Star Wars action figure conversation

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Dominic
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Re: Star Wars action figure conversation

Post by Dominic »

He's a boring nobody who didn't pan out, and did absolutely nothing exciting.
The same could be said of any Imperial Officer from the old movies, or any background character.

The chief virtue of SW as a line has always been that it is comprehensive. Hux, at the very least, is consistent with that.

The market doesn't agree, sales have been down on Super Articulated SW figures year after year since The Vintage Collection, the market for expensive 3.75" figures is shrinking which is a big part of why the price has been climbing steadily. It doesn't help that new management has been delivering problem after problem, whether it's lower quality paint apps, or worse sculpts, but those are also symptoms of the shrinking interest in this scale having premium figures.
I have to wonder how much of the sales drop is a result of poor paint and sculpt work relative to increased prices.

The sculpts and paint on the 5POA figures are actually pretty nice now, and they cost considerably less, so they are where the marketing is focused. It's a damned shame Hasbro felt the need to jack up the price $2 though. But the 5POA Vader I have is from Rebels, it's very appealing, came in a multipack with Rebels Ahsoka, based on McQuarrie art, and yeah it's 5POA but it still looks better than the $12 figure swimming in terrible soft-goods (cloth) elements sporting nigh-useless articulation.
Define "useless articulation".

A 5 point figure is generally not worth the time spent buying and opening it (never mind money). (I have skipped 5 point figures on principle, even if they were based on characters I would have otherwise bought.)
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Almighty Unicron
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Re: Star Wars action figure conversation

Post by Almighty Unicron »

Dominic wrote:I have to wonder how much of the sales drop is a result of poor paint and sculpt work relative to increased prices.
I think a lot of toy collectors are in a huge bubble. They don't realize that, as a market, as an industry, toy sales are plummeting. Kids don't buy toys in the quantities they did twenty years ago, let alone thirty or forty.
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Dominic
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Re: Star Wars action figure conversation

Post by Dominic »

I know that kids buy less toys than they used to. Today's kids have more options. And, their parents are more likely to drive them to other things.

People are having fewer kids on average, particularly the families with the discretionary income for toys. And, those same families are more likely to go for the above mentioned alternatives.

But, all of that is arguably a case for making toys more appealling to adult collectors (and giving kids who do get in an incentive to stick around).
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JediTricks
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Re: Star Wars action figure conversation

Post by JediTricks »

Dominic wrote:
He's a boring nobody who didn't pan out, and did absolutely nothing exciting.
The same could be said of any Imperial Officer from the old movies, or any background character.

The chief virtue of SW as a line has always been that it is comprehensive. Hux, at the very least, is consistent with that.
Ok, first things first, the same CAN be said of any Imperial Officer and there has not once been a super-articulated, heavily-articulated, or even barely-articulated Imperial Officer that didn't sell weakly to downright poorly. They don't sell well.

Second, Hux is being pushed at the same level as Tarkin by Disney and the producers, I would argue he didn't pan out at that level at all.

Third, there's no reason to be a stickler for heavy articulation on "guy who stands there", they made 2 Hux figures, one for the 6" line and one for the 5POA line. Unless you're planning an action figure game of Twister, why does he need articulation beyond all reason to justify as "comprehensive"?
I have to wonder how much of the sales drop is a result of poor paint and sculpt work relative to increased prices.
Chicken and the egg, they lower costs by removing paint apps because they're trying to save money because sales are down because they removed paint apps because they were trying to save money. Sculpt is more complicated, that one is more on changing factories and mold people, Hasbro doesn't actually do the final sculpting, they send their prototypes to Chinese "manufacturing partners" which is code for hired factories and those workers adapt the prototype and basically do it again from scratch.
Define "useless articulation".
I had when I defined the previous Vader earlier in the post, but it has these stupid diagonal-swivel elbows, they're the worst.
A 5 point figure is generally not worth the time spent buying and opening it (never mind money). (I have skipped 5 point figures on principle, even if they were based on characters I would have otherwise bought.)
Not worth whose time? And if you don't buy them, how do you know they're not worth it for others, for the majority of the market?
Dominic wrote:I know that kids buy less toys than they used to. Today's kids have more options. And, their parents are more likely to drive them to other things.

People are having fewer kids on average, particularly the families with the discretionary income for toys. And, those same families are more likely to go for the above mentioned alternatives.

But, all of that is arguably a case for making toys more appealling to adult collectors (and giving kids who do get in an incentive to stick around).
And yet kids are the majority of the brand's market still, and adult collectors are still not showing themselves to be a growth market.
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Re: Star Wars action figure conversation

Post by Shockwave »

Dominic wrote:I know that kids buy less toys than they used to. Today's kids have more options. And, their parents are more likely to drive them to other things.
I don't necessarily buy into this. Kids have had more or less the same options for over 30 years now. Even when I was a kid, I had plenty of other options. There were just as many video games, not to mention other available activities. I was involved in Boy Scouts, took Tae Kwon Do and was even learning to play the piano. The only difference now is the internet, but that could really only wind up supporting a toy hobby, not taking away from it. I remember the toy aisles being stocked with plenty of Atari and Coleco games, and actually, they were sold in electronics, not the toy aisle.

As for articulated Imperial Officers, I am always on the hunt for decently articulated ones because of my mini call center that i have set up at my desk. It would be funny to be able to have a bunch of officers sitting in the cubicles rather than the Stormtroopers since the officers seem to run the office side of things in the Empire. But, other than that, they don't really need to do much.
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