One of the problems is that they are too small. it's like bacon. it says 1 pound on the package, but it's not exactly one pound. example for transformers is leader class. I've seen voyagers bigger than them. second. they are ugly. third. they are too easy, so kids don't like them. fourth. they aren't easy to tell apart. especially with the deluxes and power failers.

 

Transformers is different from G.I Joe and He Man that it was able to keep on going after those lines has stopped. Again if it was able to survive the 90s to this day even if some of it's shows like Animated were canned then it's likely it'll keep on going for a while. I may be wrong but still.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Wait, I do have something to add: Its not just attention spans though. It is the amount of interesting things out there and the ease to get them. It use to be you would be a fan of a single thing. You were a Trekkie or a Star Wars fan or liked G.I. Joe. Now, you can easily get into several different fandoms... but that also means the strength of those fandoms is weakened.

Yes, a new strategy is needed. Based on what I've seen personally through my job, here is what needs to be done:

1) Go back to what worked. Hasbro has a bad habit (but other companies do too) of wanting to experiment in hopes of finding the next big thing. The problem is that by doing so they flood the market with items that sit on shelves. Kids don't need a thousand gimmicks. For Star Wars, just have the action figures and the vehicles with some masks and lightsabers. For Marvel, stop trying to make hundreds of different sizes of Iron man. 3.75 is fine. for Transformers, stick with them doing what they should: Transform.

2) Stop doublepacking waves. One of the WORST things all the toy companies do is double pack toys. What happens is that it causes one toy to be rare, others to be overly common, and then later waves are never bought, resulting in them getting canceled. Combine waves together and have one of each figure in a box... it allows for a more natural sell through and can help get the toys from later waves out there.

3) Standardize. This goes for the Superhero lines. Once a line sells well keep sizes in scale with new lines. guardians of the galaxy is in for trouble because Hasbro shrunk the figures down to two inches... so they no longer are in scale with every other marvel toy. Thus, we are going to see a ton of shelf warming because where you might get an Iron man fan going "Hey, I'll buy Groot" will pass it by because it is not in case with their current collection

4) Embrace both sides of the fandom. Mattel started this with their Movie Masters Line. You have action figures for adults that are just high detailed figures for displaying, and then have the cheaper figures for the kids that are colorful and have gimmicks. Hasbro has already done this for Transformers but needs to continue with it.

5) Embrace Online. This is the key here for Adult Collectors. Hasbro has seen that adults will pay 400 dollars for Hercules and Giant and all the other versions of Devestator. Now, this would never work in a store... but it would work on their website. Hasbro needs to set up HasbroToyshop to have a Adult Collector section (NOT LIKE THAT YOU PERVERTS!). Here is where they could produce Generations figures they know won't sell well to kids or stores would never set out but WILL sell to adults. You can charge more for them because there are less but make sure they are top of the line. If Hasbro sold a $150 Devestator set that was CLOSE to Hercules in quality people would buy it.

I have been saying for ages that Hasbro needs to begin selling weapons packs for Transformers. Guns, swords, shields, so on... things you can't sell in stores but that sell on Shapeways for 10 bucks a pop.

Embrace the online.

 

Say it brother!

 

I'm not sure what the exact pricing is for every country out there, but here in the Netherlands these things aren't moving because of the crippling increase in price, 40% in a year.
Just a single example: Evasion Optimus, along with every other Voyager class Generations figure is on shelves for a whopping 45 Euros. That's 62USD for a single figure!!
Hasbro NL is killing the line here themselves.

 

 

Inside and outside of TFs there is too much competition.

 

It might make us all feel better saying the lackluster sales are a direct result of crappy designs, simplified transformations, fewer paint apps, lowering details and sizes etc etc....
BUT... That's totally hogwash.
It's because each year the tablets, phones,gaming systems are decimating toys all over.
And as those devices get cheaper every 6 months, they are finding their way to younger and younger kids.
This is eating into toy sales and will continue to do so.
The "toy" figure as we know it is going the way of the dinobots... Soon

 

Saw this happening.. this will mean one of two things: either they'll go back to semi to very complex designs that actually look like what people see on screen, or close enough to, or they'll stop making movie toys. Which would be unfortunate, as I think more people enjoy these figure, more than what some people would like to think.

 

I've heard someone said that Hasbro could take some notes from Skylanders and have a game that's like a Generations type game where characters both old and new from different eras can have adventures,battles and interact that you can use with a kind of chip or gimmick that activates the character which is included in a toy that represents that character for both adults and collectors. The figures can have the same articulation like in Generations.

 

Well that makes sense. Because for the first fucking time ever, they don't sell them here in Ireland. All we have is the shitty one step changers and all that stuff. Hasbro are idiots.

 

You became old when you started parroting the same ignorance as the people who were old when we were kids, bitching about how we didn't need these vidyagames or these little plastic men or TVs in our rooms or violent cartoons selling us toys.

The world has moved on, and kids have iPads and iPods now, and they are tremendously entertained by them. There is no "should" or "need" here. It's what has happened, and it's a new generation. It's the same reason my generation wouldn't have been entertained by Hoop & Stick.

 

A poorly written ramble of an article- with lots of logic jumps based more on personal observation than real data- but some decent points. Most collectors have been seeing this coming for awhile. But as TMNT proved last year, most lines are one refresh, decent concept uplift, or new TV/movie away from seeing blockbuster sales. It's the current over reliance on 'status quo' lines, especially troublesome for storied properties like TF, which sucks the wind out of potential sales. Think about it. We're 4 movies deep on a line of toys most kids already have tons of. Add to this the somewhat misguided attempt to split off the lines into 'buckets', one of which is squarely aimed at children with zero brain cells or no attention span... probably both. It's actually fairly insulting. I get what was intended and in some ways I applaud it, but this thinking encourages kids to be stupid rather than discourages their boredom. Toys are supposed to be about inventing play from ones imagination. With all manner of media distractions and simplistic childish toys to suck away a child's need to be imaginative... well... it's a beast with many heads which often grow back two-fold as soon as one is lopped off.

Frankly, Hasbro and Mattel have made their own bed with this current situation and finally the over reliance on storied concepts and zero innovation is catching up with them.

 

"The age of the transformer is over"

AOE the movie has so many unintentional similarities with how the toylike is doing  

There's the apple look alike company that are making products to replace the transformers and he tells them that they are worthless

 

It's not the movie designs, and it's not the cluttered isles (though that definitely doesn't help), the real problem is oversimplification. I don't mean the simplified toys are a bad thing, I just mean hasbro went a little over board with them. It seems like hasbro had what they thought they had a groundbreaking idea with the simplification thing so they ran with it at the expense of having an advanced line (generations) with very few figures in it (only 3 possibly 2 new mold decepticons, are you kidding me!?). Then they took their groundbreaking idea to retailers and they jumped right on board and did what retailers always do, order way to much of the "next big thing". Thus leading to a drastic overstock RID figures and a drastic shortage of generations figures (which seem to be outselling RID in my area anyway). What should have happened is hasbro making a few simpler toys for younger kids, and streamlining the transformations on the more advanced toys, not making them simpler but making them easier and more fluid. Then they should have solicited all of the skill levels equally so there is not an over abundance of one and shortage of the other.

To elaborate further, I believe hasbro confused simplicity with easiness. The transformations weren't to complex, they were to diddly and hard to maneuver. Let's use DOTM roadbuster as an example. It is a figure with no more steps than high octane bumblebee, yet my 9 year old neighbor found it exedingly hard to transform, where they had no trouble with some of the prime first edition (namely cliffjumper) figures which were, by hasbro's definition, "harder to transform". Leading me to believe that the cramped and awkward transformation was the problem, not the number of steps.

By the way, to all of you people saying the public is getting tired of repeated lines of movie style designs, the movie designs have changed. The new ones are very worry and humanoid, while by comparison the first trilogy designs were boxy with bigger parts and pannels (in other words more transformery).

 

I'd argue that attempts to create innovation also hurt them.

Let me use your example as my example. You know what is great about TMNT's line last year? few gimmicks. Most of the figures were just that... figures. They came with some accessories but otherwise it was just fun action figures that you could play with.

 

I didn't get my first phone until I started high school it was an LG slide up one. Just the other day I saw a kid, about 6-8 years old, with an Iphone!!!!

 

Animated was 'canned' to make way for a new movie line. Hasbro is pretty much only concerned with movie lines these days, despite how 'profitable' it was animated couldn't compete with itself.

Transformers only survived the 90's because they started thinking outside the box, they introduced Beast Wars and that skyrocketed despite what some might say.

But even with the Unicron Trilogy following after that seeming to do well it could only last for so long.

2007 brought about another revolutionary Transformers toyline, and it was a boom, but it made Hasbro think that only movie toylines could survive long enough to make more $$$ as evidenced by the gimmick fested dinosaur AoE has become.

 

Not surprised, out of all the movies, this line has had the crappiest toys

 

There's no Decepticons. no point in buying toys of the good guys when they don't have any bad guys to fight.

 

Or they could go G1, I'm sure the G1 Purest will be happy.  

Could you imagine if Hasbro tried to pass off G1/G2 type figures in this day and age in the Generations line.

Hell, if anything Hasbro might try something crazy to reboot the franchise. Michael Bays Beast Wars.