But you know who does know? The Hasbro brand manager. He has to know everything from the cost of producing with an O-ring to the profit margins of their hundred million dollar franchise. And every claim you've made based on assumptions and your own observations has made you look naive and narrow-minded.

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And at the end of the day, this thread is completely useless.

I want my $2 back.

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Timeout to point out a fun irony of life: kids growing up faster yet kids these days seem to be more immature than in years past. Just saying

Anyway, I thought about the price differences while in Target today comparing the $7-8 joes with the $3 knockoff crap brand guys a few spots down. Not the forces of valor ones (those are bad, but a little more mid-range at least) and then the $3 freedom force or wahtever they are. The ones that come with a poorly painted low articulation figure with a gun. Yep, the 2009 edition of Remco Eagle Force lol. And I realized compared to the Joes, those figures are worse than a week-old stool sample. And for what you get with the Joe figure, it does seem like a good deal.

But yeah I wish the price on Joes was lower so that parents would buy them more for kids and not just the once in a while pickup that has been going on. And then I also keep in mind that while pegs are full of figures, it's also b/c they made more of them than they had with the 25th line, so there's more to go around even if they are selling better than the 25th (which they should be b/c, hey, movie...lol)

And like the transformers movie line...it seemed to stall out as far as seeing new figures on shelves about 3 or 4 weeks ago, when at least I first saw the ice cream twins wave coming out, and then after that it's seemed like the same figures over & over again. Kind of like this for most lines (except DCUC...damn mattell's underproduction!) and how they hit that stale back to school period for now.

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I think the main ploblem, is that hasbro over estimated the market. And produced more figures than it can sell, and its a pretty big mistake. you get too many of the same figures and the line stalls. You have to have a changing and evolving stock if you're going to have a sustainable toy line. in order to get people to buy there has to be something different or new. Toy lines like terminator and Star Trek weren't meant to go on for years. they were only intended to capitalize on the momentary popularity of the movie, make a ton of money and then die out.

A lower price it makes it easier for someone like me with a limited budget to buy extras. The price isn't going to stop me from buying one neo-viper but at the price now it sure as hell keeps me from buying a second, third and fourth neo-viper. And if 5 dollars a figure isn't realistic why can I buy a toys r us exclusive with 5 figures and a vehicle for 25 dollars?

It seems that trying to sell to kids is a lost cause. Who knows what they want? They seem to like whatever is on tv or in the movies at the time, or some video game. It probably be better to market to the parents and get them to buy stuff because they "think" their kids will like it. There's tons of spoiled brats here in San Diego and I'm sure their parents would love to shower them in joes if their pointed in the right direction. But, they should concentrate on the customers they have and give us a break on the price.

Selling to kids isn't really that hard. I don't know why it always comes back to that. Kids buy what they preceive to be popular. If cartoons, movies, commercials, McDonald/Burger King promos, etc. are done right, kids go ape over the toy. It happens time and time again. Once something fumbles though, kids are real quick to jump on to the next thing. Media has really made a mess of things, but it's that constant "stay on top" thing that keeps them hooked. Sad to say, but that's what's helped Transformers. I hate the new story every year idea, but it is the reinventing it's self that keeps kids wanting more. Power Rangers as well. Most all of these Anime toy lines are like that too, even though we see it as "same old crap".

The arguement about price point I don't think will ever get an agreement. I'm on the side of thinking it could be lower, but I don't think it would ever go below $5. I think the best that can be done is $1 drop. As we saw with Target, they started to sell them at $6.99 then bumped it up to $7.99. I don't think that was a sale, but just that they saw them no different than the 25th anniversary figures. The price point probably wasn't any different as far as what Target paid, and who knows what brought them to decide on the price. I do think though that it isn't a price increase on what stores paid though, but just what Hasbro's suggested retail price was.

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No no no. They are more cost effective. That doesn't equal cheeper. Hasbro is getting more bang for there buck with ROC then with the o-ring figures. Also you have to do lots of individual sculpts with RAH becuse if two guys have the same torso you notice, but with ROC you toss some different web gear on there an pow, new individualized torso. Indeividual figures may cost more to make, but there maybe less tooling costs, and the abillity to re use that tooling over and over again which helps justify the cost.

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In the end, when it's all said and done, is there ANY action figure line, of ANY scale that can compare with the sheer number of both 100% new figure sculpts and trademarked names (new and prexisting) that GI Joe has put out in the last 12 months (besides Star Wars)? In the same scale ?

Transformers has scales all over the place.

Power Rangers have ALWAYS shared male body molds (sometimes with females)

Star Wars is most comperable to Joe, but still doesn't have a STANDARD articulation on par with Joe.

Dragonball Z figures are martial artist figures that don't always have the ability to KICK.

TMNT doesn't have the cast of Joe

DC's 1/18 figures don't have near the articulation as Joe.

WWE BnB figures share many, MANY parts, have legs that fall off, and don't have the cast of Joe.



I could go on, but the wife wants to go jogging. I just belive that if you were to list all of the all-new figure molds from the last year and add them up, you'll get a number bigger than almost any 2 other lines put together.

Not only scales there but the styles don't really work together so you can't combine Universe, Animated, and Movie figures in a single collection.

While Rise of Cobra had problems as a film at least I didn't have to start a whole new GI Joe collection so I can mix the movie stuff in with my 25th and Resolute figures.