Is it me or are toys becoming lousy again? There are gems and a few decent ones out there, but the quality and detail are horrible lately.

Transformers seems to still be strong. The Generations ones are great, BH are good, Masterpieces are incredible. MU look good. TMNT look decent..

But other toy lines have dropped in quality like a stone! GI Joe was great a few years ago, but the new movie toys look like a serious drop in quality. They went from semi realistic and gritty to big giant launchers and such. Just sad when you look at ones from 3-4 years ago.

Need more proof, look at the Iron Man series. We had great IM1 and IM 2 figures. The sculpts were nice, articulated, poseable. They were something you could play with or display and be proud of.. IM 3 and Avengers toys... yeesh. Avengers look meh. a few decent ones, but mostly a step down.. Then IM3 ones look like Dollar store versions. No articulation, relies on gimmick of swapping parts. No articulation. Looks like one figure with different paint. No individuality.

Now I saw the Avengers Assemble figures. They managed to take the dull IM3 figures and make them look like masterpieces in comparison.

Are the days of great toys gone? I think it is sad. The 60s and 70s were 12in GI Joes, toy cars, and such. More mundane play. 80s we had kick ass properties that were visually interesting. We had GI Joe, Transformers, MOTU, etc. They were fun toys and looked good. Most were not super articulate, but they were visually pleasing.

Then the 90s came. Stuff like Toy Biz comic book figures were EXTREME!! They looked like crap most of the time. Each had a little crappy gimmick. Other toy lines relied on wild color costumes. Lot of them tended to look overly "cartoony" as well.

Then the late 90s to early 2000s we saw a new golden age of figures. It was a resurgence of stuff from the 80s, but new and better. TMNT were better looking and articulated. GI Joes were a little better sculpted. MOTU, notorious for one basic body design in the 80s, now had each figure look different. If you compare they designs they were more advanced and often times blew their old counterparts to dust.

Now just a year or two ago the quality seems to have fallen like a stone like I said. Is it kids are not buying as many toys? Trying to lower production costs? Thoughts?

 

It seems like toy manufacturers are, now more than ever, losing a battle with video games for kids' attention. I imagine that's why there's a bigger focus on gimmick-based toys, and more budget going to gimmicks also means less money for the figures themselves. Then there's a push to cut costs, too, so we're getting cheaper plastic, fewer paint apps, and so on. I can't really speculate as to how much longer toys aimed at kids will stay as they are without doing something drastic to change their relationship with technology, like Skylanders has. I haven't been around long enough to really see the rise and fall you're talking about through the decades, but in these past five or so years, it's pretty apparent that things aren't in the greatest shape for the American toy market.

 

A decline in the interest of boy's action figure in general and rising production costs is simply the easiest way to describe it.

But overall, lack of articulation is not a drop in quality. That's purely an adult collector's POV of what quality means to us. I think the drop in POA represents the fact that the big two are focusing upon a younger age of toy buyer (4-10 maybe) that just does not care about double-jointed knees and ab crunches.

And Nostalgic childhood bias will always be nostalgic childhood bias.

 

It makes sense. The more articulation a toy has the more likely it is to break. Older kids aren't the target market anymore because most kids ten and up don't care about anything but video games and Smart Phones. It's the younger kids that are targeted now and figures need to be sturdier in order to survive rougher play.

 

We are headed backwards. No doubt. Gobble up any previous figures you missed out on because great offerings are fewer and further between lol.

And any time there is a good line, it will usually be hurt by exclusives. An example is the Spider-Man movie line. The small figures sucked. The bigger ones were a bit better but were Walmart exclusives. My Walmarts have *finally* started marking them down to what they should be at given the level of quality. But, by now, nobody gives a crap; the line is old news and dead.

I disagree about Transformers. I have stopped buying. Some of the worst garbage I am seeing at retail is TF. That 16" Bumblebee looks like a KO. And I hate BH. Not interested in constructobots and I've stopped buying Bot Shots.

 

I don't know, the 6" Star Wars Black line is great, the new turtles have as much if not more detail and articulation of any previous TMNT line, and Transformers is still some of the best bang for your buck with having some of the best articulation at most pricepoints. I think the thing is, companies make things for kids and things that appeal to collectors. If you focus on the stuff directed at kids, sure it will seem bad to us. The GI Joe line did make some simplified molds from the movie, but they also are releasing "Ultimate" versions of the figures with more articulation than they've ever had.

 

I think that's where we are running into problems. A lot of the stuff made for kids is garbage and doesn't even qualify as action figures even though it's in the same aisle. Those stupid little Superman toys where you pull their legs or whatever is an example. I think action figures sell pretty reliably. If the quality is the same, it's the same people buying them for the most part. It's all the gimmicky crap that is hurting the toy companies. So stop making it.

 

The rapidly shrinking action sections of the two major retailers would strongly say otherwise.

I'm not really sure I follow you here. But kinda sounds like the old "If comics stayed the same then they'd maintain the same readers" argument. The two have much in common, the diehard/life long toy and comic book collectors are probably more the exception rather than the rule as "x" person collects for several years, then eventually quits with a few years of on/off collecting here and there.

Gimmicky crap sells, otherwise the toy companies would stop making it. So the problem is the gimmicky crap, but first the retailers that way over-order, and second, but most importantly, the fact that the vast majority of kids that play with the gimmick crap when young stop playing with and move on from the world of toys. Again, like comic books, it's pretty much the same problem.

 

That is irrelevant. The point is that they are not one-off purchases. There's a strong chance that the guy who pays $20 for the new R2-D2 is going to buy other figures from that line and not just that figure only. That gimmicky garbage is one-off. The rare person that buys the little 2 inch spiderman for their 5 year old cannot be counted on to purchase additional gimmicky little pieces of crap. And if they do, it's anyone's guess what the next POC will be.

It doesn't sell. It's just cheap to manufacture and retailers are on the cheap when it comes to stocking shelves. And that's why they are all stuck with garbage like Flingers (TRU has recently marked them down to $9). The Man of Steel Movie Masters have sold very well from what I can tell. It's all that other garbage and the 4 inch pieces of crap that's going to end up at Ollies.

 

Everything today is incredibly lousy. Nothing compares to the golden era of 1990's action figures.

Srsly, I may be biased, but NOTHING past 2000 compares to the wonderful quality of favorite likes like Jurassic Park and The Lost World, Batman The Animated Series, Beast Wars, Terminator, Aliens, etc etc etc.

 

I would argue that the 80's were better than the 90's, but that's irrelevant  

But you're right. There's a lot of garbage being produced right now under the banner of "for kids", any old piece of crap will do, right?

When I was a kid (around 8), I had spectacular toys. And a lot of them. Vintage Star Wars figures, vehicles, die-casts, 12 in. figures, Shogun warriors, Stretch armstrong, etc,. I can assure you, I would not have been interested in a crappy little red superman figure. Nice try, Mattel.

 

I wasn't buying toys in the 90's if I'm honest, I think I was spending my money on comics at the time.

For me the 'golden age' of toys was in the 2000's , starting when Toybiz introduced the first super articulated Spider-man action figure. Wave one was red/blue Spidey, Black suit Spidey, Man-Spider and Venom, (I think) while the two Spideys were frankly awesome the other two still has a ways to catch up.

These days I think Toy companies have decided not to bother competing with the 'higher end' of the toy market. I mean think about it, would somebody with disposable cash buy a Batman figure from the TDKR line or one from Hot Toys? Would I rather buy a 3 3/4'' Hasbro Avengers Black Widow or a 12 inch Hot Toys Avengers Black Widow?

So I honestly think the big toy companies that produce normal Action figures aren't bothering to cater toward 'Collectors' any more, because we're so well catered elsewhere. Why waste the money on R&D when collectors are going to pass by anyway leaving only the kid demographic?

Transformers is a different kettle of fish, as Hasbro have control of the lower and higher end markets (with varying degrees of success). And before somebody chirps in about 3P, most 3P is premium priced but not worthy of the term 'premium'.

 

I feel that they gauge collectors on the "real" toys they produce and then try to sell garbage fake figures to kids.

I go back to the 6 inch Spider-man movie figures (with substandard articulation for a 6" inch figure) at Walmart being $17. Then they try to sell the little figures to kids, priced at $9. That didn't work so well. The kid probably tosses the unimpressive little spider-man to the side after 5 minutes of playing with it, and the parent feels that it wasn't $10 well spent.  .

Hasbro has responded by going bigger (eg., 16 inch unarticulated Optimus Prime). We'll see if that works any better because they took a beating on those crappy little Spider-man's. They are everywhere, and collectors won't help them out by cleaning them off the clearance bins.  

 

It's all across the board. Cheaper plastics, less accessories and higher prices. It seems like the only companies making decent toys nowadays are Playmates with TMNT and Lego.

 

No, there's absolutely no decline and in fact we are at a new high. SH Figurarts, Monsterarts, Super Robot Chogokin, Hot Toys, Figma, Fewture, Tamashii Nations...then down to less costly people like NECA and the Marvel universe toys. It's looking good. Masterpiece Transformers is putting out figures faster than ever before and there are a few gems in their regular consumer lines as well. Soul of Chogokin has resurrected itself with one of the most sought after robots in super robot history.

The best possible representations of your favorite anime, super hero, super robot, sentai, monster, manga, whatever are generally available right now.

It's a good time to be a collector.

 

couldn't agree more. But the cheap stuff really does seem to be getting crappier...I have totally dropped collecting some lines cause of the bad QC. Sticking to the high end spectrum nowadays - 3rd party, Masterpiece, Soul of Chogokin, Hot Toys. There's some awesome stuff out there.

 

To me, the issue is not so much a lowering of quality, rather, it is a matter of how the psychology of toy makers differ today with respect to their intent for brand expression within contemporary culture as opposed to the mindset that existed a few decades ago.

It's no secret that children of the current era have many forms of entertainment to look to. Video games are often mentioned as a competitor to toys and I agree but even more so is the multimedia technologies that could be seen as a "threat" to conventional toys.

So with that in mind, I think that companies such as Hasbro are in a bit of a scramble to become relevant again with the target demographics they aim for with the majority of their toy products. This leads to gimmick heavy products, this leads to the broad diversification of toy lines, and this leads to products with designs that are largely informed by focus group findings.

The cost cutting we see is at least in part due to the broader product lines we see. I'm sure that if a manufacturer didn't have a dozen or so different sub lines of toys within a single brand like Transformers, they wouldn't have to cut as many points of cost that we see if they only focused on a few sub lines.

Now on the more positive side, I see significant strides made by companies like Hasbro in producing collector oriented toys. The 6" Star Wars Black Series toys, for example, really seem to hit the right marks, especially the box style packaging that I'm sure most toy collectors can appreciate.

So while there are certainly some potential issues in main market toys, I also think that it's not as much of a problem that some perceive it to be.

 

I disagree to a point. Because you assume that every collector given the same opportunities will buy the same products. Which is complete bullshit. The collector market is very much divided up into scale factions. I'm in the 1/18th scale faction. I will only buy 1:18th scale figures. A figure being 1:12th scale doesn't make it better. And 1:6th scale dolls are not worth it at any price. Given the money, I'd still pick a 1:18th Hasbro Avengers Black Widow over a Hot toys doll.

Agree totally. I know why they have to charge the premium price, but never once has a 3P company produced a full figure worth the money.

 

I would like to do an animation with a guy/collector entering walmart.
The automatic door opens to let him in and gimmicky man of steel toys
pour out and bury him under an avalanche. Man, they had tons of that crap  

 

You know a toy line I've seen that looks really fun for kids? The Rescue Bots-like Star Wars toys. Their version of the Millenium Falcon looks really fun with all the little compartments and gimmicks.