So, if I recall, one of the big reasons mainstream television animation started bleeding their budgets and slashing variety, season length, etc. as opposed to the days of frequent high-quality cartoons was because a lot of that older stuff was funded on the back of merchandising. That's fair enough, that makes sense. I remember even in the 2000s random cartoons like '03 Turtles would have shitloads of tie-in media and licensed junk that probably made a good portion of essentially passive income for the studio. This was especially prevalent in the 80s and 90s, with cartoons being essentially toy commercials. Meanwhile, indie animation is thriving on the back of the exact same thing. Studios like Glitch make money hand over fist on merchandise and their entire studio is funded entirely on it without even needing a large parent corporation. Helluva Boss is the same way, lots of merch, lots of money. Fair enough, regardless of the quality of these shows, they sustain themselves on tried-and-true methods that inarguably do work to accomplish the goal of continuing production and making profit.The question is, where the fuck did this practice go with regards to mainstream animation when it literally never stopped working? It feels like the entire 2010s to 2020s era of studio animation completely shit the bed on merchandising with the closest thing being a couple Adventure Time shovelware games and not much else. I can't understand why. I get that some kids have moved away from toys and towards ipads and the like, but even the ipad kiddies love Jax and Pomni and wear Hazbin Hotel merch. Meanwhile if someone wanted a plush of Sprig from Amphibia or the little skull dude from Owl House, theres nothing for those franchises except an art book. Why didn't Netflix try to simultaneously advertise and profit from something like Kipo and the Age of the Wonderbeasts or Green Eggs and Ham with merchandise and video games? It doesn't make sense. It's a proven method.
I'd guess it's an attention economy thing, where there's more focus being placed on making everyone talk about it rather than merch, but it's frickin stupid to do that without also having merch. Just out of touch executives, maybe.
>>150363589You forget that something like Ninjago, Paw Patrol exist, Ladybug, League of Legends animations, Marvel/DC series or the Mario Movie.But overall the problem is why something is created and from what company it belongs to.When the IP is from a toy producer they are interested in toy sales. Others produce that to promote their Video Game or subscription service having watchable shows.Indy animation needs to go the Youtuber route to finance that. But animation is more time consuming. That means fans need constant new stuff or you dont produce enough movies to fill the 3-7-9 ratio.
>>150363589netflix already gets funding by other means. they might think it's easier to continue to get money by subscriptions than having to deal with toy manufacturing and contracts and rights which can come at a loss if the toys dont sell
>>150364069Also Kpop Demon Hunters has a giant merch section in the Netflix shophttps://www.netflix.shop/collections/kpop-demon-hunters
