It's also possible that kid sales simply fell, leaving only the adult nerds eventually. Which would be terrible for the brand all around.

30% adult fans doesn't mean 30% of a good healthy overall number. Soon enough we might just end up like GI Joe, dead because only nerds care.

But it would be ridiculous to make an assumption like that without information, so why are you doing it? Wouldn't it be better to just ask Hasbro tomorrow during their QA session?

 

So wait, the knockoff quality hallow simple stuff isn't drawing kids in?

 

Come on, do you think most 8 year old kids worry about that? I have, literally, 12 nieces and nephews, not a one of them has ever complained about the plastic quality. All any of them wanted was a toy that held together for a year or so, and wasn't too complicated to play with. I think Hasbro is pretty damn successful in that regard.

That is a scary prospect. Kids, overall, aren't playing with toys as much due to market shrinkage, and we make up a larger percentage of the buying force because of it.

 

Sales are doing fine.
That was posted just a few days ago.

 

Oh FFS !

 

So the 30% is out of a strong sales base then?

It's one or the other you guys.

 

But there have also been reports of the market slowly shrinking because of other types of toys and games. The digital stuff.

 

The same report where the CEO went out of his way to not say any hard numbers, dodged questions even though he was asked directly during the QA?

How can you know that? Do you believe everything Hasbro says? What about common sense?

 

Now that's actually the Lamborghini Egoista, a car that I'd very much love to see in the Transformers universe someday.

 

Or any of the previous sales reports for that matter?
Never mind that sales reports are just shy of legal documents that a corporation can get into serious trouble if the "fudged" anything on.
If this stuff wasn't selling then it would be cancelled. So there's your common sense.

What I don't understand is why HASBRO finally verifying what many of us have ben saying all along is freaking you guys out. Is it because the narrative has changed?
Why is this so troubling?

 

Finally news about the Combiner Wars series. July is a year too late but still better than never....I hope.

Bravo Hasbro
r
a
v
o

H
a
s
b
r
o

 

Actually the opposite. Kids are loving RiD. Had you bothered to read any of the financial reports beyond "2015 sales down" you'd have noticed that Hasbro was expecting a drop due to an off-movie year (you know...the movies that people here always bitch about having bad toys yet always drive in big sales).

However, 2015 was down *less* than expected. And part of that was attributed to RiD. You know, the undersized not-G1 toys that people here bitch about?

It's always fun to see people come up with ways to complain when Hasbro brings in good news.

If you don't enjoy the toys anymore...maybe just leave? As you can see from the graphs, there's roughly just over 2 "kid" fans for every one adult.

You won't be missed.

 

All sales reports of 2014 reported the brand was doing worse than during the last movie. All 2011 reports reported DOTM was doing worse than ROTF. 2015 reports also all mentioned a decrease compared to 2014.

Combine that with a CEO that avoids saying hard numbers even though he swears it's all good and a claims that the new cartoon toyline is the reason behind that success yet sales shrink as the Adult-aimed product's percentage grows...

And it becomes a simple equation, and you don't get more "common sense" than math. It's doing worse so we look bigger. He doesn't need to lie to deliver sugar-coated bullcrap. All he needs to do is say that "the drop from 2014 to 2015 was smaller so we're good", but if 2014 did worse than previous two movies a smaller drop still means smaller revenue all around.

It hasn't been cancelled, because there is a long way too fall and they will now try whatever they can to shake that trend, in particular it seems they hope yearly movie lines will be the thing to do it, but if it's not, well, I hope you like third-party toys or club-subscription figures.

 

I'm not sure if Transformers will ever be "cancelled", but I could see the toyline going back to the smaller scale it was before.

It's too unique a concept to cancel. Other brands are constantly trying their own take on converting/transforming figures but they're always compared to the Transformers brand.

The closest we've got is Power Rangers and even then it's *just* the Megazords and that has the same kind of "constant" success since it's driven by media. They've also got a movie coming out in 2017, so who knows what could happen to them in the next few years. Maybe they look over at Transformers and star to try and branch out in similar fashion.

 

Answer me this:

What I don't understand is why HASBRO finally verifying what many of us have ben saying all along is freaking you guys out. Is it because the narrative has changed?

Why is this so troubling?

 

Im so pumped for the Windblade CW anime   That Fort Max looks awesome!! In my opinion what they should do with the franchise is bring on generations style neo-g1 and have multiple shows geared towards different age groups. Have the preschool style learning toon, the g rated "bigger" kids toon, and the adult stuff. Thats how you hook em young and keep em forever. What i need them to do is reissue Metroplex cause now i need him. All of a sudden im a titan class collector

 

I'm sorry, narrative? You keep acting like there is one here, stop bringing old internet arguments into this, I'm not whoever got you convinced a narrative exists or whoever told you a narrative exists. I'm just another fan who hopes that the product does well so more product gets to exist.

I'm bringing the very real possibility that the brand is doing worse all around and they're presenting bad news as sweet even though evidence shows otherwise. This is not a narrative, if proof that I'm wrong surfaces I'll gladly read it, but we can't have blind assumptions in objective arguments nor can we take at face value everything said by a company at an investor's meeting aka "official damage control day."

Buildings topple without good bases, we've seen in other toy brands that when kids run out and all that is left is old fans we get stagnation and we get shrinkage and we get death and if we don't aknowledge that we're going to look mighty clueless and stupid if something bad happens.

 

Am I troubled? I think things are going fine. At *worst* it's the law of diminishing returns with movies but that still would mean the line hangs around with different TV series.

But to blame it on "hollow toys" is just stupid. Look at some of the other stuff that has been around for 20+ years now.

Power Rangers has managed to maintain it's presence on toy shelves every year riding solely on action figures and Megazords with barely any poseability. Why? Strong media presence. (Similar to TFs on TV, Power Rangers reboots every one or two years with new characters/casts to feel fresh and draw in new audiences)

Look at the new big trend in toys: Digital connectivity. Amiibo, Disney Infinity, Skylanders. Articulation is meaningless because the kids either use the toys in a different context. Hasbro is doing this with their RiD line. But they're not the only ones.

What collectors want isn't what kids necessarily care about. But guess who's dollar is more important at the end of the day to a mass market toyline.

The biggest challenge when pandering to adults is adults are often too damn picky. Half want G1 toy accuracy, half want cartoon accuracy, and both act like they're the ones who's opinion matters more.

Look at Combiner Wars:

Superion/Menasor -> "Where are Quickslinger and Wildrider?"
Defensor -> "Who is Rook? Why isn't Groove a limb?"
Bruticus -> "Why isn't Blast Off a shuttle? Why doesn't Vortex have four rotors?"
Computron -> "Why doesn't Computron have a face plate?"

Heck, people typically go "I'll wait for Takara to save the day!" meanwhile Bruticus gets revealed and now people are picking-nits over Vortex's shade of blue and the paint apps on Blast-Off's shuttle.

And every. Single. Time. It's a different person and they're saying the same thing "Why doesn't Hasbro listen to the people who matter?"

They do.

They're called kids.

 

Wow.
Just... wow. Hysterical much? Never mind- I know the answer.

Older audiences are more than 1%. And you are one of them.
And they have opinions. And not everyone will agree with you.
Fuc*ing get over it and calm down. Drop the grudge.

Hasbro's been growing their audience. It makes sense. I can't believe it's worth crapping your pants over.