Hasbro Blaming The Market For The Shift To Six Inch Is Peak Frustration

During the Fan Friday Follow Up Google Hangout Q&A on Wednesday, Hasbro seems to be passing the buck to "the market" as the reason for the heavy shift to 6" product. It's the equivalent of murdering someone, and then blaming them for dying.

At Bantha Skull, we hope to rest our heads on our pillows at night knowing the following:

We don't take any cheap shots.
When the benefit of the doubt can be given, it is.
Any criticism we level, no matter how harsh, is fair.

With respect to fairness, I need to remind everyone that Patrick is only the messenger in this, and I don't envy anyone charged with delivering an unpleasant or unwanted message. Any personal attacks on Patrick in the comments will not be tolerated. His last name is not Hassenfeld. Hasbro is not a sole proprietorship. And last I checked, he doesn't take up residence in the C-suite.

With that backdrop, and the understanding that there are some global economic forces at work over which Hasbro has no control, it is clear that this is a market that Hasbro has flat out blundered repeatedly over the past decade.

With that out of the way (and with 90% of you having clicked the back button due to TL;DR already), let's unwind the recent history of the 3.75" line. I have to only skim the surfaces of the issues, but they all go much deeper.

• In 2009, serious quality control issues with the plastics started to creep into the line. Many white armored figures were already yellowed in the package. There were also frequent inclusions in the plastic. Is it "the market's" fault for the drop in quality which turned off consumers?


• In 2010, those QC issues continued into the inaugural TVC waves to include two white armored figures that no one was asking for. Specifically the all white Phase II Clone Trooper and the perfectly clean Sandtrooper. Is it "the market's" fault that undesirable figures with serious QC issues were released?


• In 2011, the exciting and all new Attack of the Clones "wave 4" was skipped over in favor of a dreaded "repaint" wave. That repaint wave contained two white armored troopers, namely the Stormtrooper and Utapau clone Trooper. Both suffered from...you guessed it...the SAME blasted QC issues that Hasbro could not manage to correct for two years. The Utapau clones were showing up in stores with helmets that were already highlighter yellow. This wave, combined with the leftovers of the two abovementioned 2010 figures, almost single-handedly blocked out much of the upcoming 2011 product from brick and mortar. Most of the supply of the subsequent highly in-demand figures ended up in wheel barrows at Five Below as a result. Is this "the market's" fault?


• In 2012, I don't need to remind you of what happened, but I will anyway. In utter tone deafness to consumer desires, Hasbro and their retail partners overwhelmed us with The Phantom Menace product. It wasn't that the product existed. Much of it was quite good. It was the flooding of the market with the 2012 launch wave and the the incessant carrying forward of figures whose consumer demand was scarcely there in the first place. Meanwhile, much of the product was simultaneously being released in other companion product lines. It was Groundhog Day for TVC collectors as the launch effectively shut down the brick and mortar channel for the rest of the year, despite the production of many in-demand figures. Do you see a pattern? Hasbro's customers can't get the product they want because product they didn't want or ask for is in the way. Keep in mind, ordering individual figures online wasn't as practical in 2012 as it is today.


• In 2013, TVC was rested in favor of the drab 3.75" Black Series line. The QC issues were now absolutely unforgivable and extended to all figures, not just the white armored troopers. The paint applications were at times laughably bad. Add into this, the packaging quality was so poor that the bubbles were literally falling off the cards on the pegs. It's during this time that I gave some of my lowest ever review scores to super-articulated figures. Blaming the market for rejection of the product during this period is an insult. It would be like a restaurant serving hockey pucks as steaks, and then saying they took steak off the menu because no one wanted it.


• The damage was now officially done. 2014 saw a greatly reduced product line combined with a price increase. A burned out and jaded customer base wasn't in the mood for the price hike, and the line was largely rejected despite some solid collector-grade figures. 3.75" went away as a general mainline.


• In 2018, TVC came back to much fanfare, but the launch wave figure selection is unconscionably bad. No one can rightly fault Hasbro for Snoke. We wanted it, and nobody could have predicted the ruining of the potential for the character with his quick death in The Last Jedi. However the trio of Rey, Jyn, and Kylo being selected for re-release despite having JUST satisfied the US market demand via multiple releases in the Walmart Black Series line WHILE many Walmart concurrently had the same figures in the clearance section for $4...well, this was Hasbro's Zune moment. The 2018 launch wave will forever be the epitaph that fans use to describe any terrible case assortment going forward. "It's 2018 Wave 1 bad," will be a phrase in circulation for a generation of collectors.

No. "The Market" is not something that just happened to Hasbro. It happened, at least in part, because of Hasbro. Hasbro was an unintentional accessory to murdering "The Market," so blaming it for dying is disingenuous.

Now let's talk about "the market" some more. Are we collectors/consumers to be blamed for not buying product that we repeatedly told Hasbro WE DID NOT WANT? I'm not talking about second guessing. Second guessing is cheap. We, as in the entire community, told Hasbro this well in advance, and in a single voice. We did not want Rey, Jyn, or Kylo in that launch wave. Here's proof this shot was called well in advance:

HERE (July 2017)

Just for good measure, here's another, just before the launch wave hit:

HERE (April 2018).

For the July 2017 article, look at the caption of the last photo. These shots are not hard to call, so it's frustrating when Hasbro fails to do so.

Now, what about the product that "the market" tells you it wants? In another singular voice, the market was screaming for Yak Face, a new Stormtrooper, and more Skiff Guards. Have any of those products been anything but a success? Seemingly no e-tailer can keep the Stormtrooper in stock despite multiple fulfillments. Even the Remnant and Shadow variants fly out of stock. In fact, since that 2018 TVC launch wave, has any newly tooled or new character been rejected by the market? I can't think of one. Most are fetching premiums on the secondary market. Even the objectively terrible VC146 Luke Skywalker (Crait) goes for ridiculous prices on Ebay (Sponsored).

How can the market be blamed when it enthusiastically supports what it asks for, but categorically rejects what it expressly says it does not? The market that backed the Barge is still screaming for more new Skiff Guards and repacks of the harder to find ones (while we are still paying a fortune for those on the secondary market). The market is screaming for a Beskar Mandalorian. The market is screaming for an Episode VI Emperor. And most importantly, the market is screaming for more...product. MORE. More, more, more. Not more of what we never asked for. More of the products consistently and universally have asked for. It's literally impossible for the market to vote more strongly with their wallets. Everything since TFF 2019 has sold, or nearly sold, through. We can't buy what is not made. If I had a nickel for every time some collector sarcastically said, "Thanks, Hasbro. Now I can save my money," I'd have enough cash to fund a run of Emperor Palpatine figures myself.

It feels like the TVC community is taking the punishment for Hasbro’s missteps. They have turned us all into Private Pyle’s platoonmates. They stole the jelly donut, but we’re the ones doing the push ups.

"The market" is there. It is alive and well. It might not be the market that Hasbro wants to develop. It might not be the market that Hasbro is particularly good at developing anymore. It might not be the market that Hasbro feels is low enough risk. All of those are fine and acceptable. We are big boys and girls here. We do not begrudge Hasbro one bit for making the best business decisions for Hasbro. But please don't tell us "the market" isn't there, because it is. It might just be a market that is too challenging to exploit, and that is understandable.

But in my heart of hearts, I don't think the true answer is that the market is forcing Hasbro away from 3.75' and towards The Black Series 6" line. I think TBS is the easier market for Hasbro to exploit due to its newness and universal demand for core characters, and that is the real answer. It's not a hard nut to crack when every single customer needs a Mace Windu and Count Dooku. Tell me that, and you will get no argument.

Oh, and also please tell me we're getting a new TVC Emperor Palpatine.

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