http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/menu ... &company=0

Not sure what to make of these. No descriptions beyond the case packs. Are these 4" figures? 6"? Some new scale? Who knows!

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I want to build Iron Monger, but I don't want a lot of Iron Man rehashes.

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http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/prod ... ode=retail

$24.99 for 4 figures?
These are the 5 PoA 4" figures we've seen on Ebay.

Oi...

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People have complained about the rising prices. If you want inexpensive figures, this is the result.

that's a cop out. I mean, it might be their "justification" for the move, but it doesn't mean it's a legit excuse.

Besides, most people in the hobby would continue to pay the higher price for the higher quality items - assuming distribution issues were evened out. All the more so, if the movie wave system was ever fixed to allow for actual variety.

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problem with that is that they NEVER do lower the prices......Just keep raising them ...... and lowering the articulation... Like Bindy said....its a cop out.

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Are you sure? I thought these were the 5 POA figures:

http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/prod ... ode=retail

On other forums, people were saying that the 5POA figures were the assemblers.

I think without images, it is too soon to tell what is what. There are a lot of listings there and BBTS has never been an accurate gauge of retail price.

What exactly WOULD be a "legit excuse"?

There's your problem. You're looking at it from the viewpoint of the hobby world when you should be looking at it from the viewpoint of the target audience and the parents buying them. While we might pay a higher price for a higher quality figure, THEY won't. The prices are going to go up regardless (which they are long overdue as it is). They have to make cuts somewhere in order to keep them from going up MORE than they are. Either in the paint, the accessories, or in number of parts assembled. It makes me scratch my head how Hasbro was making ANY money when they were selling figure 2-packs for $6-$8. They were selling Deluxe sized Transformers for $10 in 1996. For ~$14-$15 years the price remained the same which is crazy. Prices of materials and cost of labor continue to rise as the economy continues to fall. They just can't afford to sell a heavily painted, extremely articulated, accessory loaded action figure for $7 anymore. Does it suck? Damn right it does. Is it likely to get better anytime soon? Unfortunately, the answer is likely no. I don't like it anymore than you guys do, but I also understand that there are reasons for these things and just because I don't like them is no reason not to accept them. I don't know how to produce and manufacture a toy so it seems logical to me to listen to those that do.

How do other companies do it? I can buy a two pack of Hobbit figures at TRU for $14.99 that has similar to Joe articulation ( better than some Marvel figs) with a bunch of useful accessories and they are well painted and don't fall apart when I look at them funny. This from a company that has nowhere near the buying power of a Hasbro when it comes to negotiating with factories.

I am fed up with Hasbro's excuses for many of their product lines. I collect GI Joe, Star Wars and Marvel Universe (and associated movies). All three had awful distribution this year. They can't blame collectors for not buying when nothing was available to buy. Same goes for Mom and Dad. As a parent of an 8 year old boy, I can tell you, he has almost zero interest in action figures. I've tried my best to persuade him. He actually likes my 80's Joes better than anything modern.

Hasbro needs to change their sales model or they will not survive in the action figure market. And I am not talking about cutting articulation and charging 10 bucks per figure. I know I'm growing tired of the hunt and the price point.

actually, I don't have a problem.

But I know "LASER BLAST" when I see it, and I don't mind calling "LASER BLAST" here. When 25A hit, figures were $5 a pop. Figures which were each, by default, newly tooled, and which had (despite some flaws in design) better articulation than some of the newer stuff like has been discussed with the rumored IM3 line. Figures from Hasbro today that do have the same amount of articulation are now $10 a pop. Even the MU figs that rarely have accessories.

I can live with the idea that costs have increased. But do you really believe that costs have doubled in 5 years? If so, there's your problem.

This isn't a collector vs. normal consumer bit either. It's about getting what you pay for. I buy for myself as an adult, yes, but also for my kids. And while I buy more toys for my boys than most parents do, I can tell you that if my sensibilities are offended by "LASER BLAST" product for premier pricing, you can bet other "normal" parents' sensibilities will be offended also. The Green Lantern movie figs didn't go unsold (except for clearance) only because fickle collectors ignored them - kids and parents did too. And hell, that line had GREAT distribution and GREAT character variety.

I only customize, so I have no need to buy things for full market price. I will always wait for secondary discounts...well usually anyway...lol. But speaking as someone who still has a vested interest in seeing new figures made in scale (useful figures, not bricks of plastic), I can see many choices by the big H which are self-fulfilling failures waiting to happen.

But the bottom line - the reason I called your statement a cop out, is that the 5 POA bricks should sell for about $3, unless packed in with a vehicle, and an articulated figure for $6 (unless it's a deluxe loaded with extras kind of figure like the POC line, hence my comment about what people in the hobby would pay). But acting like Hasbro is meeting consumer demand by giving us $6 figures that are crap is either naive or disinegenuous, and since it's a common opinion you express, I'll lean towards naive.

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Part of this comes down to the economy, and not just in this country. Things cost the companies more to make, so they're going to pass that cost along to the retailer, and they're going to pass that cost along to us. It's not just Hasbro, and it's not just toys. You can lay some of this at the feet of the retailers, who are going to want to get all they can for the products they sell. If Walmart and Target think they can get away with charging ten bucks for a figure that five years ago cost half that, then they will and they'll blame it on inflation.

Now, what CAN be laid at the feet of Hasbro is the reduction in articulation, and THERE is where I see a cop-out. At the same time, we need to remember that neither Hasbro nor the retailers view toys from a collector standpoint. They can't. And with all the various forms of electronic entertainment around these days, it's extremely hard to interest kids in action figures, regardless of economic conditions. I'm not saying that's a justification for reduced articulation, but there's likely someone in the decision-making process who figures that a six-year-old isn't going to much care. That's speculation on my part, as I don't know enough about the business side of things to really state that with any certainty, but none of it would surprise me.

As for what things "should" cost -- well, heck, I'd like to get a box of breakfast cereal for $1.25, but I don't expect that to happen anytime soon. I don't often see prices go down on much of anything anymore.

As for these Iron Man figures, I'll wait and see what we get. I don't really need that many more armored guys around here, but if it's a new suit design, and the articulation level is decent, we'll see. Otherwise -- well, I do agree that I hope we can get some better distribution with Hasbro lines in general, including Marvel Universe and G.I. Joe. If there's some good product available, which I believe there is, I'd like to be able to get it with as little fuss as possible.

Distribution is a problem from the retail end of it. There's not much Hasbro can do about it.

Hasbro doesn't make decisions "just because". There are reasons for them and you'll notice that the reasons that we are given are coming from people working on the brand who DO care about it, as well as people who have dealt with Hasbro, not someone in a suit who only cares about the bottom line. Considering I really don't know the ins and outs of action figure production, nor does anyone else here, I'm willing to take those reasons at face value instead of making up a reason because I don't like it or even blaming them for something that they don't control. I don't know why other figures may cost less than Hasbro's. I don't collect much else outside of GI Joe or Transformers so I don't worry about what other companies are doing.

According to this site, the average wage of a manufacturing employee in 2002 was 57 cents/hour US. 5 years later in 2007 that wage was $1.06/hour. The following year it went up 30 cents. According to an article on this site that wage has gone up to $2.50/hour. So in five years the average wage went up almost 150%. So yes, it's pretty easy to believe that manufacturing costs have doubled in 5 years.

And none of that justifies this statement:



which remains... a cop out.

Look, it's nothing personal. I get just as tired as the next guy of hearing people whine about a toy company's decision ruining their lives. But your statement above (i.e. the company line) doesn't fly. If costs are rising, so be it. But please don't try to put a happy face on quality reduction or try to make it sound like it's what collectors, customizers, kids, parents, or consumers in general have "asked for".

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When did we ask for less articulation? Why would we have done that? Stupid us!

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This bit makes no sense at all.

Even if it weren't obvious to anyone paying attention that most developed economies in the world are at some stage in their recovery at this point (and yes, that includes "emerging" Asian economies like China and India that suffered a bit of a setback later than the United States' massive downturn in 2008 -- pretty much only a few Euro-zone nations are actually in decline at present), increasing wages and costs for production are almost always signs of economic GROWTH ("rise" as opposed to "fall" as you posit).

The fact that your whole argument hinges on this illogical assumption makes it very difficult to imagine you know what you're talking about.