Seems like Goldner believes point of sale for Transformers being good is directly attributable to the cartoon that doesn't show up for consumers until well after the toys have been released. Speaking, of course, of War for Cybertron. Even if you don't question the quality of the content in WFC, you can't really relate retail sales to the cartoon when the toys it's promoting have been on shelves for months and are often completely gone except for the stragglers by the time the chapter containing them is available for general viewership.

 

Unless they take into account the separate sales of the Netflix figures?

While Yeah Siege, ER, and Kingdom come out long before the show on Netflix, the figures from the Netflix show come just a bit before? Who knows.

 

I think the real proof will be if Hasbro continues to produce these collector/older kid mini-series programs after WFC is finished. I’m wondering if they are seeing really high viewership with Netflix versus other platforms they’ve used in the past.

Goldner did not have to name drop the Netflix show. In fact, if it was a failure, he would have ‘forgotten’ to mention it. Obviously he wants investors to think Hasbro executives made the right choice by producing the show because it’s all about getting that return on investment.

Ultimately, I think Hasbro might struggle getting good media out the door BUT they completely understand that toys need good stories to really sell well and create long term fans. I give them lots of credit for working hard at making an internal studio that produces content.

We are getting a ‘season 4’ of Cyberverse. That’s a clear sign of success. Maybe in the future they’ll have the ability to create a rotating release schedule of shows. Like a new season of Cyberverse in the spring, Generations in the summer and a movie-oriented cartoon in the fall. Kinda like what Disney is doing with Star Wars and Marvel shows or what Paramount is doing with Star Trek. We’ll see...

 

EXACTLY! This is a financial report, they have to make themselves look good and why would they mention the WFC show if it was a flop?

Other thoughts:

• It is really nice to see that they are optimistic about Transformers, which shows that they are confident in the projects they are working on.
• Despite it being depressing that G.I. Joe is considered an Emerging Brand, it is nice to see the Joes are making a comeback. Fingers crossed they play their cards right with the toyline for Snake Eyes Origins.
• Nice to see that Star Wars is up without any movie tie ins.
• If I'm reading the Corporate Speak correctly, they are definitely gearing up to do something with D&D soon, If I had to guess, It will probably be a fully-fledged toyline, with the Forgotten Realms Drizzt being a teaser like how Snake Eyes was for Classified.

 

Personally I think you\'re all reading too much into the commentary of the financial report. There isn\'t any data in here one way or another to call the WfC Netflix show or any of the WfC toylines successful or unsuccessful. Investment calls are basically marketing to investors. The Transformers brand and its media are important to the company's bottom line, but not important enough to itemize in their reports. I get that these forums are designed for speculation and argumentation, but on this subject, there's no "there" there.

Interestingly, the only time Transformers is on a slice is for licensing revenue, where they didn't have a major movie this year. That indicates that Transformers is as noteworthy as an IP to generate licensing revenue as much as it is for an in-house product that they don't pay out licensing fees for.

 

If it was unsuccessful, why would they say they are very happy with it? Obviously it was at least a moderate success...
I dont think thats looking to much into it tbh.

 

Because on investors' calls, you don't say something is a failure unless you're legally required to.

 

On an investor call, the industry standard is to not mention something if it is a failure.

 

Yeah you can't lie on an investor call. I believe both chapters (or at least Siege) made the Netflix Top 10 briefly. That's a success for them because that means people are watching the show. Siege got a lot of talk on platforms that never cover Transformers show. Increasing attention on the Transformers brand sells more toys.

 

Hasbro judges success based off of their toy sales. Not only did they ship out War For Cybertron product to retailers, they also got Walmart to double dip on repaints. Add those two lines together and, yes, you can see how War For Cybertron is performing well and can be reported as a strong seller in a financial report. They aren't lying.

 

Because it’s an investor’s meeting where even monumental disasters are regarded as “slightly short of expectations.”

Im not even shitting on Netflix/WFC but these meetings are all just corporate fluff talk. It’s really hard to glean meaningful information from them.

 

If the Netflix show was a flop, Goldner would have stayed quiet about it. It’s not like it was a Hollywood movie where you measure success from box office receipts.

If the Walmart Netflix subline had underperformed, Goldner would have stayed mum about the Netflix show. This was Hasbro’s first TF show with Netflix and he’s crowing about it because he believes he has data to back up that it was a success.

I was going to argue that’s it impossible to measure how much the Netflix show helped the Walmart Netflix line BUT Hasbro could compare average sales of Walmart Netflix to mainline WFC or a Bumblebee Movie subline and make conclusions from that.

On the other hand, I think hardcore fans enjoyed most of the Netflix figures regardless if they liked or disliked the program. I guess you could argue that good product gives you good sales.

On the other, other hand maybe the Netflix show got high viewership numbers too...

I still think Goldner would have stayed quiet about it if no one watched the show. He has data to back up his praise, otherwise he’d get in trouble for misleading investors.

 

Mandolorian has helped rebuild some interest in the brand. Hope LotJ doesn't kill it again.

 

Notice he didn't say "We're really happy with Cyberverse". That's because Cyberverse is probably underperforming compared to War For Cybertron. This isn't surprising since Walmart barely carries the line and it really doesn't have a comparable sub-line like the Netflix figures.

 

Agreed.

 

I hear and agree with you on that problem

 

It really seems like their putting more focus onto the media side of things, hopefully shows/movies start to improve in quality

 

Glad Goldner’s happy with the Netflix turd, because I’m not   let’s take some of those profits they’ve gleaned from 1,000 reuses of the seeker mold and lambros and make a thoughtfully created, coherent new cartoon without relying on hackneyed patische and C-grade horror movie tropes...

Hell, I’d gladly take something like RID2015 right now—at least it had solid voice acting, fresh designs, and a fairly clever original premise with Bee in charge (at least until it gave up halfway through). I’m not saying that’s an exceptionally great bit of Transformers media either, just that that’s a low bar for me, and the current Netflix show is pretty far under that bar imho, and I’m annoyed by it.

 

You have been getting new cartoons but I think you're pretending we haven't so you have a reason to complain about the Netflix show. The bizarre thing is that the Netflix show was never meant to promote new characters or new concepts. What you're doing is complaining that you can't order a hamburger at a pizza parlor. If you don't like Seeker and Lambro repaints then why heck are you paying attention to WFC media and toys???