Toy companies should go back to making toys.I'm tired of being stuck in the weird dichotomy of disposable/gimmick "toys" like Fart Ninjas, Goo-Jitsu, Titan Hero things, and the "collectable" stuff like Marvel Legends, Black Series, McFarlane, NECA, SHF, or over-priced Transformers.I appreciate that Mattel and Hasbro have made some effort with their respective Epic Hero Series, and "Core" MOTU/DC figures, but they still feel like something of an after-thought or perfunctory "something for the kids" thing, not the real focus.And yeah I know there's the argument of kids not being interested in toys anymore, but I think a lot of that stems from parents being lazy and letting the kids just go to YouTube and tablets/phones, instead of limiting them to being children. Yes a long car ride is boring in the back seat, but sometimes boredom is good for you.
>>11829266More adults than kids are buying, so toys are made for adult-collectibility and sold at adult collector's prices. If you want that to change, then get kids off of their phones that they value more than their lives and get them to wanting toys again.
>>11829285>If you want that to change, then get kids off of their phones that they value more than their lives and get them to wanting toys again.It'll never happen. Not in significant enough numbers to matter, anyway. Not even because of the kids, but because the phones/tablets are too convenient tools for parents to get their kids to stay quiet and leave them alone. Buy a kid a few toys and he'll want more soon enough. Give him a device with internet access and that's all he'll need for the foreseeable future. That's why they're being given these gadgets younger and younger.
>>11829266I'm not six anymore so I don't want kid oriented, play feature rich toys that aren't related to the source material. I collect figures because I like the properties they're based on. I like Marvel, DC, Dragon Ball, and Transformers. I want high quality, highly articulated, spruce accurate figures. Sorry that you don't, but no one is forcing you to buy them. Just buy your kid lines and stay in your lane.
>>11829266>>11829285Pic related
>>11829300>Not even because of the kids, but because the phones/tablets are too convenient tools for parents to get their kids to stay quiet and leave them alone. Buy a kid a few toys and he'll want more soon enough. Give him a device with internet access and that's all he'll need for the foreseeable future. That's why they're being given these gadgets younger and younger.And thats part of the reason why more of my generation should have died during covid. The fact that so many fellow millennials want to slack off and not even parent right so they turn their crotch goblin shitlings into brain dead i-toddlers to get them to stop nagging them is why if i could i would rip away all of their unhappy accident brats from them and make their spawn wards of the state. The millennialoid parents obviously dont want their kids anyways so i dont think theyd care either.
>>11829309I hate how so many "adult" collectors just want shitty oversized figures to scale with their reddit marvel movie toys. 6-inch faggotry ruined the toy industry and now every figure is some 30$ overrated abomination
>>11829330You're in your 20s or 30s. Why do you want to play with toys like a child? It's one thing to use toys in photography or to tell a story even, but wanting missile launching Batman to smash against your web spinning Spider-Man that are both stuck in shitty preposed stances is fucking weird.
>>11829323Bro, that was 25 years ago. Not saying a toyline can't come out nowadays and succeed with kids, but the entire landscape has changed. Social media, streaming, free mobile games, and etc. didn't exist back then.
>And yeah I know there's the argument of kids not being interested in toys anymorefirst of all I know that's factually bullshit cause I'm a retail wagie and I see kids screaming at their parents cause they want a new toy almost every day. and secondly I feel like that's causing a self-defeating cycle where they don't make toys for kids cause kids don't buy them and kids don't buy them because they aren't made for them.I was part of the first generation of terminally online children in the late 90s/early 00s and even despite being glued to my dad's PC basically any chance I got, I still had a war chest full of things like transformers or lightsabers or bionicles. kids, and adults obviously, like the tactile feeling that a physical toy has and a video game simply doesn't.>>11829309>I only play with mature toys for mature collectors like myselfwe're all losers here but this refusal to accept it makes you look sadder and more pathetic than anyone else when you share it publicly and think it makes you sound cooler for it
>>11829337>You're in your 20s or 30s. Why do you want to play with toys like a child? Because its fun and im not a pretentious retard sniffing his own farts like you
>>11829350>we're all losers here but this refusal to accept it makes you look sadder and more pathetic than anyone else when you share it publicly and think it makes you sound cooler for itSorry that I don't like kids toys made for kids. I'm not trying to sound cool, I'm not trying to be elitist, I just don't care about kid oriented, play feature toys anymore. I want something that is a representation of the piece of media I enjoyed. If you don't like that, tough titties. >>11829351I guess I just don't have arrested development like some of you. I have, on several occasions, tried to sit down and play with my toys like I did as a kid. Couldn't do it. Just something about my adult brain couldn't process it properly and I quickly got bored and went and did something else. I thought it interesting because I come up with little storylines that involve characters I have figures of pretty regularly. But that could be just because I'm a fan of the property itself and like coming up with my stories for those properties. I dunno. But I find it weird how offended some of you get when other people don't want to play with kids toys.
>>11829353I dont mind collector toys existing but they shouldnt be the bulk of the industry to the extent that they areI dont have time for this at all so im not gonna debate this cuz this isnt a hill im gonna die on
>>11829354Ok. Then why even respond in the first place if you're too lazy to actually form an argument? The majority demographic collection action figures is adults. There are still plenty of other toys that kids still play with. Look at Lego. Look at hatchimals a few years ago. Kids today don't care about action figures, the primary thing /toy/ talks about. That doesn't mean they don't like toys. You seem to think just because something isn't discussed on /toy/, doesn't mean it exists. Kids still play with toys, just not action figures as much as we did when we were kids.This whole "kids don't play with toys" is a sunk fallacy that only childless adults, stuck in arrested development, think. Anyone who actually reproduced will tell you, kids still play with toys.
>>11829350>I feel like that's causing a self-defeating cycle where they don't make toys for kids cause kids don't buy them and kids don't buy them because they aren't made for them.There's a lot of truth to this and you can witness the same thing with teenage boys and reading. YA used to be pretty evenly split between male and female authors and protagonists, but once publishers found women were buying like 80% of the books, there was a big female push throughout the entire industry. YA today's basically become entirely for women. So, a lot of young men growing up now don't have the bridge from middle grade for children and adult books. Now the industry acts all shocked that men don't want to read traditional books and have turned to manga and web novels that cater to them.
OP here. Something I also neglected to mention as well is that I think the toy industry splitting into the two polar ends of either cheap crap or "adult collectable" is that it is also giving companies like Hasbro license to keep driving up prices for what are at the end of the day, just toys. Yes Marvel Legends have articulation out the wazoo and the sculpts are good and the face printing is nice, but they're still just toys, but they keep going up in price. Deluxe Transformers cost now what a Leader Class cost just a few years ago.I'm not saying I hate modern figures, I still collect modern, but a lot of the time I just want a cheap fun toy and I'd be happy to return to 5POA or 9POA if it meant that the figures were cheaper and were more fun to mess around with.I recently got both the Core and Chronicles versions of He-Man and Skeletor based on the new movie, and honestly, I don't think the Chronicles are that much more impressive, but I definitely appreciate the options. Really that's my main issue, the lack of choice we have these days, it's either one or the other, not a fun middle range.
>>11829370>>11829370>So, a lot of young men growing up now don't have the bridge from middle grade for children and adult books.Yes, my point exactly.
>>11829300The kids are cooked. Luckily no one in my family gives their kids tablets.
>>11829300>>11829329Tablets are significantly cheaper than toys, that's another issue. Tech used to be an exceptional purchase for kids around the holiday. But a cheap tablet is $50. That's cheaper than the most expensive Marvel Legends. That costs less than 2 Marvel Legends, or a brand new console game.For me to get a Gameboy in the 90's, the cost was proportional to about 10 Marvel figures of the time. Even accounting the cheap 6'' or Titan hero lines, it's only 5 of those compared to a cheap tablet. And tablets are often given free with phone plans, or people just have an old one around anyway.That, plus the fact that modern parents have less money and thus are less likely to own a home. I think that's part of the reason the large sized Titan Hero/Jakks Giant size toysfell out of favor, there's just no room for large sized toys anymore in a young family's household(which is likely a rented apartment or subdivided home these days)
>>11829410Marvel Legends, even when they were $20 weren't being purchased by parents for their kids. I remember back when I was hunting for an Infinity War Iron Spider, overhearing some dad in the toy aisle balking at $20 for an action figure. Kids haven't been buying Marvel Legends since probably even the ToyBiz days twenty years ago
If you look at any youtube toy reviewer, the comment sections are FULL of kids, kids are aware of higher end collectors toys and want them. If you have a store that sells imports, like a Tamashii/Bandai Namco or collectors hobby shop, you see kids there all the time. I have a Bandai-Namco in a mall by me and there's always kids wanting the expensive SHF figures that their parents won't buy them because it's out of their budget range. >>11829350>and secondly I feel like that's causing a self-defeating cycle where they don't make toys for kids cause kids don't buy them and kids don't buy them because they aren't made for them.I think the real fallacy is people thinking that if they made 90's Toy Biz gimmick toys or any other sort of older style kid aimed toys with 5PoA, kids would want them. Any I'm sure there's still some market, I mean Spinmasters does sell some DC figures like this, buy I think the fact that kids know that better toys exist really kills the appeal of those toys to people. But the issue is that they're way out of the price range of kids. The other issue is that inflation has made it way harder to make toys that are as nice looking for the same price as 90's/2000's cheap toys. Like all the paint apps, translucent plastic, chrome paint, etc on that era of toys costs money. A company like spinmasters attempts to do the same while maintaining the same ~$10 price, and they look notably cheaper.
>>11829423The thing is, the kid probably wanted that ML Spider-man more than the cheaper option from the kid's line or Titan Heroes, which was more in the dad's price range. But the kid likely didn't want to settle, and even if he got it he likely wasn't compelled to ask for more toys from that line. So he moved on, probably stopped caring much about toys because what he really wanted was out of his reach.
>>11829432The kid didn't seem to even be interested, the guy just made a comment as he was passing by the figures
>>11829423I can second this, I saw way more Toybiz legends at comic stores than department or toy stores. I remember the X3 Jean as the first Legends figure I saw in a Walmart, and I'm pretty sure that was after Toybiz folded.
>>11829266Man these look fun. It'd be great if companies made decent figures with fun gimmicks like they used to. Now it's the gimmick first and then the licensed character and finally the figure when it comes to these types of things imo. You mentioned long rides in the back seat as boring, and while I agree I think bathing is awful and hate taking baths. I'm going to show my mom these when she gets back from her other job, she has two, and tell her if she wants me to take a bath without fighting and yelling then she should buy me these toys. Yeah, she will likely need to pick an extra shift or two in order to buy them but I sell her on the peace and quiet of me bathing with new tub toys.
>>11829266Thats literally what Mattel is doing with DC and He-man Core and Origins right now. And what Transformers has always been doing with their kid lines. Theres probably more I dont you whiny faggot maybe look next time before you sperg out jesus christ. I dont even disagree with you.
If you want kids to buy more toys stop being poor and start having 5+ children per family again because declining birth rates and immigration is the real reason lmao
>>11829266Lately I've been wondering why hasbro and the like havent just attempted a new kiddy line with old molds. For the sake of the hypothetical right, imagine a modern kiddy line in place of cyberspark babby shit, but the entire range is just generations/RTS/ROTF/HFTD repaints with new heads. Would that really cost so much? As for the other big brands, just go evergreen with it. Star Wars would be better served as an evergreen property sans media tie ins by now. Case in point this doodle I made.
>>11829867Mattel is going to dominate the boy's aisle hard over the next decade. Most collectors havent yet recognized the sheer share of the aisle they dominate now between Jp, motu, turtles, and DC.
>>11829371I can relate. There's a very lucrative middle ground going overlooked that covers all the main demos effortlessly and few were really taking advantage of it til now. I hope Jakks and Mattel lead the charge on this shift in focus. The Sonic/Nintendo and Motu/DC budget lines are the future. Credit to playmates for recognizing as much so early on, shame they're still getting kicked to the curb regardless.
>>11829870>stop being poor and start having 5+ children per family againHaving 5+ kids is pretty much a guaranteed way to be poor.
>>11829266The fact that Neca of all things is the one making gimmick variants is just the worst. I also want Marvel Legends Deep See Doc Ock or whatever
>>11829881Drawanon in another one of my threads! I have missed you, my friend!
>>11829371>I just want a cheap fun toy and I'd be happy to return to 5POA or 9POA if it meant that the figures were cheaper and were more fun to mess around with.Well McFarlane's Titano is an overpriced, near 5POA bit of 'higher end' ABS plastic and sculpting, but I did get it new for essentially only $15.00 (the two pack with Flash was $29.99, so I'm essentially assigning half value to each figure). I wish I got the entire package at a Ross for $9 or $14.99 like some did, but what can you do.Kaiju is from Ross and was only $7.99. And fucking articulates more than the higher end McFarlane. I'm just going to resin seal his chest cavity together and repaint the whole thing so it looks more high end. But I also scored the actual McFart Kaiju for like $5.99, I think?
>>11829885I'm having a hard time finding the new Flash Mattel figure (in hand, which is my preference) at Target. And fuck Walmart for anything that isn't Bluey or other similar shit. The MOTU end caps at all my large Targets have also been shitty as far as finding any of the Core figures, although to be fair, you can easily find Mario, TMNT, and Sonic at Targets. What really sucks up and takes up space is fucking LEGO.
>>11830070I'm happy to hear from you again too anon!>>11830116Trust me I'm all too familiar with that side of things. War Paint He-man's eluded me for weeks now. All I run into are Beast Men and standard He-men. >although to be fair, you can easily find Mario, TMNT, and Sonic at TargetsIt's absurd how widely distributed both of those lines are. I cant escape them in my area. Bluey is equally omnipresent but it's hard to even be upset about it. I'm glad today's kids have something of their own to enjoy.
Funko's destroyed the action figure. Maybe it's the declining middle class and chinese manufacturing, but Funko's were the nail in the coffin.
