Hasbro destroys third party companies by being way better

[Onslaught Six]

The only thing is, Hasbro--for whatever reason--does not believe that that demand is there. And let's think about this for a minute, from a pure business perspective.

How many "fans" of the third-party stuff could there realistically be? (Here, I am defining "fan" as someone who sees something like Hercules or City Commander or one of the Reflectors or whatever and actually has the disposable income to buy it, and follows through.) City Commander's original run was something like 2000 pieces and, in comparison to most of these newer designs, it was relatively cheap. ($40-50, IIRC, which in objective terms isn't even that terrible. The real stinger for that toy was the fact that you needed an Ultra Magnus to use it, and he was easily worth that much before City Commander was even announced.*)

*Yes, you could use a Classics Prime but who's going to do that?

But yeah: How many people are realistically buying these, and what are the production numbers like? How much do they actually cost to produce?

I'll say this, I've been looking into getting prices for some professional print runs of my new CD Termina. (RELEASING MARCH 15TH FUCKING GUARANTEED, DIGITAL PREORDER AVAILABLE NOW) Realistically a small run of 100 CDs, with everything I want, is going to cost me something like $255. (I have some extra things that make them cost that much.) The unit cost is $2.55 each. I can sell those, realistically, for about $10, right? At $10, I only need to sell 23 to break even--everything else is profit.

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that the third party groups do this kind of thing too, all the time. Do you think even the Kup heads cost $12 to make? No, they probably cost a dollar--maybe less. Now, Hasbro realistically makes just as much profit as these guys are making, right? Possibly more, as they produce the toys in such large quantities that it's cheaper to do so. (My album is only costing $2.55 per unit because I'm only printing 100 of them to start with. If I were printing, say, 1000, the unit cost goes down to $1.31, but then it costs me $1310.)

But these are smaller-run items sold to a frankly limited fanbase. The only way--the ONLY way--to get a reliable number for this kind of thing would be to go ahead, take the dive, and produce something like TFC Hercules, or the Protector armour, or whatever else, and actually judge how it sells. If it makes back the money and they don't have too much laying around, then great. If not...well, there you go.

Because, time and again, Hasbro has been shown that the focus just isn't there for a purely collector-oriented line. Sure, Generations-style guys tend to sell pretty well, but every once in a while there's a clunker or guys just hang on the shelves for no reason--Skullgrin and Red Alert warmed pretty heavy here. Masterpiece Starscream sold like hotcakes but Skywarp languished for months and was even clearanced. Alternators sold pretty well at first but half of the people bemoaned the Takara versions as better and the other half was complaining about the lack of Decepticons, the price, or the distribution.

The fact is Hasbro relies too much on the brick-and-mortar sales from random parents and children to abandon it in favour of a collector-oriented online focus. Because I know when I was a kid, I got bought all kinds of random-ass toys from all kinds of toylines. That didn't necessarily make me a fan or a repeat customer. Or sometimes, in a toy aisle as a kid, I would see something random that caught my eye and instantly want it. Once I got it, that didn't necessarily mean I was going to buy it forever.

Moving to an all-online model would present the risk that many of those brick-and-mortar sales would disappear. People would have to specifically seek out the toys in order to buy them, rather than being able to just randomly pick some up. And yes, I know, you're not really suggesting that Hasbro cut out the brick and mortar entirely. But if they did launch a direct online site, there's the chance it could hurt their reputation with the retailers, and Hasbro--more than any other company I've ever seen--gives waaaaay too much of a fuck what Wal-Mart thinks, and they have 'no' balls when it comes to fighting them.

(Then again, Hasbro is one of the largest toy companies in the ENTIRE WORLD. They own something like 50% of the toy aisle. I'm sure there are other, 'non-Transformers' factors guiding the retailers--and Hasbro's--hands. For example, Target could easily say, "If you want us to carry the crappy new Spiderman line then we need you to tone down GI Joe." And Hasbro has to make a decision--cut back on Joe, or risk losing Target as a customer for Spiderman?)

[BWprowl]

Moving to an all-online model would present the risk that many of those brick-and-mortar sales would disappear. People would have to specifically seek out the toys in order to buy them, rather than being able to just randomly pick some up. And yes, I know, you're not really suggesting that Hasbro cut out the brick and mortar entirely. But if they did launch a direct online site, there's the chance it could hurt their reputation with the retailers, and Hasbro--more than any other company I've ever seen--gives waaaaay too much of a fuck what Wal-Mart thinks, and they have 'no' balls when it comes to fighting them.

Like I said, that’s what I was thinking too. But it’s like, when they have toys ready to go, and the retailers don’t order them or screw them into cancellation somehow, with stuff like Windcharger and the FE Prime molds, why doesn’t Hasbro, instead of cutting their losses and just chucking the things to Ross or Five Below or whatever, put what they’ve got up for sale on their own website (not HTS, I mean like some actual, official Buy Shit From Hasbro website that’s only hypothetical at this point)? Like I said, they could sell this stuff at *retail* price, and not only could I almost guarantee that they would all sell to people like me and all those saddlesore fans of Prime, but they’d make back some KILLER profit since all that retail price wouldn’t actually be going to retailers. And how’s Target or Wal-Mart going to pitch a fit over them selling stuff like that, when they’re the ones who didn’t want it in the first place? If anything, it might motivate the retailers to actually accept/bring in those toys the next time, once they see them selling well on Hasbro’s site.

All Hasbro has to do is take a quick look at eBay to see that there is demand for these sorts of things. What do their Market Research people *do*, exactly? I mean, Mattel puts toys up for sale on their website and they *sell out* within minutes, with fans constantly screaming for more. Does Hasbro see that happening? Yeah, they rely a lot on kids' sales and they've got that cornered and they don't want to sacrifice that for collector focus, and I understand and appreciate that, but they are literally a website away from being able to have *both*.

I don’t think Hasbro has to look into producing ‘collector’-level toys (I personally think we could do with less 'Generations' style stuff) since, your average Transfan bitching aside (Christ we are never happy), it seems most collectors are generally fine with the toys Hasbro does put out, in the price range that they do. They just need to make it so that when toys come out that a lot of people want, we can actually get them somehow.

[Dominic]

Reportedly they were hard to find, but I never had a particular difficulty doing so. Oh, and those Minicon two-packs, but I always considered those a bonus thing. "Nothing else new is out. Hey, new Minicons!"

The Giant Planet guys eventually shipped to Boston, months later. I ended up with extras (due to frenetic trading and poor communications between 2 or 3 of my friends). By the time I got it sorted out, Menasor and Quickmix were plentiful. My extra Quickmix broke while I was fiddling with it. And, I customized Menasor.

There was no reason for those damned Minicons to be so rare.

It's been made clear over time that you seriously must not think of Transformers in terms of characters like...everyone else. Many of us buy for character, and not purely for design. For example, I don't look at a repaint and think, "Well, damn, if only I hadn't already bought that mould!" Because he's a different character. What you're describing is literally going, "Damn! If only I hadn't already bought a t-shirt, I'd be able to buy this other t-shirt!"

I can see not wanting to have more than one pressing of a mould. But, if it is a good mould and a good character, I am going to bite. (I have several pressings of the 2006 Mirage mould, 2 are intended to be Mirage.) But, I skipped plenty of same character recolours during the UT.

Generally, there are enough official figures that I am not able to allocate money for unofficial figures, even if I can appreciate the sculpting and engineering.

Then again, Hasbro is one of the largest toy companies in the ENTIRE WORLD. They own something like 50% of the toy aisle. I'm sure there are other, 'non-Transformers' factors guiding the retailers--and Hasbro's--hands. For example, Target could easily say, "If you want us to carry the crappy new Spiderman line then we need you to tone down GI Joe." And Hasbro has to make a decision--cut back on Joe, or risk losing Target as a customer for Spiderman?)

There is no reason that Hasbro would have to make a binary choice between on-line sales and retail sales. They could even use data from the retail sales to convince retailers that some lines are more/less sellable.


Dom
-would likely be ordering from BBTS exclusively if not for cutting back on toys in general.

[Shockwave]

But yeah: How many people are realistically buying these, and what are the production numbers like? How much do they actually cost to produce?

I'll say this, I've been looking into getting prices for some professional print runs of my new CD Termina. (RELEASING MARCH 15TH FUCKING GUARANTEED, DIGITAL PREORDER AVAILABLE NOW) Realistically a small run of 100 CDs, with everything I want, is going to cost me something like $255. (I have some extra things that make them cost that much.) The unit cost is $2.55 each. I can sell those, realistically, for about $10, right? At $10, I only need to sell 23 to break even--everything else is profit.

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say that the third party groups do this kind of thing too, all the time. Do you think even the Kup heads cost $12 to make? No, they probably cost a dollar--maybe less. Now, Hasbro realistically makes just as much profit as these guys are making, right? Possibly more, as they produce the toys in such large quantities that it's cheaper to do so. (My album is only costing $2.55 per unit because I'm only printing 100 of them to start with. If I were printing, say, 1000, the unit cost goes down to $1.31, but then it costs me $1310.)

I can speak to this since I have direct experience with it (sort of). In the case of the 3rd party companies it might actually be costing them that much. Here's why: We all know that I make Breakdown heads. It's honestly the only reliably consistently perfect mold I've been able to create so far. And so far between the materials to create the mold and the several invalid molds that were created before the successful one and the cost of the plastic itself and what have you, I've spent roughly $2000.00. So far, I've sold like, three heads. Well, I sold my halfassed custom Breakdown for like 40 bucks and one head for $10.00. So I've got back like 35.00. Now, the cost of the actual plastic itself, BY ITSELF, is not that much. Probably around 1.00 if that. But it's the rest of the development process that's increasing the expense. Now, I don't have the resources that Hasbro does to presumably make multiple copies of a mold so they can crank them out hundreds at a time and I'm willing to bet that the 3rd party companies don't either. And trust, me the professional grade shit they're using is probably costing them tens of thousands of dollars to create these molds. Now, I've just been doing back yard/garage level shit and am already in for over two grand. And my friend (who's also my business partner in this venture) has determined that to get equipment that would make our processes more reliable would cost around another 10000.00. So yeah, the plastic itself isn't expensive but the equipment and other shit to make the mold is. And with not cranking out the same numbers as Hasbro is probably why all the 3rd party stuff is so expensive. Now, companies that have been at it a while and have multiple molds like FansProject have probably long since mitigated the cost on the expensive stuff but some of the newer companies are probably still trying to recover that.

Shockwave
-City Commander originally "retailed" for ~100.00. It now goes for over 300.00. Especially if UM is included.

[Dominic]

I think that one or two of KO Toys' suppliers had fully functioning factories. The quantity and quality of the merchandise strongly implied this. Mind you, KO Toys is pretty much dead as of a few weeks back.

[Shockwave]

True and I'm assuming that the 3rd party companies do too. Which is why their cost is higher. I'm using silicone rubber molds which you just throw in the oven and bake. The higher end metal casted molds for factory use are much higher priced than the stuff I'm using. The cost of the equipment is that much more expensive which is why the cost per figure is so much higher.

[JediTricks]

FWIW,3rd party TF toy companies ARE STILL WINNING THE BATTLE,When it comes to creating more accurate updated homages. examples: TFC Hercules,MT Giant,those basic sized G-1 styled insecticons trio. not-springer tripple changer toy. not-arcee's toys. MP conehead seekers with remolded wings,etc......

Except all those things cost more than three times what figures their size are worth. Fuck that. I'm not paying convention prices for Deluxes when Hasbro can do it just as well.

Except that Hasbro can't do it just as well, the whole point of this conversation. They probably *could* do it if they wanted, but they don't want to try. You can't really compare prices against something Hasbro won't deliver, that's the point of the thing - Hasbro doesn't deliver the sorts of things that are desired, so it becomes apples vs oranges:
3rd Party Super Awesome Devastator = $600
Hasbro Super Awesome Devastator = Vapor

Double-post because this one is me conceding a point.

Alright JT, I can admit where there may be a problem, re: distribution and new product on shelves. I honestly hadn’t noticed the six-month gap because of my aforementioned spread-out buying habits. Plus I think I’m still comparing the ‘worst of times’ to that period right after the Movie hit in 2007 where there were No Transformers On Shelves, Period. THAT was the worst time to be a collector for me, I still have traumatic flashbacks to those hope-destroying blank red walls you would always see in Target, so as long as there are toys in the aisles, that’s a reason to be positive, at least for me. But like I was saying, you’ve got a point. While DOTM (in my opinion) still covered an impressive breadth of product, there were definitely less waves of it (We barely got like, what, four waves of Deluxes?). And while my wallet may be happy for the incoming 6-month or so gap of Just Prime toys until new Generations stuff hits, I’ll also be disappointing to have little to check out until then (I may pull like a lot of fans, including myself, did with GI Joe during the gap between Movie and Animated and adopt a ‘placeholder’ toyline in the meantime).

IMO, the post-movie1 famine wasn't as bad because I could see Hasbro was moving to replace existing product and had new product on the horizon that was worth a damn - retailers were so enamored with how well TF:M1 product was doing that they did the unthinkable, they kept MASSIVE empty shelf space going through a reset because they knew what statement it made to consumers, that the retailer was dedicated to that line's future. The last 6 months has been the opposite, Hasbro has a shaky future on the horizon with lower support, poor communications with consumers, and a swath of canceled products going all the way back to before Botcon really (I'm looking more at the canceled Generations-style basics and the produced-but-liquidated pieces, but since those are the same SKU as the movie line and intended to keep retailers on the line through until the movie came, it's somewhat in the same box).

I've been in the game a loooooong time now, and what happened with the first movie being so popular was never a bad sign to me; it's this situation of trickling product, late product, no word, shaky future lines, etc., that's the sort of thing I've seen Hasbro do before and end up not just with the immediate problems and failures, but that ripple across the entire future of a line: 3 seasons of bad sales and poor support to retailers means those retailers are going to be wary of the next line, so Hasbro has to downgrade their plans to fit, which doesn't sit well with consumers who give retailers sales problems, and you end up in a downward spiral that is bad for collectors for years to come. Hasbro management has checks and balances in place to address those things, but they require compromises that we collectors often take the brunt of, and it is difficult when brand management keeps changing or has a lack of strength in their vision.

Anyway, I’ll just try and stay positive about the whole situation, since that and supporting the brand by buying the stuff I do want is all I can really do. Getting super-upset about stuff like this will do absolutely zilch to change it, so I might as well not let it get to me.

I think you misunderstand my motives, I'm not being negative about the situation, I'm not suggesting boycotts or any action at all - I just bought Wheeljack for $15 which is silly expensive - I'm being pragmatic about a situation that is negative. But the idea that it's not upsetting, I cannot pollyanna this, it's been building for months now - if Hasbro had addressed the missing product and problem distribution on FEs back in, say, November, collectors could have adjusted their hunting, helped each other out better, not spent all their time hoping and hunting the DOTM pegs for product that will never arrive.

So I guess the question is, what would the solution be? I know a lot of people have been saying that, instead of two or three separate lines to overwhelm retailers with, that Hasbro should just have one blanket ‘Transformers’ line that toys from all current series could be released under. That’s not a bad idea, and it would allow them to put product out that may have missed its old line without having to worry if it fits with the current line or not. On the other hand, it means things would come out slower, with retailers only ordering the then-current case assortments with like 6-8 different figures per, and having to wait until later waves just to get a few new toys from different series.

One thing I think would definitely help would be if Hasbro could figure out online sales to save their life. We all know HasbroToyShop is a joke. Does Hasbro realize that they could have made gangbusters last year had they just sold Windcharger at retail price through an online storefront of some kind? Ditto Rumble and those last few PCCs. It’s a pity Hasbro discontinued those Q&As (as if they ever really read them anyway), people could tell them that stuff like this was a good idea!

First off, Hasbro is committed to their retail partners over HasbroToyShop, which is why HTS doesn't get exclusives unless it's a convention exclusive they sell in person as well as online, so HTS just isn't going to work out -- especially since they already have a direct-market online sales in the form of the Official TF Collectors Club, and honestly I think that's so super-niche that it's unusable in this conversation. Hasbro for some reason doesn't want to follow Mattel into the direct-market niche sales racket, and I can sort of see why, it's a risky business model aimed exclusively at an exceptionally-demanding audience, and it's very difficult to make the sales numbers Hasbro looks for in creating a product.

All that said, Hasbro has a fantastic exclusives division, it's just that Transformers hasn't gotten much play there in the past few years aside from Masterpieces. Most TF exclusives over the last year or 2 that I can remember are just boxed sets of existing figures with alternate paint jobs - fine for casual market consumers, but it eats up the TF exclusives budget and doesn't leave retailer real estate space for those special items from the collector market-focus. Worse still, many of those box-up repaints aren't even product that required catching up, much of it was available the entire time of its initial run. So if they freed up exclusives space, they could use more of those canceled molds getting product into collectors' hands via the exclusives route.

Ok, now that out of the way, to address the larger problems of the main line, let's look at the lines Hasbro currently has on shelf:
- Movie (in the process of being canceled but retailers still have existing orders of old stock coming in)
- Prime
- Generations
- Rescue Bots
- Other Younger Kids Stuff
- Bot Shots
- Kre-O
- Licensed-brand Transformers (SW, Marvel)

Probably even some other stuff, although I think Speed Stars is dead. But there are a lot of expressions for the brand. So first off, I think Hasbro needs to reassess their market strategies - having one unified main line won't really help because they have a lot of audiences they're trying to address at once: casual adult consumers, older kids, hardcore collectors, parents, gift-givers, nostalgia consumers, teens - most of those fall into 2 categories: hardcore consumers, and casual consumers. Hardcore consumers are the collectors, the casual nostalgia fans, and a subset of the parent-buyers; Casual consumers is the kids, teens, gift-givers, and adult toy fans who aren't stuck on nostalgia. Hasbro for a while was doing a good job segregating their priorities with those 2 different audiences, but I think they got caught up too much in factoring in the crossover appeal which led to compromises. So, my first fix is "draw better lines in the sand between your consumers". The brand has shown for years now that it can support 2 living SKUs so long as each SKU caters to its market well, that path needs to be returned to.

Hasbro has to get control over their wave-to-wave carry-forward choices and stop relying on repaints so heavily. They need to get in better touch with their market, respond a lot faster and become less inflexible on assortment changeups. And of course repaints are a big part of the Hasbro business model, but in the last 2 movie lines they have frontloaded their lines only to have later waves that are nearly all repaints and carry-forwards while ignoring new product development. These schedules are a disaster, leaving the brand coming up way short in later waves without enough dynamic new product to draw customers back in -- either you develop an entire line at once and then move on to developing a succeeding line, OR you remain on a constant development cycle trying to keep the existing line continuing on a consistent pacing; but this halfassing of it, using repaint after repaint to carry the line until you can catch up with 1 or 2 new molds just isn't cutting it, it's too much start-stop-crawl to be consistent for the market.

Hasbro also needs to do a better job getting store representatives into vital areas, keeping their pegs organized and properly stocked, pulling back product that isn't moving -- you're never too big to do small work, because when you stop doing that small work, it becomes a big problem eventually. They need to keep their eyes on the "switch point" where they switch off from the end of one line into the beginning of another so they don't waste resources on end-of-line cases that retailers won't stock much of. Hasbro needs to do a better job of advertising the line too, they really aren't doing much to advertise it and what they do have doesn't make much of the toys OR the characters. And that leads me to another point...

Get toy focus back onto the characters. There seems to be some aversion to this the past few years, the bio notes get simpler, the character art gets more generic, basically the assumption being that the existing media - whether it's the movie, the new cartoon, the video game, or even the classic G1 series - will do all the heavy lifting for selling the figure. The toy sells because of its play appeal but also because of its personality, and the packaging hasn't been doing a very good job of moving that message. Hell, the packaging doesn't even do a good job of co-selling other product in the line anymore! Hasbro has split the brand into 2 halves: developing the toy line, and developing the brand as a media expression - but that fractures the vision for the line, there's no one entity at Hasbro anymore that can express a passionate vision for both at the same time, not really.

Another thing, there is a very poor management of the various pricepoints right now. Cyberverse has its own 2 pricepoints, mainline has 3 pricepoints generally, but there's no "special" pricepoint anymore, nothing that has electronics or combiner gimmicks, and the basic pricepoint has become too fractured for its own good. Deluxe and Voyager are trying to be the same thing too often. Leader-class is now the go-to for anything "special" but those items are generally out of price reach of the casual consumer audience who most craves those "special" gimmicks, so they make compromises between the casual consumer market and the hardcore consumer market until neither are well-satisfied. They also need to get control of their pricing, value is getting away from them and their designers are coming up with too many cheap gimmicks (mechtech) and boring figures.

Hasbro needs to reconnect with its market bases, needs to reconnect with its retail partners, needs to refocus on a stronger vision, needs to get ahold of and even ahead of trends in their market, and needs to get back on a schedule that delivers better pacing. I think if they do that, they can keep 2 mainlines going simultaneously and even keep a few satellite expressions as well. Once they get brand management back under control and on track, they should really consider developing a better outlet for collector-focused product, use the OTCC to put out riskier stuff and more of it a la Mattel's Matty Club or even Sideshow's high quality product direct-market website, don't keep following the failure that is the GI Joe collector club. Once they get a quality direct-market line going, they could expand it to the part of their younger market that is viable to fold into the hardcore base -- more of today's kids can be tomorrow's hardcore collectors if the avenues are open.

Sorry this is so long, I just thought of another point that Hasbro's gotten away from lately: consumer communications! Q&A is dead, it was troubled from the start because the brand management didn't want to be as open as Hasbro's Star Wars brand management was, but just look at Hasbro's pathetic news updates on their Transformers sites - it's a burst of news when there's a new site to highlight the new brand, and then nothing for months only to vomit up a piece of PR that usually they had already sent out to other media outlets so it's not even news anymore. There is no feeling of community from them, it's just "buy our product, thanks bye!" and it lowers collector morale while leaving casual consumers in the dark about the product line.

The problem with just 1 line at a time is that they won't have enough room to market to their 2 customer bases, and worse, they won't have retailers on board for when the next separate expression comes along. They need 2 separate SKUs to ensure a strong "family of lines" branding presence as well as to keep transitioning from line to line smooth, instead of the rockiness of going from expression to expression under 1 SKU. Of course, having a 3rd line makes no sense if the market isn't super hungry for the overall brand: I'm looking at you PCCs who were obviously not ready for their own SKU. There also wouldn't be room to do big things if TF:Prime has to share case-space with the Fall of Cybertron Combaticons, you'd end up with cases stepping on each others' toes, constant assortment revisions, and no room to carry forward anything that didn't make it in its initial assortment.

Also, I’m not sure I’d mind the brand pulling another G2 and going into a lull-induced hibernation for a while. Could result in another Beast Wars where they’d be forced to innovate and we’d finally get something truly different again. Transformers kicked ass when I was a kid (yeah, I said it Dom, what’chu’gon’do?) because year after year, I never knew what they were going to turn into next. Regular animals? Robot animals with vehicle bits? Critters mixed together? Alien vehicles with heads and eyes and shit? Even RiD was a wild change since it’d been quite a while since I saw Just Regular Vehicle Transformers. But ennui for robots turning into cars has set in again, and I’d really like to be surprised by the brand again soon.

Beast Wars wasn't Hasbro forcing TF to innovate, they had just bought Kenner and basically threw them the TF brand saying "we're too busy to give a crap about this brand anymore since we choked the life out of it, do whatever" and Kenner took the ball and eventually ran with it their own way, separate from what Hasbro had been doing with the brand. Kenner had a different design philosophy and that new blood helped make Beast Wars unique enough that it succeeded on its own until Hasbro was ready to take notice of their license again. Hasbro is currently making a mountain of money off of licensing the Transformers brand as a media expression, so there's nothing to be gained by thinning that right now. They need new visionaries to reinvigorate the brand with new ideas without alienating the larger audience's understanding of the brand (so no cars fighting frogs, to take RID's example; or no Animorphs). Prime is trying to do that, but unfortunately Hasbro needs more traction to get The Hub going and more audiences to get the TF:Prime toy line going, so it's a catch-22, and I don't think Prime has a real vision for the brand overall.

That's the thing--Hasbro doesn't actually run HTS. They just contract some other people to run the retail end of it and only buy toys from them. They have to order cases like everyone else.

You are wrong and right: HTS is a Hasbro division, but they run it like a business so they have them order like a separate entity.

The only thing is, Hasbro--for whatever reason--does not believe that that demand is there. And let's think about this for a minute, from a pure business perspective.

Your post is a good one, but I'll only call out this part because I want to say that... They understand there is some demand, otherwise they wouldn't bother going to Botcon and Comic-Con, it's just that they don't believe there's ENOUGH demand to warrant investing a hundred thousand dollars on developing the product. They don't believe there's enough hardcore market to cover their costs, much less make their minimum profit margin. They know they can't sell 50,000 units at a $2 profit to make that hundred-grand of development costs back, and if they only make 5,000 units at $20 profit a unit they'll have to charge a lot or go direct market, both of which will drive away customers and piss off their retail partners. So basically, without someone in charge who has their finger on the pulse of collectors well enough to cross the line into mainstream market better (or deliver a product so satisfying to that hardcore market that they are assured of the minimum sales), they either need to take a leap of faith or keep looking for the sweet-spot between low unit sales and reasonable prices for the quality expected, which to a degree Masterpiece keeps being an example of. With direct market, Hasbro keeps more of the profits, but takes more of the risks.

Hasbro has to pay executives, lawyers, drop-testers, packaging designers, shippers, product designers, large-scale manufacturers, materials providers, rents, ad firms, taxes, lobbyists, market researchers, and store representatives, all of which contribute to a higher level of overhead than a small company requires, so each toy Hasbro makes comes with a tiny portion of that against them.

There is some acceptable level of compromise that collectors are willing to make, I think this thread shows how close that Bruticus set came to the idea - it's $65 plus tax altogether but it doesn't quite cross the threshold for being "good enough" for what we're talking about, they put in too many compromises for the casual consumer market to ensure more unit sales.

Like I said, that’s what I was thinking too. But it’s like, when they have toys ready to go, and the retailers don’t order them or screw them into cancellation somehow, with stuff like Windcharger and the FE Prime molds, why doesn’t Hasbro, instead of cutting their losses and just chucking the things to Ross or Five Below or whatever, put what they’ve got up for sale on their own website (not HTS, I mean like some actual, official Buy Shit From Hasbro website that’s only hypothetical at this point)? Like I said, they could sell this stuff at *retail* price, and not only could I almost guarantee that they would all sell to people like me and all those saddlesore fans of Prime, but they’d make back some KILLER profit since all that retail price wouldn’t actually be going to retailers. And how’s Target or Wal-Mart going to pitch a fit over them selling stuff like that, when they’re the ones who didn’t want it in the first place? If anything, it might motivate the retailers to actually accept/bring in those toys the next time, once they see them selling well on Hasbro’s site.

After the drubbing Hasbro took with Star Wars: Episode I nearly taking down the company, Hasbro restructured so that no one brand would be more than 10% of the company, and they sold off their warehouses so as to avoid just stockpiling hoping for alternate-market sales. Hasbro no longer has any warehouses at all, and HasbroToyShop is a for-profit business so they have to buy their product from their own parent company - HTS as a subsidiary needs to remain profitable, and they don't see value in just buying up something because Hasbro screwed up, they also don't want to take the risk.

Also, another weird thing is that Hasbro would rather hold back production if they don't think it'll make back its budget because they think it may have release avenues later on, either as exclusives or re-released into the mainline at a later date, so they have the factories they hire hang onto the molds since it's a lot easier to store a mold than a mountain of product. This does backfire for something like the TF:Animated Voyagers though when they don't match the later aesthetic and there's no future release avenue available to them.

[BWprowl]

Except that Hasbro can't do it just as well, the whole point of this conversation. They probably *could* do it if they wanted, but they don't want to try. You can't really compare prices against something Hasbro won't deliver, that's the point of the thing - Hasbro doesn't deliver the sorts of things that are desired, so it becomes apples vs oranges:
3rd Party Super Awesome Devastator = $600
Hasbro Super Awesome Devastator = Vapor

Note that this only applies if you think the 3rd Party Devastator is actually Super Awesome. I think it looks 'okay', and I'd buy it in a heartbeat if I could get all the components for twenty bucks each or whatever at Wal-Mart or something, but six toys that look like maybe above-average Voyagers going for $100 apiece? That's not worth my money or attention. Add in that people have already reported quality control issues with some of Hercules's components, meaning they aren't the perfect works of art that everyone dropping those bricks of cash on them like to think they are, and that's even less that I care about them. If I spent $100 on a Voyager, it better be *perfect*, not just 'pretty cool'. For the price of one Hercules, I could get nearly 60 Hasbro Deluxes, and plenty of those have turned out to be 'super awesome' in their own right.

I think you misunderstand my motives, I'm not being negative about the situation, I'm not suggesting boycotts or any action at all - I just bought Wheeljack for $15 which is silly expensive - I'm being pragmatic about a situation that is negative. But the idea that it's not upsetting, I cannot pollyanna this, it's been building for months now - if Hasbro had addressed the missing product and problem distribution on FEs back in, say, November, collectors could have adjusted their hunting, helped each other out better, not spent all their time hoping and hunting the DOTM pegs for product that will never arrive.

I guess I just don't take it as seriously as you do. Yeah, it's interesting to talk about the issues that are making collecting the toys more troublesome, and to discuss what could be changed, and yeah, there's a disappointment when I can't find stuff or stuff gets canceled. But it ends at just disappointment; I'm not going to be losing sleep or getting emotionally angry over Hasbro's toy-selling strategic failures.

Spoiler

Feel free to find quotes from me that show me doing just that, so I can be embarrassed by my hypocrisy!

The problem with just 1 line at a time is that they won't have enough room to market to their 2 customer bases, and worse, they won't have retailers on board for when the next separate expression comes along. They need 2 separate SKUs to ensure a strong "family of lines" branding presence as well as to keep transitioning from line to line smooth, instead of the rockiness of going from expression to expression under 1 SKU. Of course, having a 3rd line makes no sense if the market isn't super hungry for the overall brand: I'm looking at you PCCs who were obviously not ready for their own SKU.

God, don't remind me. PCC could've done awesome as an element of the ROTF or TF2010 line; putting it out as its own separate thing was a death sentence for something that turned out to have a lot of potential.

There is some acceptable level of compromise that collectors are willing to make, I think this thread shows how close that Bruticus set came to the idea - it's $65 plus tax altogether but it doesn't quite cross the threshold for being "good enough" for what we're talking about, they put in too many compromises for the casual consumer market to ensure more unit sales.

What sort of compromises did they put in? You could argue the colors I suppose, but what other 'compromises' besides that were added to the figure to appeal to the 'casual' consumer? Everything else about it is 'Five transforming robots that combine into a bigger robot' which is *exactly* what fans have been asking for for ages. I think Bruticus looks terrific, and I can't wait for him.

After the drubbing Hasbro took with Star Wars: Episode I nearly taking down the company, Hasbro restructured so that no one brand would be more than 10% of the company, and they sold off their warehouses so as to avoid just stockpiling hoping for alternate-market sales.

What's this about Episode I? I think it was technically before my time. I've heard a few vague things about how the sales of EpI merchandise failed to live up to the pre-movie hype, but what sort of hilariously bleak statistics are we talking?

Interestingly enough, a similar media carpet bombing actually ended up working REALLY well for the 2007 Movie. Guess it's one of those hit-or-miss things.

[Onslaught Six]

Ah, but nobody 'expected' Transformers to be that good. People expected Star Wars: Episode I to be fucking amazing.

[JediTricks]

Note that this only applies if you think the 3rd Party Devastator is actually Super Awesome. I think it looks 'okay', and I'd buy it in a heartbeat if I could get all the components for twenty bucks each or whatever at Wal-Mart or something, but six toys that look like maybe above-average Voyagers going for $100 apiece? That's not worth my money or attention. Add in that people have already reported quality control issues with some of Hercules's components, meaning they aren't the perfect works of art that everyone dropping those bricks of cash on them like to think they are, and that's even less that I care about them. If I spent $100 on a Voyager, it better be *perfect*, not just 'pretty cool'. For the price of one Hercules, I could get nearly 60 Hasbro Deluxes, and plenty of those have turned out to be 'super awesome' in their own right.

Well, here are your Hasbro choices for Devastator for comparison:
Wellllll: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Devastator ... BoxPic.jpg
Uhhh: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Constructicon_De ... omaster%29
Errrr: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Devastatorclassics.jpg
Awww: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:ROTF_Devas ... tiondx.jpg
Umm: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:PCC-toy_Steamhammer.jpg
Oh: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:ROTF_Devas ... er_toy.jpg
THAT LAST ONE COST A HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!

Yeah, Herc is expensive, but there is NOTHING Hasbro is delivering even remotely on that level, it just don't exist in scale or in character accuracy. At all.

God, don't remind me. PCC could've done awesome as an element of the ROTF or TF2010 line; putting it out as its own separate thing was a death sentence for something that turned out to have a lot of potential.

I think PCC was a half-baked idea, and I cannot really figure out why they pulled that trigger, it felt like there was another 6 months of development that should have happened. Maybe they just ran out of ideas and figured it was the right time to move forward. So many possibilities down the drain of bad execution.

What sort of compromises did they put in? You could argue the colors I suppose, but what other 'compromises' besides that were added to the figure to appeal to the 'casual' consumer? Everything else about it is 'Five transforming robots that combine into a bigger robot' which is *exactly* what fans have been asking for for ages. I think Bruticus looks terrific, and I can't wait for him.

At Toy Fair, they talked about having to compromise on Onslaught to make him a Deluxe, and I think a lot of the combined figure suffers considerably for that alone both in form and function, based on the sample at the event.

What's this about Episode I? I think it was technically before my time. I've heard a few vague things about how the sales of EpI merchandise failed to live up to the pre-movie hype, but what sort of hilariously bleak statistics are we talking?

I don't have any hard numbers anymore, it's been a long time since those articles were written, but the reality is that Hasbro basically leveraged the company to buy up other toy companies that owned SW licenses and then overproduce beyond all demand AT THE SAME TIME AS RAISING PRICES ACROSS THE BOARD, all with a movie that sold merch ok but nowhere near what Hasbro had pushed into production. The company was heading for bankruptcy fast by the end of 2000, something like a third was invested into product that was clogging their various warehouses.