game, and the joint on the arm was made out of translucent fucking plastic so it'd just snap off after enough use). Other figures in the line could combine with the main figure and give you power up weapons in the game. It didn't sell well, but I really think it was before its time. Combining the play patterns of transformers with the videogames kids love would be a great way to revitalize not just the brand but the entire toy industry, and if Hasbro doesn't do it with TFs, I hope some game/toy crossover comes out that has actual play capacity somewhere down the line.

The AOE Toy line is doing badly in sales in the USA Thanks to all the kiddie/toddler super easy to transform & brickformers garbage Hasbro stuffed in the toy line. The AOE Generations toys are great & selling well but they are outnumbered by the kiddie garbage.

TFP-BH did badly in sales thanks to super ugly sculpting style that buyers in decent numbers did not want to buy. Suspose the ugly color schemes didn't help much especially on the BH toy line.

Putting electronic chips inside TF toys to make them compatible with video games and Consoles is a bad idea. The Hasbro budget with electronic chips inside TF toys will give buyers either brick formers or super easy to transform TF toys like the Toddler garbage that's part of the AOE TF toy line. The price for each toy will increase to insane prices.

[JediTricks]

Toy/video game crossovers don't work. Skylanders works because those aren't toys, they're static, they're statues, they're totems to look at and do nothing with, they are game codes to unlock characters. That's fine and good, they've done a decent job making that experience feel special, but it really doesn't translate so easily to other lines - Angry Birds Star Wars does that and isn't as special, consequentially it doesn't sell that well. Transformers doesn't need to try to be something it's not.

I think Hasbro needs to concentrate on the product more, get a better narrative going, sell that narrative up front instead of waiting for kids to go online to read bios on the website, and also make sure the toy itself is something they want to experience.

Hasbro also needs to simplify its message, there is so much "branding" going on right now with TF that it's hard to see the actual main toy line, there are a million movie sublines in the way which nobody really wanted cluttering and just not appealing to the kid market. The Robots in Disguise AOE figures are not very good from what I've seen, they aren't appealing-looking and they aren't fun to play with, that's a bad job representing this brand to kids at a premium price and it's trying to take the imagination out of imagination play.

Make characters kids want, and keep them available for longer periods. Some core characters should remain on shelves longer, and NOT JUST OP AND BB!

I feel like there's a disparity between Hasbro and its market these days, too many steps in between the kids and the product design, so they don't know what's really going to hit with kids, they have to guess more than they used to. There should be some leading there too, some creation of what the market should want instead of constantly trying to shift to react to every microscopic change.

Hasbro has to lower overhead costs and get value back in the brand, raising prices while lowering quality and size is a disaster.

On that subject, Hasbro needs to reconnect with the sub-$10 pricepoint better, integrate it into the main brand, it should be a gateway to the deluxes and voyagers, not a funhouse mirror.

Do a better job marketing the non-movie media, kids still get into the G1 cartoon today so they should be aware of the newest cartoon as well, and that cartoon should be good and connect to the main line so as to avoid brand confusion. The comics may be a little advanced, but they are also a media path into the brand, connect kids to comics (use the existing ones) - I suppose they are doing this already with the pack-in Generations deluxes, but maybe include a buck off an IDW TF graphic novel coupon or something with Voyagers.

Get back to good catalogs with battle scenes on 'em, those were so good in the '80s, sold me plenty of GI Joe and TFs and Star Wars. No more of those thin little shitty things they pack in with a couple products, kids don't generally get to go online and look at Toy Fair coverage, they need more exposure to what they're missing.

[Sparky Prime]

While I was at Target the other day, I overheard a mom talking to her kids about getting some Transformers, two things really stood out. She thought some of the figures would be too complicated for them to figure out how to transform, remarking that the packaging on some said it was for 8+. And then she said something about having Bumblebee and suggesting Hound instead.

Bumblebee and Optimus Prime have become way over saturated, not just in toylines but in general. It would be nice to see the focus more distributed amoung characters rather than so much on them, or even a series without either of them.

With the AOE line, Hasbro has made all of the figures a lot easier to transform compared to the previous movie lines. Really, I think a kid younger than 8 could figure out a mainline deluxe figure. And while I don't think a figure needs to have a complex transformation to be fun, the quality needs to be there. Like Jedi said, I think they need to simplify the message. Everytime I've gone by a toy isle, I see a ton of the overly simplistic subline stuff while the mainline figures are in short supply.

[JediTricks]

I have 2 AOE deluxes, as far as I remember: Strafe, and High Octane BB. Strafe is stupidly easy to transform. High Octane BB is a shellmaster, one that could be challenging to little hands, and it feels brittle.

I have 4 AOE voyagers: Evasion Optimus, Galvatron, Grimlock, and Hound. Galvatron is again so stupidly easy to transform it's almost embarrassing. Grimlock is almost as easy but has a bit that requires patience to understand how to get parts past each other which could be frustrating. Hound and OP are not so easy to transform, they have a lot of panels, parts that have to move at a specific time, and I can see them being challenging.

I have 1 AOE leader: Optimus, who is pretty easy to transform, but does have some shell bits which get in the way of each other that could end up broken.

Honestly, that Galvatron gets bad press for being too easy to transform, it's an ok figure but its flaws sure stand out more thanks to that.

Strafe is just bad play, this wouldn't be fun to transform for a kid, it's DUMB. And that's the problem I think with the Power Battlers figures I've experienced, they're somewhat dumbed-down AND they're compromised with a big stupid action gimmick, so they look cheap and not fun (with the one I owned before giving it away, that was certainly the case, Power Battlers Crosshairs plain ol' sucked).

I wouldn't be averse to continuing the younger-crowd figures separate from the collector-crowd ones if there was some level of cross-appeal to the former, but there really isn't, they look like junk and the market seems cold to them for that reason, they are a bad ambassador to the brand.

[BWprowl]

It's worth noting that Hasbro actually IS attempting the Skylanders Vidjagame model with TF: They put out that Rescue Bots Beam Box set, but did such a fabulously bad job marketing it that it's no wonder most people still don't know it even exists.

Thing is, Skylanders worked because it was a pioneering novelty that hadn't really been tried before: It was a risk that paid off because it was something new and shiny and different at the time. Disney Infinity worked because it took that proven concept and did it while also giving people something they really wanted: decent collectible figurines of popular Disney characters (I can only speak anecdotally, but there is a sizable contingent of people collecting those figures who aren't even using them to PLAY the game). Nintendo's Amiibo thing will likely pay off the same way (and letting them interact with multiple games is a stroke of genius). Thing is...do kids, fans, the general audience of TF WANT that from TF? Unlike Disney and Nintendo, there's no shortage of toys of popular TF characters, so there's no motivation to go in for little figurine versions of them (like people already did at least three times, between Decoys, Takara PVCs, and Robot Heroes). Basically giving people 'toys' that they play with in a virtual world is one way to look at it, but that tactile effect of TFs, actually being able to hold them in your hand and puzzle them out and do shit with them has always been one the biggest draws. Packaging actual TFs in with codes or somesuch that unlock additional content in a game is one compromise, but the best candidate for that is that TF Universe MOBA game they've been pumping, and Hasbro doesn't seem interested in merchandising that in the least (a pity, there are a ton of really cool, unique, brand-new TFs waiting to be exploited in that thing).

I agree with JT's notion that the big problem right now is how scattered and half-assed the focus of the line seems. AoE was an awful movie, but made an awful lot of money, riding its own marketing and hype train to something like the third or fourth-best opening weekend ever, which if you ask me, is absolutely absurd for a fourquel based on a line of action figures. That Hasbro has been unable to capitalize on that success with the toyline (despite pulling it off no less than three times previously) says a lot about how mismanaged the line is this time. There's things I like about the AoE line, but it's still easy for me to see where they dropped the ball. The nigh-identical packaging between the 'kids' line and the 'collectors' line has already been discussed to death, because that's the big one, but there are other issues too. There was the whole thing with stores not meeting the street date; that utterly kills the hype for a big line like this, and Hasbro should have been on that faster. Distribution’s been in shambles lately (something Hasbro used to be really good at too), none of my local stores have put out the second wave of Voyagers, not to mention their steadfast refusal to put out Generations Legends beyond Megatron/Starscream for what feels like the past YEAR. The TF sections of stores, particularly Target, are unkempt and cluttered, with piles of unwanted exclusives like the chromed OP/Grimlock pack and armies of Silver Knight Optimus Prime keeping shelves nice and toasty next to a bunch of those TF Rock-Em-Sock-Em Robot-alikes that I’m pretty sure literally nobody is buying. Meanwhile, the AoE Generations figures, you know, the sort of toys that formed the bulk of the line and are what did great for the last THREE movies, get one or two pegs to themselves where they get kludged together with same-packaged Power Battlers and never reordered. The Hex Bugs tie-ins, which could potentially do well, being a currently-popular toyline tied in to a monstrously popular movie franchise, get a shady corner of an endcap with piles of other crap around them, guaranteeing that hardly anyone actually looking for them will find them easily. I’m not sure if Hasbro’s market research or focus groups or whatnot let them down this time around, or if they didn’t even bother with it and just half-assed the whole thing, but it’s resulted in a friggin’ mess now, one that’s kind of disappointing to see when I turn down an aisle filled with piles of mismatched white TRANSFORMERS boxes all strewn about because they can’t even get employees to shelve things decently with all this crap everywhere.

Seeing the state of the line with AoE really decreases confidence, and makes something like the Angry Birds/TF crossover seem less like a natural combination of two of the biggest properties Hasbro has access to, and more like a desperate attempt to make TF back into something that sells.

The line’s definitely going to need a hard reboot going into RID’15. As JT said, rethinking the price-points so you can get a decent sub-$10 pseudo-Basic point out there is a good call (the current Legends are decent enough that you could cut out the usually-cruddy weapon partners and hawk those for $7-8 pretty well). The smaller-seeming cast of the new cartoon doesn’t seem to bode well though, leading me to think we might be in for more shelves full of Generations Bumblebee and Sideswipe, Power Attackers Bumblebee and Sideswipe, 1-Step Changer Bumblebee and Sideswipe, and Titan Heroes Bumblebee and Sideswipe.

Of course, I’m the guy who WANTS TF to fail and die off for a year or two so it can come back as something completely different, so maybe any opinions I have about what the line is and how it should go should be taken with a grain or two of salt. At least we can all agree that Hasbro botched the AoE line pretty hard, and they’re paying for it now.

[Dominic]

Toys have been dying for about 15 years now. The general trend is similar to what happened with comics starting in the 70s, but it seems to be happening faster with toys. (I have not crunched specific sales and market data.) Generally, the market is shrinking and getting older. Attempts to capture kids (be it with "Transformers" or most any line) are anemic at best.

Some kind of media is essential for Information Age marketing. "Skylanders" or "Disney Infinity" game are go to examples. There is accessible media and figures of characters that people want. Hasbro tried something similar with "GI Joe" last year. But, kids do not care about "GI Joe" and adult collectors were not terribly interested in the game figures or the game itself.

That model could work for "Transformers". ("Heroes of Cybertron" was well-regarded a decade ago. And, the market for it still exists, if only to fill in blanks left by the original set.)

Hasbro has all the theory, but they are losing the practical execution. Hasbro tried a novel approach with "Beast Hunters". Every character had a short (one or two sentence) character note on the packaging. And, any toy above the "Legion" price point had a story excerpt on the instructions. But, Hasbro could not even keep short (<100 word) excerpts consistent with the OVA (is that term still used) "movie" that the excerpts were supposed to serve as a lead-in to. (In fact, the instructions outright contradict the "Beast Hunters" OVA.)

The media needs to be good in order to lure and keep attention. (My own interest in the property has declined considerably over the last few months. "Dark Cybertron" was a standard comic event. And, the current runs of both books are not overly impressive.) The figures (which Hasbro is directly responsible for) need to be available and worthwhile.

I have heard plenty of good things about figures like Scorn and Strafe. I have passed on both multiple times because I am not terribly interested in Bayformers. Similarly, I have been waiting 15 years for good figures of the Vehicon Generals.

Putting electronic chips inside TF toys to make them compatible with video games and Consoles is a bad idea. The Hasbro budget with electronic chips inside TF toys will give buyers either brick formers or super easy to transform TF toys like the Toddler garbage that's part of the AOE TF toy line. The price for each toy will increase to insane prices.

Tiger has a point here. It is not inherently necessary that packing in electronics would go badly. But, given Hasbro's recent showing, it is a good bet that it would play out something like the way Tiger is describing it.

Toy/video game crossovers don't work. Skylanders works because those aren't toys, they're static, they're statues, they're totems to look at and do nothing with, they are game codes to unlock characters.

They are also good display pieces, like most PVC figures. If the moulded pose is good, the figure can look good on a desk.

On that subject, Hasbro needs to reconnect with the sub-$10 pricepoint better, integrate it into the main brand, it should be a gateway to the deluxes and voyagers, not a funhouse mirror.

Alternatively, Hasbro needs to make the figures worth the asking price. There is no reason that regular action figure (with fewer points of articulation than something from a few years ago) should be billed as "premium" and selling for $10+usd. The same principle applies to "Transformers" figures. At higher priced retailers, Deluxes cost $20+usd. ("Smart Toys" is a mall store that is filling the gap left by Kay-Bee imploding back in '07. Their price scales are similar, which in today's terms means that a Deluxe costs over $20usd.)

Do a better job marketing the non-movie media, kids still get into the G1 cartoon today so they should be aware of the newest cartoon as well, and that cartoon should be good and connect to the main line so as to avoid brand confusion.

This is another case of Hasbro getting the theory and botching the execution.

Every so often, Hasbro will pack in content (a comic or a computer disk) or will have some on-line content. And, sometimes, the content is good. But, mostly, the content is low-grade. During the UT, Hasbro included a game that involved shooting Decepticon invaders. The problem was that there was no practical way to hit some of the invaders (meaning that enough would get through to qualify as defeating the player), and there was no kill-counter that would trigger a victory for the player.

I agree with JT's notion that the big problem right now is how scattered and half-assed the focus of the line seems. AoE was an awful movie, but made an awful lot of money, riding its own marketing and hype train to something like the third or fourth-best opening weekend ever, which if you ask me, is absolutely absurd for a fourquel based on a line of action figures.

And, even if the media is good, there still needs to be incentive to buy the toys.

My cousin, for reasons I do not quite get, likes Bayformers. And, she is becoming more interested in the Japanese line than the US line because Takara is doing a better job of making figures available. Now, my cousin is also willing to poke around online. But, how many people are going to poke around online if they cannot easily find a figure? Most people might assume that the figure has not been made. (Is Hasbro planning to release Stinger? I dunno.)

If somebody decides they like Bayformers Hound, they might buy Deluxe Hound. How likely is that person to buy another TF? (Deluxe Hound is a bad kiddie toy.)

There was the whole thing with stores not meeting the street date; that utterly kills the hype for a big line like this, and Hasbro should have been on that faster. Distribution’s been in shambles lately (something Hasbro used to be really good at too), none of my local stores have put out the second wave of Voyagers, not to mention their steadfast refusal to put out Generations Legends beyond Megatron/Starscream for what feels like the past YEAR.

Distribution has been getting steadily worse for about 5 years now.

It seems like Hasbro considerrs the initial "bump" that Bayformers gave the property as a whole to be a sign that the brand can sell itself. Hasbro does not need timely distribution, nor even product consistenly on shelves, because the assumption is that people will buy what they see when they see it.

Collectors will go online and order from dealers, which ultimately drives down brick and mortar sales. The less that stores like Target and Wal* Mart sell this year, they less they order next year. They fewer toys ordered next year, the fewer toys available for casual buyers (who are *not* going to buy online, and are more likely to simply walk away).

[BWprowl]

Some kind of media is essential for Information Age marketing. "Skylanders" or "Disney Infinity" game are go to examples. There is accessible media and figures of characters that people want. Hasbro tried something similar with "GI Joe" last year. But, kids do not care about "GI Joe" and adult collectors were not terribly interested in the game figures or the game itself.

I absolutely do not remember this. It’s weird, because I’ve always felt that with military shooters as explosively popular as they are these days, a GI Joe video game should be a slam dunk.

("Heroes of Cybertron" was well-regarded a decade ago. And, the market for it still exists, if only to fill in blanks left by the original set.)

That new line of SD 30th anniversary figures is arguably filling this gap now. They’re neat enough, I enjoy that you can buy them blind-packed, and I appreciate that they cover eras besides G1 (even if those other eras are just TFPrime and the Movies).

Hasbro has all the theory, but they are losing the practical execution. Hasbro tried a novel approach with "Beast Hunters". Every character had a short (one or two sentence) character note on the packaging. And, any toy above the "Legion" price point had a story excerpt on the instructions. But, Hasbro could not even keep short (<100 word) excerpts consistent with the OVA (is that term still used) "movie" that the excerpts were supposed to serve as a lead-in to. (In fact, the instructions outright contradict the "Beast Hunters" OVA.)

It’s a movie. It’s just a movie. A direct-to-video movie, but a movie nonetheless.

Packaging profiles have been contradicting the media itself since Day One. Frankly, I’ve always felt that was part of the charm of TF, having ‘toy universe’ and ‘show universe’ as myriad options for fiction and character representation (The Movie ‘toy universe’ especially around the time of ROTF/NEST, seemed very cool). ‘Beast Hunters’ as a line was an interesting idea, very close to the Transmetals/Fuzors phase of BW in execution. But it simply didn’t stick around long enough to have any sort of impact, and the show itself seemed dismissive of the aspects of the toyline (with only Predaking putting in any sort of meaningful appearance).

(As an aside: The term “OVA” has officially fallen out these days in favor of “OAD”, short for “Original Animation Disk”. People still use “OVA” casually though.)

The media needs to be good in order to lure and keep attention. (My own interest in the property has declined considerably over the last few months. "Dark Cybertron" was a standard comic event. And, the current runs of both books are not overly impressive.) The figures (which Hasbro is directly responsible for) need to be available and worthwhile.

Alternatively, the toys simply need to be good enough and available enough to sell themselves. Sure, TF, especially with TFPrime and the Movies, begins and ends with the media now, but over twenty years ago, it was the opposite: You’d buy the toys because they looked cool, then find out about the show and watch it because it was based on those toys you liked, and you wanted a chance to see some of the toys you’d bought in action. In a way, it’s similar to how stuff like Skylanders and Disney Infinity are now, you buy the toys, then take them home and set them down in front of the TV to watch them “come to life”.

I have heard plenty of good things about figures like Scorn and Strafe. I have passed on both multiple times because I am not terribly interested in Bayformers. Similarly, I have been waiting 15 years for good figures of the Vehicon Generals.

If Hasbro wanted to make new toys of Jetstorm and Thrust at the new Legends scale to go with the new Deluxe Tankorr, I wouldn’t complain (actually, they really only need to make Jetstorm; I could probably dig out my old Motorcycle Drone and he’d work great as Thrust in that situation).

They are also good display pieces, like most PVC figures. If the moulded pose is good, the figure can look good on a desk.

This is, of course, why all the most successful toys are advertised with “Looks Good On A Desk” Action!

Seriously though, PVCs are not even in the same neighborhood as true toys. I buy a PVC of Megatron for a completely different reason than I do a full, transforming action figure of Megatron. It’s apples and oranges, and Nintendo putting out, say, an Amiibo figurine of Captain Falcon isn’t going to stop me from wanting a fully-featured action figure of Captain Falcon.

Alternatively, Hasbro needs to make the figures worth the asking price. There is no reason that regular action figure (with fewer points of articulation than something from a few years ago) should be billed as "premium" and selling for $10+usd. The same principle applies to "Transformers" figures. At higher priced retailers, Deluxes cost $20+usd. ("Smart Toys" is a mall store that is filling the gap left by Kay-Bee imploding back in '07. Their price scales are similar, which in today's terms means that a Deluxe costs over $20usd.)

I continuously have to laugh at Mattel’s current 5-inch DC figures with “Adult Collector” slapped on the box. If you’re going to do that, you have to make them look like “Collector” figures (the fact that DC Collectibles are making toys that ACTUALLY look like premium figures makes them look even worse). Hasbro’s making similar mistakes, though at least they don’t have the gall to put it on the box. But still, if Generations Crosshairs is supposed to be the adult-targeted, premium alternative to the Power Battlers Crosshairs, then he ought to at least be painted like it. I’d happily pay $20 for a Crosshairs that was actually painted with all the movie details, rather than just some silver glopped on the face. Look at stuff like SH Figuarts and figma, those are 5ish-inch action figures that cost $30-40 a pop. Why? Because they look damn good. Hasbro wants to market stuff like AoE Generations (to say nothing of the launchpad-disaster that is Star Wars Black Series) as ‘Premium’, ‘Collector’ figures, but are still trying to keep them priced as department-store kids’ toys, and the result is a compromised product that neither audience is happy with. Look at Evasion Mode Optimus Prime. That’s a brilliantly-designed figure (it was designed/engineered by the guy who did something like half the Masterpiece line) utterly brought down by craptacular paint aps.

Every so often, Hasbro will pack in content (a comic or a computer disk) or will have some on-line content. And, sometimes, the content is good. But, mostly, the content is low-grade. During the UT, Hasbro included a game that involved shooting Decepticon invaders. The problem was that there was no practical way to hit some of the invaders (meaning that enough would get through to qualify as defeating the player), and there was no kill-counter that would trigger a victory for the player.

And the production values were still better than the cartoons of the UT-era! Heyoooooh!!

My cousin, for reasons I do not quite get, likes Bayformers. And, she is becoming more interested in the Japanese line than the US line because Takara is doing a better job of making figures available. Now, my cousin is also willing to poke around online. But, how many people are going to poke around online if they cannot easily find a figure? Most people might assume that the figure has not been made. (Is Hasbro planning to release Stinger? I dunno.)

All Stinger toys are going to be Wal-Mart exclusive, for some completely inexplicable reason. I believe this includes the Generations Deluxe, despite the fact that many Wal-Marts aren’t even stocking the Generations assortment of AoE toys. I’m probably just going to buy mine, yep, online.

That said, you might be wrong about people’s willingness to go online. This is the brave new digital world we’re living in, where people buy anything and everything from Amazon, and online-only coupons flood our e-mail accounts by the truckload.

When I was a kid, getting a TRU gift card for my birthday meant convincing my parents to drive me out to the closest TRU, which was over thirty minutes away, and I might not even find what I wanted. Nowadays, if a kid can just jump onto TRU’s website and look for whatever they want? Far more likely to actually GET what they want.

If somebody decides they like Bayformers Hound, they might buy Deluxe Hound. How likely is that person to buy another TF? (Deluxe Hound is a bad kiddie toy.)

See, back during the 2007 Movie, this wouldn’t have been a problem. The Fast Action Battlers were all in completely different packaging, marking them as something ‘other’ than the mainline, so someone could easily look at it and go “That isn’t a proper toy of Barricade, I’ll wait until I see the regular one in stores”. Now, thanks to this damnable packaging system they’ve got, it’d be way too easy for someone to go “Ooh neat, they made a Deluxe toy of Hound!” and get home only to be utterly disappointed.

[Dominic]

I absolutely do not remember this. It’s weird, because I’ve always felt that with military shooters as explosively popular as they are these days, a GI Joe video game should be a slam dunk.

Not so much. That market is occupied by existing games now.

That new line of SD 30th anniversary figures is arguably filling this gap now. They’re neat enough, I enjoy that you can buy them blind-packed, and I appreciate that they cover eras besides G1 (even if those other eras are just TFPrime and the Movies).

I was thinking more "good representations of the characters", not SD junk. "Heroes of Cybertron" sold because those were the best figures of G1 characters anybody could have expected at the time.

The Movie ‘toy universe’ especially around the time of ROTF/NEST, seemed very cool).

I love how the toy packages gleefully described Autobots and humans working together to kill Decepticons who were often just minding their own business (Sunspot) or trying desperately to get away (Dirge). I find that more amusing that I probably should.

You’d buy the toys because they looked cool, then find out about the show and watch it because it was based on those toys you liked, and you wanted a chance to see some of the toys you’d bought in action.

I dunno. 25-30 years ago, any forays to the toy section (or Toys R Us) generally consisted of me looking for toys from the tv show/comic/movie that I liked. I was prioritizing for media by the time I was 7 or so. There were a few exceptions. But, they were rare, and included gifts.

Hasbro wants to market stuff like AoE Generations (to say nothing of the launchpad-disaster that is Star Wars Black Series) as ‘Premium’, ‘Collector’ figures, but are still trying to keep them priced as department-store kids’ toys, and the result is a compromised product that neither audience is happy with.

In the case of SW and Marvel, Hasbro justifies the "Premium" label on what used to be standard figures by releasing simplified junk as the regular figures. As Hasbro tells it, regular figures in 2014 have 5 points of articulation and few (if any) accessories. The regular of yesterday is the "Premium" of today.

That said, you might be wrong about people’s willingness to go online. This is the brave new digital world we’re living in, where people buy anything and everything from Amazon, and online-only coupons flood our e-mail accounts by the truckload.

One of the first rules of selling is to not give your customer a chance to not spend their money. A casual buyer might make a causual purchase if they happen to run across something they sort of like. But, buying online takes a series of deliberate steps. "Accidental" finds online are still related to the deliberate purchase that somebody is making. Amazon is not likely to suggest action figures to somebody who normally does not even search for toys. And, casual buyers may not even know/remember that an action figure exists to be searched for.

I half pay attention to Marvel figures, and am never really sure what is coming out, and cannot always be troubled to check.

See, back during the 2007 Movie, this wouldn’t have been a problem. The Fast Action Battlers were all in completely different packaging, marking them as something ‘other’ than the mainline, so someone could easily look at it and go “That isn’t a proper toy of Barricade, I’ll wait until I see the regular one in stores”. Now, thanks to this damnable packaging system they’ve got, it’d be way too easy for someone to go “Ooh neat, they made a Deluxe toy of Hound!” and get home only to be utterly disappointed.

And, if they just (reasonably) assume that the thing they bought is representative of the standard figures, they are not likely to buy anything else.