With the toy business constantly evolving to compete with technology, advancements in AI, wars, and global warming, can companies like Mattel and Hasbro survive... or will they eventually merge? And if they do, which side would take the lead? Personally, I’d prefer Mattel to lead rather than Hasbro. Mattel has made much better decisions in recent years compared to Hasbro.Is there a real future for traditional toy companies, or do they only have maybe two more decades left, if we’re lucky? How should they adapt in order to innovate?Lego seems like the only one with a strong chance of surviving, in my opinion. It has universal appeal and offers more than just action figures or static toys. They’re doing more with their brand and adapting better to change.
>>11578290Hasbro's been considering getting out of toy-making entirely to become an "IP company" that rents out all of its properties to other toy-makers for a few years now. I know they want to get into gaming, but with it taking up to a decade and a quarter-billion dollars to make a single game now, they might have missed that boat.
>>11578290Hastel
>>11578290Lower prices
>>11578778What makes you think prices are going down?
>>11578897Make toys with lower prices like blokees or new yolopark mini amk seriesI don't say to lower prices of existing lines, make new cheaper lines
>>11578290Hasbro and Mattel are gonna stay around.I have more concerns about smaller toy companies like NECA.
If Hasbro goes full IP selling then I wonder who will get the Beyblade license they have from TT.
>>11578898Lol
>>11578898Hasbro has always done that, like with these "Authentics" GI Joe figures with 3 POA each (but well-sculpted) that were only $8 each. Even in the 80s Hasbro sold basic mini-bots Transformers like Bumblebee and made it a point to make them prominent in the cartoon so poor kids could feel like what they got was every bit worth the same as the bigger ones to the Transformers story.
>>11579579And yet hasbro cheap toys are shit meanwhile blokees or yolopark are good quality. Explain this
>>11578898Those are shit though.
>>11579602When shareholders expect profit every year with no exceptions they'd be pissed if hasbro decided to put money into increasing quality from the current soap bottle plastic and not jacking the prices up even higher.
>>11579602>blokees or yolopark are good qualityLol, not true
>>11579629It's not about the shareholders. Big companies are massively bloated now. Every department needs to be five times larger than it really needs to be. Every company needs a massive DEI workforce making executive-level salaries even if fucked oif anyone knows what they actually do. Every last thing is done by committee "so everyone feels included and respected." Plus every big company needs to give away millions every year to BLM, rainbow causes, and other social bullshit that have nothing to do with making toys. Fucking Elon Musk fired 75% of Twitter staff and got the company running fine without them. That should give you an idea about the massive corporate bloat. And that shit raises the break-even cost for toy-makers, which is one of the real reasons why toy prices keep rising every year. This shit's STILL made in China for damn near nothing. Most of the cost in what toys you buy is in the administrative side.
>>11579621>>11579643T. Hasblow shills
>>11578290Between this and the inevitable demise of EA Games, I'm not exactly sorry to see all the big mega corps collapse. I personally think things were better off when we had a wide variety of smaller toy and game dev companies instead of the tiny few super mega companies that make all. AAA stuff was terrible anyway. These are very niche markets that have a cap on how much revenue they can bring in. It's not very conductive to a single mega company that owns everything, makes everything, and all stores carry specifically their product. Toy shelves are mostly empty throughout the year now and it has been that way for about a decade. It's also a pain when they want to bank on nostalgia and the single mega company just churns out endless repeats of some 30+ year old franchise as their primary output for years.
>>11579674T. Chinaman
>>11578898>>11579579We might eventually see a return to the not so well sculpted, 5 POA figures just to get the price point below $10 again. A lot of parents are just not going to spend more than $10 on a random toy for their kids.
>>11579697>5 POA figures just to get the price point below $10 again.Like ReAction? No. They won't let retail prices fall even if it damns them to keep prices high.
>>11579653Twitter is super slow to respond to bugs and problems and farmed out fact checking to the community. Its filled with jeets, africans and bots now.The end of the day, the bloat from companies is trying to be beholden to shareholders while farming out their IPs to make more marketing opportunities so they can get a better bang for their buck. Look at Hasbro partnering with Wizards and the Magic crossover bullshit that no one really wants, but cardslop fags will eat up.The main problem going forward is that companies have two options:>cater to children who don't buy toys any more but parents might buy them because of *insert current popular thing*(see Mr Beast toys, Skibidi Toilet shit etc that is rotting on the shelves now for how thats working out)or>cater to neckbeards and manchildren who have larger budgetsIn doing this though, you have to really make something that's worth it at a decent price point or offer something that people really want. Its no surprise companies are now hopping into Marvel Rivals shit since thats popular (because of tits like a shelf on some of the characters) but you also risk alienating the audience if the price point is too high, unless you do something that you know people are going to probably buy like the Max series and the card crossovers.Anything else will flounder and just do ok but you won't see much in the way of progress without either a higher price point or companies axing "good" lines for cheaper alternatives.
>>11579892Comapnies need both the affordable and the high-end. Just look at this poster here:>>11577631That's $75 worth of shit he just bought. 20 years ago that's $15 worth of shit. That kind of pricing is simply unsustainable.
>>11579691China won
>>11579713Reaction are not for kids
>>11579921There's no defending that price. It's not vintage nor anything that's truly new.
if only toys r us was still a thing
>>11578379Still waiting on the Snake Eyes video game. And a new Transformers one...
>>11579920Yeah, won another financial crisis thanks to a shitty real estate market lol
>>11579961Cope
>>11579966How's that Five Year Plan dick taste?
>>11579959The peak of para-military games was 20 - 25 years ago with Metal Gear Solid, Syphon Filter, Splinter Cell, SOCOM, etc. That's when Hasbro should have gotten serious with a GI Joe game. The MGS style would have been perfect for it because it's story-driven with lots of character development, and GI Joe is all about the characters. Now it's probably too late with how long and how much it costs to develop a game. Throw in all the "game development talent" they could hire being from companies closed down by said "talent" after their wokeness sank those companies.
>>11578290The way hasbro have constantly been raising prices on TFs whilst lowering quality and giving you less for your product all whilst being exposed as nothing as pure greed.I genuinely couldnt give a shit if Hasbro went out of business
>>11580003The more complex a transformer is, the more molds it needs to produce all the parts, and the more steps in assembly. That really bloats the cost.
>>11579969Keep coping cheetos
>>11580007Why are blokees so cheap then?
>>11579653
>>11580030What's it like when Xinnie the Pooh enters you from behind? Does it feel good?
>>11580054>spotted the employee
>>11581156>This isn't fast food, this is a niche hobby and there's too many employees at these companies.This niche hobby is supplied by the largest players in the industry, and those companies do need a "diverse catalog" of things at a wide pricing spectrum. They just need to make their affordable stuff more appealing for as little money as possible.
>>11581192>No, they need a good product and shouldn't have to adhere to retail pricing.They do that with crowd-funded toys. At the retail level they need stuff priced at levels where people can impulse-buy on a whim.
>>11581218>Like what?Like cheaper stuff that still has "eyeball appeal." >Retail has nothing good ever since star wars killed toys r us with ugly woke crap no one wants. I agree about Star Wars seriously damaging toy retail, but there has been good stuff like the GI Joe Classified toys. > It's why Tron isn't getting any new toys despite a new movie on the way. Because it looks ugly and woke.I agree 100%. If the movie was any good then toy-makers would have had stuff out two months ago. It's a shame because I am a fan of the series.
>>11581238>Chink Bot argues in bad faithTypical Chinese.
>>11581238Labubu sells like mad because it's a current "it thing." Lots of people (like my mom) don't really collect it, and just enjoy buying it because they think it's cute, and there is no pattern or plan for "collecting the entire series." Plus scalper scum excuse me "toy investors" who do massive amounts of hoarding. That's OK. Like with Beanie Babies, they'll get burned in the end when middle America burns out on it and moves on to something else.
>>11581257They did do cheap "blind box" toys for a while. They should consider doing more of them now.
>>11579892>and farmed out fact checking to the community>nooo we need "expert" "fact checkers" to confrm our reality!
>>11580007Just gona stop you there buddy.Hasbro release ss86 prime, there asking around $100 + for it.Cheap plastic used, hollow bits, cheap paint material used.KO company releases the same figures, has improvements, releases white magnus/nemesis/evangelion versions at the same time, comes boxed, $20-30.Remember when you could buy a voyager like universe hardhead for $25?It's just hasbro being fucking greedy and constantly coming up with lies. They charge extra for selects figures, come out with bs on haslab claiming stores wouldn't stock these items.....but multiple shit Michael bay Bumblebee figures...yeah that's fine.They moved to a cheaper factory in Vietnam, use garbage plastic, use cheap paints, give you less product for your money.It's now a case of buy from Hasbro and wait and see if anything bad happens from your purchase like what happened with Netflix soundwave (which happened again on the re-release) or Earthrise cyclonusQuality and Hasbro dont seem to align with each other
