Hasbro going over board?

[PonyRocker95 106]

I was reading the article for the new "Equestria Girls" concept when I read this:

 

"...But adult fans have also pushed to take more control of the brand, creating unauthorized digital games and plush toys that company executives eventually squashed.

 

“They don’t mind having this fan base, but they can’t forget their core market,” said Jim Silver, editor in chief of timetoplaymag.com, which covers the toy industry. “These are waters you have to navigate very carefully.” "

 

and the first thing that popped into my head was "Well maybe if you guys made better quality stuff and weren't such bucking blind money grubbing jerks maybe bronys (or more importantly me/I) would buy your stuff!" I know their trying not to lose money but still!

 

Seriously! which would you buy something like this...

 

 

OR SOMETHING LIKE THIS!!!

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2013 by PonyRocker88

[Skygunner 352]

How much are you willing to pay?

 

 

Don't forget,  Hasbro employees factory workers (probably in East Asia)  to make their products,  if you want a quality product, you'll have to pay quite a bit more.

 

Part of their demographic is price range,   a playset with 2 ponies and some cheep plastic fabrication can run 40 - 60USD

 

I dun wanna know how much a decent plush would cost if it was done by Hasbro,  I'd rather just support the independents.

[PonyRocker95 106]

@Skygunner

 

Yeah but Hasbro is complaining when they shouldn't be! them losing money because people want decent plushies is their own fault and their too blinded by money loss to see that! instead they harass innocent plush makers who even though are making money off the plushies have copyrights on their stuff!

[RockinRarity 1,605]

Well apparently there is a new plushie company that is being licensed to release quality MLP plushies for around $25. I saw this on Equestria Daily a while ago.

 

Yeah Hasbro can't be bothered to make better plushies. They are better with plastic toys.

[Phoenix237 353]

So about the plushies.

Yesterday at a store I saw one and honestly it wasn't that great.

They just don't look right or decent enough.

I would say that they should make better plushies, but they may end up being more expensive.

[Titan Rising 2,156]

To be honest I'm surprised hasbro has stayed alive long enough to even produce this show, all the old my little pony stuff is just crap.  and aside from the show [which they were fortunate in hiring the genius of Lauren Faust] pretty much everything they produce now is still crap.

[khaine21x3 789]

To be honest I'm surprised hasbro has stayed alive long enough to even produce this show, all the old my little pony stuff is just crap.  and aside from the show [which they were fortunate in hiring the genius of Lauren Faust] pretty much everything they produce now is still crap.

 

Parents pretty much feed their kids crap and buy crap toys for them as long as it's cheap so it's easy to understand how Hasbro and Mcdonalds turned out to be a major success.

[DoctorWhovian1902 596]

Parents pretty much feed their kids crap and buy crap toys for them as long as it's cheap so it's easy to understand how Hasbro and Mcdonalds turned out to be a major success.

 

True.

 

Besides, this is a big corporation we're talking about here. Most aren't exactly famous for their quality marketing. If they can sell crap, they'll make crap. If anyone dares to take away from their money (even if they're not), those people will be in trouble. It's illogical thinking at it's finest.

[Princess_Molestia 1,460]

those first plushies are like 7 dollars the second one would go for like 100-200 dollars...

 

yeah if I felt so strongly about the mane i could just go to fabricland and remake it for 5 bucks

[Lady Leopardess 393]

I think if the ponies had been done with yarn hair ,then ya'll would be saying how terrible it was, even though that's how MLP has done plushes for YEARS. Personally I would have preferred yarn to the streamers though.  I'm not sure where you guys got this " unless it's molded hair it's horrible! " because if you look at most anime character plushes , not alot of effort is put into the hair  except maybe with the big plushes.

While I'm not saying their toys are perfect (there are definitely some things that I wish they did differently) saying they're "terrible/what not" is an exaggeration. These are toys , not figurines, so having brushable hair makes sense , and generally when one plays with toys you use your imagination , so the toy doesn't need to be perfect .

 

However aurora is coming out with the mane 6 plushes in june and they've got molded style hair.

 

Also I would totally not buy that plush in the top. A it's not a character in the show (or at least of any note) , also it looks angry.

 

I find it ironic a group whose suppose to be about "love and tolerance" is so judgmental about those poor cute plushes and the company that produces what brings everyone together.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Lady Leopardess

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

Why are you pointing figures at Hasbro for something the editor of that magazine said? He doesn't work for them, he's just trying to guess what their thinking, and bending in the info. 

 

. 

Edited March 3, 2013 by Shoboni

[Fhaolan 4,483]

Remember that Hasbro basically doesn't make anything anymore. They've only got two factories left, one in Ireland and one in Massachusetts, both of which are being downsized to the point of irrelevance. I'm not sure what is actually made in those two factories, as I can't find any info on that. Hasbro made the transition to a licensing corporation ages ago. Pretty much everything sold under the Hasbro label is a licensed product made by third-party companies, mostly in China.

 

It's possible to go through the effort of acquiring a license from Hasbro to make MLP products. A lot of these 'unauthorized' products that get squashed are because Hasbro has already granted a license to some other manufacturer, and that third-party found out about the unauthorized product and complained to Hasbro about unfair competition. I'm not saying it's easy or cheap to get that license, but it's possible.

 

If you want to see a company that *really* overreacts with weaponized lawyers, try to do an unauthorized product based on a Disney IP. Many years ago (1989) three Florida day cares had some Disney characters painted on the walls. Disney found out and shut them down with C&Ds, demanding that they remove the artwork or they would be sued. Hanna-Barbara came along and paid to have the walls repainted with their characters as part of a publicity ploy.

[FoxyCryptid 4,330]

I just checked Ebay, there's still loads of people making and sellling those things, so I don't know what means by squashing the custom toys and plushes. 

[Lady Leopardess 393]

I just checked Ebay, there's still loads of people making and sellling those things, so I don't know what means by squashing the custom toys and plushes. 

I think it's just be dramatic about the couple things they have stopped like Fighting is Magic. I haven't heard anything about plushes being stopped. I would think they'd leave the ones especially who are just doing BG characters.

[Veronica The Miffvixen 232]

Yeah, I'd say Hasbro is losing their marbles... but seeing what Gen 3 and Newborn Cuties were like, I'd say they lost their marbles a long time ago.

[Fhaolan 4,483]

I just checked Ebay, there's still loads of people making and sellling those things, so I don't know what means by squashing the custom toys and plushes. 

 

It's a misunderstanding and exaggeration of what happened to White Dove. White Dove produces some very expensive, but well made, plushies and sold them through Deviant Art. Hasbro supposedly contacted Deviant Art and through them had White Dove remove her pricing list. They didn't even mention her use of character names, she removed those from her site on her own initiative 'just in case'.

 

Basically she can still sell plushies, but they have to be commissioned as one-time-off type things. Anything that smacks of mass production is not allowed. According to White Dove, no C&D documents changed hands, no legal action was taken by anyone, or anything like it, it was all done quite amicably.

[Zennistrad 33]

To be honest I'm surprised hasbro has stayed alive long enough to even produce this show, all the old my little pony stuff is just crap.  and aside from the show [which they were fortunate in hiring the genius of Lauren Faust] pretty much everything they produce now is still crap.

 

I actually think Transformers Prime is a good show. Not nearly as good as Beast Wars or Transformers animated, but it's still an entertaining show that stays close to the spirit of the Transformers franchise.

 

Honestly, after Transformers Armada and the Michael Bay movies, it's refreshing to see good Transformers shows.

[PonyRocker95 106]

Lady Leopardess, on 03 Mar 2013 - 09:45, said:

I think if the ponies had been done with yarn hair ,then ya'll would be saying how terrible it was, even though that's how MLP has done plushes for YEARS. Personally I would have preferred yarn to the streamers though. I'm not sure where you guys got this " unless it's molded hair it's horrible! " because if you look at most anime character plushes , not alot of effort is put into the hair except maybe with the big plushes.

While I'm not saying their toys are perfect (there are definitely some things that I wish they did differently) saying they're "terrible/what not" is an exaggeration. These are toys , not figurines, so having brushable hair makes sense , and generally when one plays with toys you use your imagination , so the toy doesn't need to be perfect .

 

However aurora is coming out with the mane 6 plushes in june and they've got molded style hair.

 

Also I would totally not buy that plush in the top. A it's not a character in the show (or at least of any note) , also it looks angry.

 

I find it ironic a group whose suppose to be about "love and tolerance" is so judgmental about those poor cute plushes and the company that produces what brings everyone together.

A) who's aurora? and it was the first plush by WhiteDove that I found that looked good so don't complain unless your implying that I should change the picture to a mane character I kind of can't

Edited March 4, 2013 by PonyRocker88

[RockinRarity 1,605]

A) who's aurora? and it was the first plush by WhiteDove that I found that looked good so don't complain unless your implying that I should change the picture...

 

Aurora is not a person. Aurora is a company that makes plushies.

 

This is their website: http://www.auroragift.com/xe/

 

And this is their Toywiz preorder page for Twilight: http://www.toywiz.com/auroralargetwilight.html

 

They have the rest of the mane 6 available for preorder as well.

[Scootalove 10,689]

I would so buy the ones on the bottom of course. Besides, the core market does matter nowadays for toys and other products. Hasbro just needs to learn a bit more about high production rates.

[Sugar Cube 4,843]

I just want MORE stuff like this:

 

 

And LESS stuff like this:

 

 

But sadly, the target audience is little kids and they don't really have much of a grasp on what quality is. They'll take any old inaccurate toy as ugly as it is and be content. If ugly toys like the bottom Twilight doll will sell, then why would they bother putting forth the effort? They sell tons of Pony toys that are just recolors of the main cast for Pete's sake.

[Pixel Stick 927]

But sadly, the target audience is little kids and they don't really have much of a grasp on what quality is. They'll take any old inaccurate toy as ugly as it is and be content. If ugly toys like the bottom Twilight doll will sell, then why would they bother putting forth the effort? They sell tons of Pony toys that are just recolors of the main cast for Pete's sake.

 

Don't forget that the same exact thing was true in the 70s and 80s when a lot of much older toys were being produced.  Many people in my age range grew up with Rainbow Bright, Care Bears, Popples, He-Man, etc..  Objectively, those toys are arguably just as much "crap" as these ones are, and the marketing ploys are just as obvious and insidious.  But because we had these toys as kids, we grew an emotional attachment to them, sometimes so strongly that people would have my head for calling those toys "crap".

 

Personally, I was fond of Popples when I was a kid, and I enjoyed Care Bears as well.  When I grew up a little more, I started looking at both of those toy lines and their respective shows and going "Oh my god, what was I thinking!?"  And yet, because I enjoyed them as a kid, I'll always have a place in my heart for them.  I can totally see that the toys were made with cheap, brightly colored fabric and cotton stuffing, cheap plastic eyes, poor-quality machine stitching, and realistically they shouldn't be worth more than $1 or $2 apiece.  But I still have a Party Popple, and to anyone who asks, I say "Yeah, I know she's utter crap produced to make money, but I don't care.  I still love her."

 

My point being that Hasbro knows they can get away with making what us rational, critically-thinking adults see as cheap crap, because kids are far less likely to know or care about the difference, the cheap stuff is cheap to produce, and Hasbro, being one of the veterans of this industry, is counting on little kids developing emotional bonds to their merchandise no matter how cheaply made it is.

 

I agree that as an adult, I'd much rather buy a plushie that actually LOOKS like Twilight from the show, and I have no real desire to buy an official Hasbro toy that DOESN'T look like the show's characters.  But I can't really fault Hasbro for taking the cheap route when they know kids will still get their parents to buy the stuff.  Say what you will about it, but it's just good business sense.

Edited March 3, 2013 by Harvan

[kirbyboi 588]

I dunno why they didn't start trying to ban this stuff in the first place. I wonder why now, and not n the earlier times of the bronies... 

 

But I don't think Hasbo should be able to cancel these things, as long as they give correct copyright to Hasbro, and credits to the show and whatnot. But I agree, the officially made plushies, and sometimes products, aren't ANYTHING compared with the awesome fan-made stuff we see all the time. 

 

I don't think Hasbro is going strict on them anyways, but if they do, then we have a problem. Bronies have been doing commissions and stuff since the show began. But hopefully Hasbro won't be like this towards everything. 

[Betez 1,734]

Hasbro I feel lost their minds years ago. I honestly think they couldn't give a less possible amount of fuck about who buys there toys, regardless of whether they're teenage boys, or little girls, as long as they make a profit. I know this is how most franchises are, and I do understand that this is how business works, but I still don't like it.

[Princess_Molestia 1,460]

I just want MORE stuff like this:

 

 

And LESS stuff like this:

 

 

But sadly, the target audience is little kids and they don't really have much of a grasp on what quality is. They'll take any old inaccurate toy as ugly as it is and be content. If ugly toys like the bottom Twilight doll will sell, then why would they bother putting forth the effort? They sell tons of Pony toys that are just recolors of the main cast for Pete's sake.

thats a 3.5 style plush... what I imagine they do is make all this stuff BEFORE the show comes out.

They had no way of knowing bronies were gonna be a thing, or even last. I mean How many people actually thought it would get like it is, they couldn't just make newer toys and charge 3 times what the old ones were, what if bronies petered out and they couldn't sell these toys to kids, that'd be suicide!

What they seem to be doing is letting other companies make show accurate stuff, at a higher price, and keep to their normal stuff for kids, cheap and lower quality as the kids aren't gonna keep it like an adult will.

People don't know how companies work, how they make things and how they plan things.