I don't believe anyone says that adults don't make up any percentage of the buying group. The general comment is that adults don't make up a large percentage. Given that in the last 4 years it has increased by 55%, to a total of 30%. So that makes adult collectors at best 20% prior to 2012.

People made up percentages to suit their argument either for or against. I've read posts proclaiming adults aren't a blip on Hasbro's radar, and I've also read people saying that adults are the main group purchasing Transformers. Neither of these are accurate. It's obvious that adult fans are on Hasbro's radar for a while based on early Masterpiece and the classics line. All I recall Hasbro saying is that adults make up a small percentage of the purchases, and that was long time ago that they said that. 20% and even 30% aren't huge numbers. I think the reason we are getting more figures directed to long time fans is a result of that percentage increase.

In the end Hasbro is making figures with adult collectors in mind and it seems to be building.

 

More boys like Transformers and more girls like MLP, but that is a generalization, there are a lot more girl Transformer fans than I think people realize. The gender separation is getting better, but still has a long ways to go.

 

That's the thing we don't know if more adults have started buying TF's or if the number of kids has gone down. It seems Hasbro is happy with their sales figures, so my guess is that more adults are buying TF's then there was 10 years ago or maybe even 5 years ago.

 

So most of us can call ourselves the "30-Percenters" now?  

 

Or... the means of reporting changed as well... or they started bringing in more data from Asia... or they redrew certain categories... it's hard to say.

I'm still very curious how they obtain this kind of market research, because I'm not sure how they can precisely account for where those dollars are coming from. Statistical calculations like this have all sorts of methodological dynamics to consider.

30% is actually pretty huge. Cut your income by 30%, and then you'll start taking that a lot more seriously.  

And let's just put this into a practical context day-to-day scenario... if I'm out buying toys, I would say that typically, 1 out of 3 people I run into specifically looking at or buying Transformers is an adult fan (as opposed to a child or a parent). Seriously... it's actually a -novelty- when I actually see a KID in that aisle. And that doesn't factor in the fact that I'm a collector myself, observing this ratio in action, so that jigs things even further.

Plus, I'll bet you that I'm in that TRU more regularly than the majority of those parents, and probably drop a lot more money on TFs. How often do these kids get new toys? Once a month? On Birthdays and Christmas?

Of course all of this is totally anecdotal and proves nothing at all... there are ton of variables involved there. But it's still pretty strange when you think about it.

It could be a chicken and egg question as well. If you make more TF toys, more adults will buy them, right?

There are factors that contributed to this, for sure... Bayformers changed the game by dramatically boosting the brand's visibility and profile beyond the fandom and little kids, and shuffling the perceptions about at what age you're still allowed to think this stuff is 'cool'.

Geek culture took off, and now it's really not nearly as much of a stigma to be obsessed with the material culture of your childhood anymore. We're a generation of escapists, and we're not afraid to admit it.

And of course, Hasbro started actually developing material to directly appeal to those markets, so by any logical reasoning, the sales returns from the adult market would go up because those products existed now to be bought.

Or it says that boys need more positive reinforcement to be seen collecting MLP, while with girls, it's not so weird that they have to push that market.

Honestly, I think being a girl who is into robots is seen as way less "weird" than a (straight) guy into MLP. Remember that half the reason we've all heard so much about the 'Brony' movement is because it's seen as something weird and slightly creepy... it's sensational, so people talk about it, and it gets treated somewhat like there must be something 'wrong' with them.

I doubt girl Transformers fans would barely make the news, and that's because it's just not that shocking. Or that's my perspective anyway.

Yeah, though again... I think that so-called 'boys' content has actually become way more accepted as appropriate 'unisex' content for girls, than the other way around. I think the colour-coded barrier of the "pink aisle" is way more of an impediment to boys, than the other aisles are to girls.

Either way, I do agree it's a problem. We should be trying to de-segregate the streams a bit. And although both boy/girl toys tend to reinforce gender stereotypes (violence/action vs domestic/fashion) I think that the typical girl tropes are more limiting, vacuous, and overbearing.

There's another factor too... its not always just the toy companies, but also (and maybe largely) the dealers themselves... big chains like TRU and Walmart. Ultimately, they have a lot of power to tell even giants like Hasbro "We want that/we don't want this". I think this came up recently surrounding the whole Black Widow / Rey action figure shortage. Hasbro said that Rey was actually part of the demo line they shopped to retailers, and most of the big chains said "we don't want all these girl figures, they don't sell". That could just be Hasbro passing the buck, but I think that's also part of the problem.

zmog

 

You make a lot of great points, we're all just speculating about what happens behind closed doors. 30% is a decent percentage, and if all adults stopped buying TF, Hasbro will certainly feel it, which is good that Hasbro has stuff aimed at adults (MP and Generations), preschool kids (rescue bots), the 6-12 age kids (RiD and generations). They even have different sub-lines to cater to the different play patterns like one step, warrior class, generations.

 

Hey... uh.... aren't we going to see photos from the panel? The staff mentioned something about a rough prototype for Trypticon being shown.

 

Yeah, they're diversifying a lot. I think they are definitely responding to the growing and more vocal collector market, and I'm happy about that. They still make some calls I'm not happy about, but it's hard to argue with Combiner Wars and Titans Return... that's pretty much aimed squarely at us (while hoping kids will also find the toys cool, even if they aren't directly linked to a regular TV series).

zmog

 

To be fair, when was the last MP released by Hasbro (that wasn't a re-release of a previously-released one)?

Still, I don't get why Combiner Wars got flak for introducing new characters to the mythos. Obviously it's the designated "older audience" line, but it's been 30+ years since G1, and it looks like Hasbro decided to try doing something different with the Scramble combiners.

Going by the threads on this board, obviously enough is never enough.  

Again, the fandom won't be satisfied unless it goes 100% collector-oriented, hence why MP's are the new big thing in 3P.

 

Ruined FOREVER

 

The problem is that this is the first time they did genuine scramble combiners since G1, so of course fans of the originals want to see their favorites updated. However, what I don't understand is why didn't they just use the original characters for Cyclonus' limbs? Heck, then they wouldn't have had to change it from Ruckus at the last moment.

 

Happened to pop in here. Enjoying the discussion. Good food for thought and mental exercises from SMOG, goaliebot, bellpeppers et al.

 

You might find that that slide is actually referring to "Generations" growing to a 30% share of the Transformers brand sales (which is the toyline aimed at adult collectors)... not 30% of buyers being adult collectors.

Unless Hasbro has done extensive polling at a lot of stores, there is no way they can give more than just a guess at their demographics (like their previous 10-15% estimate)... but they can give accurate numbers on what percentages of each toyline in Transformers is selling at. (Generations has been the one growing in recent years, to the point that it featured more than RID this year at various Toyfairs, despite not having a cartoon or movie behind it that Retailers will only prioritise)