What is the deal with toy production these days?

[Fe 26]

What is the deal with the way toys are put out these days? Why is it so hard to find the figures I want?

Today I finally found a Legolas Deluxe Horse and Rider set (I collect elf and dwarf toys from the movie, so sue me :P ). The horse sets have been out forever and I'm just now finding ONE. The entire LOTR figure line has been like this. Each run has made it almost impossible to find legolas toys. WTF is the deal with this? Are there really more orc and Aragorn fans out there than Legolas fans? There is no reason a case should have 1 legolas, 10 Aragorns and and 15 million orc figures in them.

Then there is the Kim Possible toy line. I watch the show, and it is a non-gender bias show, as it does not really pander to either. The toy line is not like that however. The show may be about action, the toys are not. There are about 15 different dolls of kim, 1 ron doll and 2 or 3 rufus stuff toys. Plus the toys are either plush, or barbie like dolls. I have no idea why its being done that way. It doesn't even make money sense. They could make figures of all the characters, and they would sale. Its a action cartoon, with good development with both the bad guys and good guys. Children will always buy most of the characters from shows made like that.

You don't see kids buying only good guy Transformers? Why? Because each toy is cool in its own right, and all characters in that show get character development. ALL of them.

Arrg it just doesn't make any sense to me why the kim toy line is being marketed only to girls, and so non diverse, when it is the only new action cartoon disney has made in a while.

There are even more toy lines being dicked like this right now.

What is the deal with it?

[MVS]

All I know about toys is this:

King Pimp


Boy Scout


Chickenlegs


Meatsack


Fall 2004.

[Mzo]

I'm assuming those red x's are supposed to be pictures of Dark Knight Returns toys, by their descriptions...

Batman, Superman, Robin, and (I had to cheat and look at the url here) Joker.

[Super-Eggroll]

Super-Ronald-Reagan-Man looks awesome, as does the Christopher Walken-ish Joker.

These are coming out in the fall now?

[MVS]

I'm assuming those red x's are supposed to be pictures of Dark Knight Returns toys, by their descriptions...

Batman, Superman, Robin, and (I had to cheat and look at the url here) Joker.

Here, balllicker. http://www.toymania.com/news/messages/4415.shtml

And, yeah, fall release.

[mollipen]

Yeah, I really don't get it - they're trying to make toys more collector's items. The thing is, they typically make the most popular figures the least produced, and the least popular figures the most produced, which seems to go against the rules of good business sense, if you ask me.

You don't have to flood the market with figures and whatnot, but at the same time, don't make everything limited run items that get snatched up by collector's for collector's prices.

Toy companies have always been a bit off, if you ask me. For example, when I was a kid, I noticed that there were a lot of lines where you NEVER got the female figures. Transformers and MASK were two big examples of this. They'd produce every minor character who appeared once in the show, but even if there was a very important female main character, she's never get her own toy.

[MVS]

Make that July 21st, release.

They'd produce every minor character who appeared once in the show, but even if there was a very important female main character, she's never get her own toy.

There's a very good reason for that.

Having toys that are men, makes you cool and want to grow up to be a strong, heoric, kickass dude.

Having toys that are women, makes you .05 steps away from playing with dolls.

[Mzo]

Yeah, my April never really took part in my ninja turtle battles... she was mostly relegated to 69s and other sexual positions with other action figures.

[Captain Vegetable]

Yeah, I really don't get it - they're trying to make toys more collector's items.

You'd think that, wouldn't you? But that isn't really it. Mattel and Hasbro don't sit down in a development meeting and say: "Now, which figure are we going to make the collector's item this time?" Though by the way the figures are short-packed, you'd swear that's what they're doing.

What they do is sit in that development meeting and ask themselves which characters will be the most popular with the target market. To be honest, you and I are not the target market for Kim Possible. After they settle on something, they produce more of that figure, in anticipation of demand.

Thus, He-Man and Skeletor, Ms. Possible, etc. are packaged two (or sometimes three) per case, while everyone else get's the shaft. And the figures that are expected to not sell at all? You'll be lucky to find a single figure in six cases (a case is typically six figures).

It isn't because they're trying to make collectors items, and honestly, in the early 90's people began to look at toys as an investment, so anything after 1989 is usually much more easy to get a hold of (assuming you know where to look). It's because they're trying to predict and meet demand.

The thing is, they typically make the most popular figures the least produced, and the least popular figures the most produced, which seems to go against the rules of good business sense, if you ask me.

Kind of, but not really. They don't look at which figures they think will be popular and then short change their production. Those very figures seem popular because of such limited quantities, because of the aforementioned demand predictions. If Ron can only be found one per case, then he'll seem more chased because of the limited shelf quantities (if you can find him, that is).

You don't have to flood the market with figures and whatnot, but at the same time, don't make everything limited run items that get snatched up by collector's for collector's prices.

With this I agree. Hasbro seems to have this down to a science. You can walk into your local TRU and never fear not finding that Transformer you want (from the most recent run, of course) because they're all packed in equel amounts. It's a beautiful thing.

Toy companies have always been a bit off, if you ask me. For example, when I was a kid, I noticed that there were a lot of lines where you NEVER got the female figures. Transformers and MASK were two big examples of this. They'd produce every minor character who appeared once in the show, but even if there was a very important female main character, she's never get her own toy.

Arcee is on the way.

[stormy]

It isn't because they're trying to make collectors items

that's bullshit.

I've worked in a Toy Store for more years than i'd care to mention, and companies most definatly put thought into short packs and variants for the purpose of making toys collectable. The market is mostly gone now, but 4 or 5 years ago every single toy line was doing it. We used to pick out all the good ones and buy them ourselves. Princess laeas and other star wars variants (i still have a bunch of them), man eating cow and die fladermaus from the Tick line, and all the Starting Lineups and McFarlane's new sports line. McFarland is still pumping out the variants and short packs to make people buy multiple versions of the same figure and increase collector value.

They don't short pack main characters because that would be stupid because the most people will want those. But they will put variants on the main characters and will always take the best supporting character and turn it into the short pack figure.