You're saying Hasbro would never throw good money after bad. Well, here's Hasbro throwing good money after bad.

 

Oh, you meant toy sales numbers! (This is why I hate multi-quoting sometimes!).

Yeah, Hasbro does NOT provide numbers. I can't "back up" my claims; you can't "back up" your claims. It's all anecdotal.

One day, mark my words, a fan will take it upon himself to conduct a proper study, by visiting a slew of stores. I'm not that guy; I don't have the free time.

But don't confuse a lack of store pictures or count to mean there isn't a distribution problem (which Hasbro has categorically denied for YEARS, but is now admitting to). And if the distribution problem was never a figment of fan imagination, please explain why you think "shelf-warming" is fan creation and not an actual thing. We're debating WHICH products don't sell. Again, without Hasbro numbers, there's no definitive answer. But I do see a lot of people complaining about all the YELLOW on the shelves. And I see the same toys not selling across a number of different States. In fact, if you look at Marvel Legends releases, it's easy to see how artificial scarcity (or fan-generated hyper-demand) can determine which figures you will find at any given point, on any given store shelf.

I'm not sure what we're debating at this point, sorry.  

Spoiler: Movie stuff

To back up the claim of "repetitive plot"?

I mean, I could provide criticisms from paid critics... but your reply would be, "those are movie snobs!"  

And for that matter, a lot of critics are paid off anyway. I'm not sure how to back up something subjective.

If I had time, I could do a side-by-side movie comparison to point out the repetition to you. Repetition leads to fatigue - the general movie audience has seen Bay's TFs at least 4-5 times now. There isn't anything new.

I asked for the big hook of TF5, but I'm not sure I ever got an answer. What makes TLK better? The dragon? The time travel? Both of those things were rather brief, imo (just like in AoE, when you went to see it for the dinobots and had to wait 2 hours!  ).

Numbers? How about these:

This was BEFORE the release of TLK, back when I was warning everyone that TLK would TANK HORRIBLY.

It's not prognostication. Look at the chart.   And before you get excited about the light blue bars, remember the lawsuits from China. And how Bay decided against going back to China.

 

I've seen people complaining about the movie toys for years now and the "experts" on this forum say no one wants them, but yet, here we are with Hasbro pumping out movie toys. In fact, they have doubled down with the SS and the MP line. We're getting even more toys now than before. It's almost like the movie merchandising appeals to a larger market and brings about a lot of profit. Nah, that can't be it; that's too logical. The toy sales increasing during movie years is just a coincidence.

 

  Sorry. I figured that after I elaborated on my movie comments!   I edited the comment to talk more about the toy sales.

Long story short: we don't have official numbers, there's no answer. But the anecdotal evidence is important because it represents a common narrative.

Try to buy an SS VW BB and I bet you can't find it on shelves. I don't have the sales numbers; I have the anecdotal experience. It's not worth as much, I admit, but it can lead to some accurate conclusions.   I mean, IF we don't over-speculate to make grand claims - which I'm not trying to do. I'm saying that we can gauge which toys will sell well and which will shelf-warm, based entirely on fan reactions. I believe there's a strong correlation there.

 

I understand what you mean completely.

But there's a couple of issues:
A) China loves movie toys. (Need I elaborate on the profitability of a Chinese market?)
B) Hasbro is investing HEAVILY in the movies because the movies generate a ton of non-fan revenue.

So while we are seeing more movie toys, the movies have tanked recently. Don't be mistaken: Paramount is having nightmares RIGHT NOW. Because if the BB movie does poorly, Paramount is pretty screwed. And things have been really bad for the TF movie franchise lately (at least domestically - but TLK did not do so well in China, if I recall correctly).

In business, there's a term called "running against the wall" where a company will keep investing in something, even if there's no profit or benefit in it. There are a number of reasons this happens. In Hasbro's case, they haven't had a successful cartoon in years, and we definitely see sales numbers spike during the Summer movie months. In fact, most of the action toy industry is relying on successful Summer movies (at this point). I don't have an article handy to prove this in writing, but I would like to point out how retail handles the boy toy aisles - they generally refresh them for the Summer/Winter movie line ups. That's always the big push now. And I've seen Hasbro's numbers backing up the claim that they do make a lot of money with a successful movie.

The only way to judge what's the best toy to sell? Make a G1 movie AND a Bayverse movie, then judge the results properly. I'm pointing out that movie-toys will ALWAYS get the priority from here on out - thank TF 2007 for that!   I strongly believe Hasbro's idea (with the SS line) is to have a constant movie-toy presence on shelves to keep the product fresh in consumer's minds. And yes, also because collectors will buy these toys. We're just debating how well they sell as compared to how many they ship out. Right?

 

  Yeah... Sure

 

Geez. Talk about delusional.

 

You didnt tell me what area you live in? If you are in a more rural area, it might explain the lack of interest of figures in general. Is it just movie stuff that shelf warms or is it everything ? How about generations? If youre happy with the old figures, thats cool. I have most of the old figures and mix the in scale ones with studio series. But I really dig the updates. Im really looking foward to Devastator. I was originally just going to buy the new characters that have never gotten a figure, but my friend had them and I was so impressed I got hooked.

 

Are you talking about yourself?!  

 

Which is why Mission Impossible is doing great for them now.

 

Everything sells hete but lately all the terrorcons have been shelf warming. The only studio series figures that shelf warm here were crobar and ratchet.

 

It already happened... 5 times! 2007, ROTF, DOTM, AOE, and TLK    

 

 

Wow, the levels of autistic screeching in denial on this forum have reached astrological levels.

"But the last films was a flop any nobody buys the toys! I know because my neighborhood in the middle of nowhere is infested with collectors and we have more than 12 retailers per block and all the movie figures are shelf warming while Geewunn flies off the shelves. People beat each other to death in the parking lots over MP figures.
What? Studio series selling out online? Pft, those are real sales, they don't count. It's all in my neighborhood."

Why do I come to this God forsaken place again?

 

It'll be okay dude. Bee didn't cost much to make at like 100 mil bones, so they don't need to break the bank for a win.

All previous films in the red with like 2x Bee's budget and 4x combined revenue after five films. Hence in Bay we trust(ed)  

Budget and box office for each film:
Transformers (film series) - Wikipedia

 

Im a little confused at what your point is here. Enlighten me...

 

TLK line sold. SS sells. Which is why we've got WFC Siege for Geewun. Sales convinced Hasbro that investing into the mainline Generations on the same level can work for the company.

 

No thanks and I'm sooo tired of TF movies that I didn't even bother with the last 2. That being said, I think Bumblebee might actually be the only flower to come out of the stinking pile of shit, that is the live action movie series.

I kinda want to see what Inhumanoids is all about. I can only find clips on YouTube and even the shitty Jem movie had the box set up for grabs, so maybe an Inhumanoids movie would have a boxset too. It sounds like an interesting premise for a great horror flick.

Plus isn't there going to be a M.A.S.K movie in the works by the Fast and Furious director? Where's the news for that at? It sounds like it could be a lotta fun. (Nm I thought the same about the live action Joe movies.)