People say it's expensive for Hasbro to make MP figures and they are a very hard thing to work, so Hasbro doesn't give much focus for it, and also, what gives more money are the low lines. If so, How do many 3P work with MPM as their main line and even sell them cheaper than the MPMs Hasbro makes (I'm not talking about KO)? For the way people say, MP figures don't look so lucrative, mainly when you sell them as cheap as some 3P do (I mean, Hasbro figures are more expensive than most 3P mp)

 

Define your use of rentable.

 

What gives a good money?

Damn, rentable is another thing
I wanted to say lucrative

 

I think it should be, but I don't know what additional cost Hasbro has to deal with that 3p companies don't.

 

I mean, Hasbro has to deal with security stuff, the ones about preventing the toys to be able to hurt someone. IDK exactly about it


And even KO companies, I've head the manufacturer sells the Dragoon KO for 57$! Idk their costs, but this price does look low, and then the retailers sell it for 90$, but pay shipping and a lot of stuff. It doesn't look lucrative imo

 

It’s risky, requiring large investment upfront, shady factories, and no guarantee your product will sell, even if it comes out without a bunch of qc cuz the factory didn’t give a damn about your toy since you paid up front.

 

HasTak has to deal with stuff like safety requirements, marketing, satisfying investors, and other stuff like that. So the cost of an MP combiner is already pretty high and why they're only possibly trying one now.

3rd party doesn't. And KO's even less so since selling a copy of a designs is leagues more cheaper than needing to design a new one from scratch.

 

I never understood what safety requirements are exactly and how they can be a problem to those companies

And, is the marketing of MPM line heavy? I haven't seen much marketing of it

 

As far as safety goes, Hasbro has to make sure that each toy poses as little risk to injuring a small child as possible. So they spend money to study how a toy might break and if the breakage can injure someone. If it can they have to redesign the toy which costs more money.

Otherwise some angry parents would lawyer up and there would be recalls on the toys. Which can still happen even if hasbro was sure it couldnt.

 

As for the safety requirements aspect of it...
They have to cover the following:
1.) Will it puncture the flesh or impale an eye? (No sharp edges, hence the rubbery parts.)
2.) Will it crush, pinch, or otherwise hurt them while playing? (Badly designed hinges, heavier parts, etc.)
3.) Will it survive the drop test? (Will it stay together? Will it come apart? Will those pieces break and become dangerous shrapnel? Etc.)
There's more than that, even. It's very tricky to get a toy made in the US, it's even trickier when that product is something that'll be sold worldwide and you have other countries' laws to contend with as well.

3rd party, mainly because it's not supposed to exist, gets to shirk all of these responsibilities because the retailer is taking on the risk and most of these manufacturers are fly-by-night productions that can shut down and reform, at a moment's notice. Heck, they've eluded police for a decade. The big names only got hit because they snitched on each other and one of 'em was dumb enough to piss in Disney's Cheerios.

 

But isn't MPM a line for adults? So would safety requirements still be required?

So the 3P could be "more dangerous"? (I mean I guess it's really hard to hurt yourself with a toy if you are not a kid but in anyway)

 

Oh yeah. With some products from 3rd party or KO's with extremely strong projectiles or very sharp plastic or even metal edges.

Some are even heavy enough to hit someone over the head with.

 

Wait what? This one looks crazy. Do you have an example?

Hitting one of those OS from BMB in someone's head would be a hitkill

 

Oh, yes. Absolutely!

Bingo!

I think he's talking about the drop test and shrapnel. I personally don't recall a 3rd party figure having a missile launcher, but I could be wrong. Either way, he's right that their parts flying at a kid (or anyone, really) would be awfully dangerous.

 

Yh, but it's not like if some adult would throw it in someone. As I was saying, aren't adults the public of those figures? So what's the sense of safety requirements for this line?

 

The original point of this thread of yours was to see if 3rd party companies are rentable (per the title), then you corrected yourself and said it was about being lucrative. We explained to you why things are different for them and not Hasbro. 3rd party completely ignores the law, Hasbro has to follow it. Because it's an item made for adults, they skip the safety laws but a lot of us have kids or family members who are kids, around us. If one of them got hurt by one of these figures (a very real possibility) the company can wash their hands of it because they put warnings on the box, Hasbro can't. 3rd party can disappear, Hasbro can't.

If, somehow, someone could actually make a case stick and pull off the impossible and sue one of these companies for damages for hurting someone with their products... Man. Whoo. (It'll never happen, as I said, but it would be a show to watch...) That said, a lot of the companies do care that kids will come in contact with these products and while they're willing to exploit our wallets, they're not willing to actually put children in harm's way. It's not just to try and borderline protect themselves, but to remind us stupid adults (and yes, adults ARE stupid) that we shouldn't be giving these dangerous toys to children, or children under a certain age because it could harm them. It could kill them, worst-case scenario.

They put the warnings on because we have to tell people not to eat Tide Pods.

 

@TFXProtector makes sense. Thank you

 

When I was a kid we had launching missiles in everything, proper hard plastic projectiles in toy guns and nothing ever happened, we all grew up with our limbs and organs intact, the "safety" hyperbole these days is bad comedy.....

 

But 3P products are often marketed as collectibles for the 15+ and above group. I just took a look at a number of FT and MMC boxes and all of them carry some sort of warning (15+, 16+). It's obvious these were never meant for kids. I don't think we are comparing apples and oranges here.

 

I know it's out of topic, but if some kid gets hurt by a figure, but the warnings say it's for 15+, will the company be in trouble?