My letter to Hasbro...a toy rant.

[Toy Timelord]

Character selection is ridiculous. I've waited years for certain characters they're in no hurry to produce. Characters who star in super popular books.

Where's my Quentin Quire, Or Sam Alexander?

[SeattleEd]

More power to you. Well done!

[torgospizza]

Heck, howabout how they totally missed the boat on GI Joe's 50th this year? Incredible.

No kidding. They did everything right for the 40th, but nothing at all I'm interested in now. Meijer grocery stores did more for Joe in 2004 than Hasbro's doing for the 50th.

[PNGwynne]

Rant away--they don't care. Utter contempt for their consumer base.

Fisher-Price, even FTC, is better-attuned to their customers.

And yes, T-bolt--The lack of even one commemorative, holiday-release 12-inch 50th Anniversary GI Joe is sad, sad, sad. Hasbro shoved that off onto the GIJ Collector's Club at a steep price.

[Gorn Captain]

Reminds me of the 1701 Edition of the Playmates Star Trek figure line.
That made sure that 99,9% of people collecting that line would never have a complete set.

You know what, the only thing that accomplished (in my case) is that I now just collect very selectively and pick favorites, not complete sets. It's the company that loses my business. I now buy one figure instead of five.

Personally, I hate exclusives. These days, I don't even look at them anymore. With all the extra costs (add international shipping and customs as well), they are out of my price range completely.
I don't care about "rare" figures, "limited editions", I just want easy access to a factory-produced plastic toy. If they want to cater to an elite group, so be it. Maybe one day they'll find out that's a dangerous business strategy....

[enyawd72]

^The last straw for me was yesterday, when the previously announced, than canceled, now somehow released Rogue showed up on Ebay and is currently at $1400.

[thunderbolt]

Heck, howabout how they totally missed the boat on GI Joe's 50th this year? Incredible.

[enyawd72]

Well, the unthinkable has happened...I've officially given up on Marvel Legends. A toyline I've collected since 2002. Here's my letter to Hasbro explaining why...





Dear Hasbro,


I wanted to take a few moments to write your company and thank you. Due to your business practices, you will be saving me a great deal of money, as I will no longer be collecting Marvel Legends. This is something I never thought would happen. I’ve collected them since Toy Biz began producing them in 2002. My reason for stopping is the ridiculous, never-ending amount of exclusives you produce for the line. They do not make collecting the Marvel Legends line “fun” or “exciting” or “challenging” or anything of the sort. What they do accomplish is making the line an inconvenient, expensive pain-in-the-*** to collect. This hobby is supposed to be fun, and your tactics have completely sucked the joy out of it.

As of this writing, you currently have a Toys R Us exclusive box set, an entire Toys R Us exclusive wave, a Target exclusive box set, a San Diego Comic con exclusive box set, and a Walgreens exclusive figure. I am sick and tired of wasting my time and very expensive gasoline making endless trips to various stores chasing these figures down, only to come up empty handed. I am then forced to resort to EBay where I end up paying two to three times the retail price plus shipping. Paying $70 for an already overpriced $20 figure is ridiculous, and I’m not doing it anymore. The only people who benefit from all of these exclusives are scalpers who are laughing all the way to the bank, while true collectors are screwed.

Compounding the issue also are your ridiculously devised case ratios. Who within your company thought it was a good idea to offer an exclusive Toys R Us build-a-figure wave, and then short pack the figures that come with the torso and left arm of said build-a-figure? That doesn’t even make sense from a manufacturing standpoint. You molded, painted, and packaged twice as many right arms and heads as there are left arms and torsos to go with them. I’m no expert, but surely you see the lapse in logic here? You wasted money producing parts that cannot be used, the cost of which is then passed onto the consumer. I hope someone in your company will take note of these issues, and make an effort to change them. I know I’m not the only collector who feels this way, nor the only one who has stopped collecting because of it.


Sincerely,

Dwayne Pinkney