So Hasbro moved production of Transformers from China to Vietnam saving who knows how much overall money in the process Oil prices have stabilised and has been cheap for years. And yet Hasbro continues to hollow out every inch of plastic on every part of a figure they can. It has gotten so bad they are now virtually completely hollowing out the back of many legends and some deluxes heads. They are also now hollowing out the entire rear waist of most figures as well. Look at Titans Hot Rod for the waist example and the back of deluxe RID Starscream's head. Hollow hollow hollow. Also Hasbro has gone out of their way to remove as many metal screws and pins as possible all over all class size figures. The worst examples have been the robot mode hands that are virtually all now on friction clips. I cannot count the times that the hands of Titans Skullcruncher has unclipped and went flying Of course clip on wheels are a horrible sight. And in many figures outside clip on wheels. Because. You know. That 1 penny pin will bankrupt Hasbro. I just do not get it other than greed. How did we move from 39.99 leader class figures with electronics to 50 percent smaller Hollowmaster Optimus Prime for 46.99?
Welcome to Hasbro, the crappy foreign extension of a real company in Takara. It's kinda like having a McDonalds in China. It's a cute novelty, but nothing like the original.
Parts count = mold costs = labor costs. Hasbro has to make increasing profits off decreasing toy sales or they're all fired. Solution? Cut costs, raise prices. Making things hollow is about reducing parts count, which reduces mold costs, and reduces assembly time (labor costs). We can call it greed, and it may be for some of the people making these decisions... But for some it is also "I want to keep my job and not see us have to lay off staff". Basically, video games and iPads have led to hollow figures. That said, they've done it well lately through good engineering, and Titans Return has been one of the most popular mainstream lines with fans in quite a while.
Pfffft ahahaha really? Another "waaaah Hasblow" thread? You know they work on a lot of TFs TOGETHER, right? Of course not, because that would invalidate your point.
Looking back, DOTM toys weren't that bad (IMHO). The issue was it was one of the first clear signs of greed based decline. They looked awful compared to what we had been getting, but they were probably superior to AOE as well as a lot of the main line releases since.
Huh, I really thought by 2017 people would have grasped that these things are designed as a joint project between takara and hasbro.
You want to blame something, you have to blame the increasing obsession with technology amongst parents. These are people at this company. They want their jobs, they want their employees to have jobs, but their industry is dying and they're trying hard to hold onto it.
"Greed" keeps coming up and, as I said, it could well be that some of the decision makers are greedy. But it's also kind of irrelevant, as if one were to take over Hasbro and fire all these "greedy execs" and replace them with non-greedy ones, those new ones would have to make the same decisions to cut costs and raise prices as much as the retailers will allow it. Because, again, if they don't then 1) the Shareholders will fire them and 2) rank and file employees will start to face layoffs. The regular toy market is shrinking, year over year. Outside blockbuster movie lines, fewer toys are sold in western markets every quarter. Yet profits must rise, or else people lose their jobs - because that's the system of publicly traded companies. Takara has a different market, and thus so far is able to behave a little differently. 3p is a radically different market, selling high priced collectibles to adults. It's comforting to pound a fist on the table and declare this the work of greedy execs, but the truth is more complex. If you were able to eliminate all greed from the hearts of all Hasbro execs, we would still see rising prices and cost cutting. Either by the now-non-greedy execs trying to save jobs, or by the new execs that replaced them for failing to provide sufficient returns to shareholders.
Yeah, FOC was kind of a low point in terms of Deluxes being shrunk to Scouts. At least we're getting slightly larger figures again.
Don't buy new stuff if you think they're shit. Simple solution. Go back and buy older toys. Buy third parties. Or you could just stop buying TFs altogether and just be happy with the collection you have? There are so many pics and reviews of all of this stuff before it even hits stores. Why buy any toy that you clearly know is a piece of shit? Just don't buy it!
It sucks, but only really and truly if TFs are all you collect. I got into Marvel Legends so whenever I see awful TFs on the pegs, I just stroll on over to something that (hopefully) isn't as sucky.
I was going to debate this rationally, but then I saw the bit about low oil prices and both my car and wallet started shouting "boo" and "shame!" repeatedly. Hm.
I dunno... I don't think some of the recent figures are so bad. There's more engineering issues than amount of plastic. Shrinking? Put TR Hot Rod up next to CHUG Rodimus and we can discuss shrinking. Hollow? Nothing new. Price? Don't ever expect prices to go down on anything. Ever. You make more money over time. So do they. Coffee will never be .25 / lb. ever again. Are toys worth what we pay? Sometimes not. For what we get I do think we are overcharged... but we're dumb enough to pay and they know it. But don't think it's all greed. You HAVE to make profits to keep the lights on & to pay wages, materials, taxes, and all sorts of other goodies and regulations that governments mandate they pay, and it all comes from the sale of that crappy little toy. You can slash wages of the top CEO's but it won't have a drastic change if the cost of toy. It is what it is.
Well, it's not new now. I remember when it was new, though, and it wasn't all that long ago. Some of us have adjusted to it better than others, but surely we can agree it's still a disappointing development, can't we? As much as I love the current toys, I still look at them and think, "This leg would have been solid" or, "this forearm would have had a flap closing over the open part" or whatever. "And that would have made this toy even better." That wasn't some long ago era lost to the mists of time. It was less than 10 years ago. But again, at least the characters still mostly look great and have articulation. Look what happened to the poor Star Wars fans. Their mainline figures have devolved almost all the way back to 1978 standards of poor (or non) likenesses and no articulation. The only way things could get worse for them would be to have the 3 3/4 mainline replaced completely by 2-inch static pose PVC statuettes.
