william-james88 wrote:Hellscream9999 wrote:It adds up to corporate greed (or something similar) They use as few a paint apps and colors as possible, they make the figures as hollow as possible, they cashed in on cw repaints instead of making several new figures, they inflate the prices all while making them as cheaply and as hollow as possible, now they're turning up with a slew of qc issues for it. And they've long since ceased to use electronics and 'firing' missles, while I don't miss them, it does make you wonder what else is going to go before they can't raise their prices any higher and still sell them
The firing missiles is super bizarre because they were included in the commander figures of just last year. A big shift happened between last year and this year where the legends class figures no longer came with that targetmaster partner and legion class figures no longer came with weapons.
I do understand all the frustrating QC issues but I dont find Hasbro as greedy as you make them out to be. If they were truly greedy we wouldnt have any of the stuff we have now and there would just be action figures of Optimus and Bumblebee that dont transform. Way cheaper to produce. But instead they still comission the best toy engineers in the world to come up with smart transformations. The QC and cheaper material and lack of paint you see is what Hasbro has to do to keep the shareholders happy by lowering cost. Toys dont sell as much as they used to due to video games and other kinds of entertainment that wasnt as readily available/affordable 20-30 years ago. So no matter how much hasbro pushes their marketing, the way to increase profits is not to increase sales but to reduce cost. Tomy is also publicly traded (and their stock price sank since 2009 and only recently got back up) so I dont know how they can afford their higher standard of quality as compared to Hasbro.
I
get it, but I do think that if all they did was release action-masters, they would get zero sales.
They tread a thin line to get us the highest quality figures they can while maximizing profits; I
get it; but at the same time, we are definitley getting the shaft: no targetmasters, thin plastic that stresses and cracks, minimal paint apps, minimal colors (plastic or otherwise), no electronics, no gimmicks, no features, no firing missles, hollow/cheap feeling figures, and a slew of qc issues and effortless repaints ('84 teams). All of this while being asked to pay continuously inflated prices; To paraphrase Thew "I'm not upset, just disappointed"
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