Yup this the biggest problem I see too, collector line, cartoon line, store exclusive line, online only line and then all the gimmick stuff. Just give us all a main cartoon line and adult line and have a theme across the line aka that lines gimmick
@@galvon Honestly, this year we shouldn't have gotten any ss tfone figures. Just pure mainline for all the main characters and side characters then you can start ss the year or 2 after.
@@dillydraws the last two years we had two movies most were still trying to share the shelf earthspark and ss and United line way to much and then Walmart had there own exclusive line way to many lines for Hasbro to make. This is why most the good stuff is never on the shelf that and the stores are trying to fit all this in a 3 foot wide floor space
Legacy... is mainline, dude. It's literally generations, aka the line a vast majority of TF toys have been a part of for nearly 20 years now. It's on the box.
I don't understand why kids would even want the gimmick toys. When I was a kid, the gimmick toys were always a disappointment. I never wanted them and when I got a few as gifts, I never played with them.
I used to work for Toys R Us. Hasbro requires a minimum purchase order that is really high & certain items have to be part of your order. They force you to buy games & toys they know don't sell well.
no wonder they are losing money Imagine if hasbro was normal and focused on stocking on what people want like those ss 86 optimus primes instead of gimmick toys nobody wants and actually reissued mainline figures they know will sell instead of waiting years upon years
Second this. I wonder why Hasbro doesn’t do more role play toys? Gimmicky, transforming ion blasters like the one you see on 2007. Or TF one Megatron’s triple barrelled fusion cannon that you can actually mount on your forearm. Maybe a combining or transforming gimmick put into it! Matrix toys for crying out loud!
With Kamen Rider, I would say the Drivers are always going to work but with figures, not really. Gotchard didn't even finish doing figures of all forms and with Gavv, they realized that kids care more about articulation.
Eh, I wouldnt say so. With the Drivers, yes but the gimmicks are also an extention of the Driver. With the Gimmick figures (Like Gotchard's) they usually either shelfwarm or don't make it that far into the line.
Gimmick KR figures dont sell well because kids already know that they can either get the same figure for much cheaper (So-do) or with much better quality (S.H Figuarts) if they just wait a bit. Hell, most of the time those lines come out faster than the gimmick line
Hasbro fumbled the ball with TF One figures. Why the hell do I have to wait 6 months to get the 4 main autobots from the movie. Meanwhile Yolopark has the 4 characters ready to go in cogged and cogless mode.
This is so real. My birthday is near christmas so bless my lovely mother suggested going to this store for it but I'd honestly just rather go to indemand physical store because they have both blokees and mainstream/collector lines
i love gimmick toys but i definitely agree. i think the division of "cheap gimmick toys for kids" and "serious gimmickless figures for collectors" was ultimately bad for the transformers brand. I wish Legacy/AOTP had springloaded missiles or other silly stuff. Bring back Powerlinx with modern engineering! I miss the Prime Wars trilogy
Eh, I don't think a lack of gimmicks is an issue. Sure, they're neat if unobtrusive, but for transformers the sacrifices needed to include gimmicks into a figure is too much for what they provide.
this is something i can get behind!! a lot of hardcore collectors just want the gimmicks completely gone. But honestly i prefer a more balanced approach to gimmick vs mainline remember: the old toylines also had gimmicks like 07 Cyber Slammers, Animated Activators, or other misc toylined like Bot Shots, so having it completely gone is unfair also cause i liked some of the silly gimmicks soooo (One Power Flip Optimus is actually so cool imo)
ima be that guy today: transformers is still mainly a toy brand for kids, ofcourse gimmick toys are gonna be the main focus. collectors have their legacy series, they have masterpiece, they have haslab, they have a lot so i think it's fair to leave some fun gimmick toys for the kiddos on the shelves. i mean yea theres a lot but you gotta remember who the main demographic is here.
Honestly, this. Toy stores (and department stores with toy aisles) aren't for collectors, they're for children. If you want to buy collector lines, go to a collector store like RobotKingdom or BBTS. When they do exclusives in Generations, like the Star Seekers, G2, or Velocitron capsule collections, which their exclusive partner stores don't even bother stocking (especially when those partners rarely stock Generations in the first place) that's a problem, but that's a whole different video really
As a kid I never liked gimmicks I just wanted cool looking toys. Some gimmicks are integrated better than others but generally they make the figure worse.
You’ve gotta wonder. Does Hasbro even profit from selling these? Like I actually wanna see the profit from these gimmick toys and then actual transformers
What pains me the most is that some of the gimmicks are fun but they are either so incredibly expensive for what they are worth or just too many of them exist that they clog up space that can easily be filled by a Studio Series or Legacy figure. Best example is the Cyber Combiners from EarthSpark. These are good sets if you want combining toys. However, they aren’t worth 30 bucks. The fact there is only two of them also hurt that we see the same Twitch and Robby set over and over again. If they were 10 dollars, I can see someone picking them up and being genuinely surprised by how fun they are. Oh yeah, prices suck. Why is a giant hallow Bumblebee with a eagle from his chest worth 55 dollars when you could’ve gotten a Legacy Leader figure and have better value from that.
Bakugan in a sense has and had this issue of gimmicks being more important than mainlines, I remember working at a Walmart and telling my co worker work did the toy aisles that he has stock that has been around more than I’ve been there (at that point it was over a year) and as soon as I told him and I went back on my lunch all of it including some shelf warmers were on clearance 😂
One of the reasons Hasbro makes these cruddy gimmick toys is because they think kids above the age of toddlers don't play with toys anymore because they have tablets and PCs. While it's a very compelling argument, I don't believe that to be the entire case. Personally, I think it's actually due to the fact that they not only overload shelves with these knock-off quality kiddy toys but also the fact that they have the audacity to overprice them, like they somehow expect a kid or their parents for that matter to afford gimmick toys at such a price. They're not attracting newcomers; they're scaring them away.
My younger cousin got one of the newer Optimus Prime toys, half of it was hollow and the vehicle form was stored ENTIRELY on the back so it could do some sort of pathetic half-assed attempt at transforming itself. Originally the one-step changers were a line. Now it is a feature that they'll put on random ones. Sure, you could argue that it makes transformers more accessible for younger kids or people with disabilities- but that isn't what they are at all! Half of them don't even have moving legs and only have swinging shoulders. They aren't getting to play with Transformers, they are getting to push a button, or accidentally tap a wheel, and getting jumpscared by the thing folding in half. They don't look cool anymore, and they keep leaving the backs hollow. Here's a challenge, find a Bumblebee that not only look presentable, but doesn't become see through when a light source so much as brushes an atom of it. Bonus points if he can be posed with elbows and knees bent! Whenever we get an actually decent figure it'll be scaled randomly and not fit the last decent figure, and it'll cost your grans kidneys to afford it. What was once standard issue is now seen as some sort of amazing reinventing of the wheel- like we couldn't do that 10-15 years ago for the cost of what most one-steps cost now. The one-steps are now the main toys, it's not that people actually like them more so they keep buying them, it's just all there is in shops anymore.
yeah, in my area in france, its a problem that's been killing the brand presence there for a while. a few years ago, you used to be able to see up to oeader class of titans returns with leader class from the first wave of studio series. nowadays, at the same spaces, IF you still have transformers, its 1 collumn with MAYBE if you're lucky, an earthsparks warrior class (all pegs or optimus). hell, at one of my local supermarket, the transformers section still has the rid2015 cardboard decoratio installed for the transformers aisle
I stopped seeing leader class figures at most if not all of my local Walmarts because ALL of that bottom shelf space is taken up by those big TF One gimmick toys. It was straight up annoying seeing all the section cluttered with that stuff for months while very little of the Star Raiders toyline arrived.
7:40 very true, when I was a kid I didn’t like the one step changer age of extinction Optimus bc it was very small and not that cool as a normal toy (despite me actually liking it more fondly lately), I wanted the actual age of extinction toys, with articulation and everything
The spring action toys and click switch weapons were awesome as a kid I think those were gimmick enough but serious enough to still enjoy especially bc the transformers weren’t horrible morso everything post revenge of the fallen I thought was cool and even some of the g1-wfc stuff was really cool, still have my leader class voice line ROTF sword claws prime from when I was younger, the sideswipe corvette was one of my favorite figs, I had wfc bee, there was a bee that was g1 inspired I wish I could find. Used to do stop motion with them on my 3DS
this is a problem. their lightsabers? shitty just random character face on the sword.. who the fuck wants that? "oh it's for kids" then why are the shelves full of them? so on and so on. I as a kid never liked the super gimmicky toys. for transformers? I liked the chunky ones from like energon or whatever we found at garage sales or older + repaints for modern lines of the time. lightsabers? "wow that looks just like the movie!" (to a kid at least)never did I want these dumb gimmick things. NEVER, I don't know who does or they just think kids want this.. I didn't and I can't recall anyone from then who did, nobody did, nobody does
if they want to do gimmick why not try to emulate the rid 2000 one step changers like towline, that figure was a 1 step changer and was really fun but then again they might just charge 20
I mean the reason why we have stuff like this because parents complained about the transformers figures being too complicated at the time leading to hasbro to downscale their quality around rid2015, aoe, tlk It wasn't all bad... at first we used to have good figures during that time even with the need to simplify and down grade the quality. Now we have figures that are too simplified, cheap, and just a way to make kids feel bad because their transformers can't pose like the others can In short it start because parents went:"think of the children" leading what we got now, too be fair their not completely wrong but hasbro shouldn't have downgraded that much after those three series ended They should've taken some cues from the unicron trilogy and the 2007 toyline with their gimmicks that don't hinder the figures that much
It's so bad here in Yuma that whenever I try to look for a deluxe or Studio series especially all I get are these stupid cheap gimmick toys and yet any Studio series figures I do manage to find are the ones no one cares about
As @dillydraws has pointed out, we have five mainlines too many. Two are fine, one to promote the movies and one to promote a TV show. But when you have seven "mainlines", twelve exclusives AND three "evergreen" slots, it means you're pumping out far too much plastic tat without spending nearly as much money on quality control.
Gimmick figures are good as a novel change of pace from the usual Transformers fare. Having 90% of all physical store stock be gimmick figures destroys any interest in going to the store to find a new figure, and they don't sell to kids either. I worked at Toys R Us, those things do not leave the shelf more than once in a blue moon.
Strongly agree, with both you and GotBot. I go to the local Walmart and see nothing but the same toys over and over. That sight doesn’t fill me with excitement; it makes me think Hasbro is running Transformers into the ground. It also brings up another issue that’s been raised with Transformers (and completely justifiably): the cost of the nicer toys. For example, the SS86 Bumblebee to my knowledge is quite a nice toy, very screen accurate to the movie, but it’s barely larger than a Core Class and is not worth almost $25. If Hasbro would actually focus on toys that appealed to collectors and kids alike, instead of stuffing the shelves with toys that appealed to neither, maybe they could bring down some of these prices and I’d buy Transformers more often.
I think you’re working with a misconception - that the gimmicky crap doesn’t sell. Hasbro’s biggest customers are not us the collectors or even kids - it’s WalMart, Target, and Amazon. If there is a bunch of gimmicky crap on shelves it’s because the retailers bought them. The retailers wanted those items taking up space on their shelves. They place these orders a year out or more and don’t have the flexibility to put in a rush order when deluxes sell out. And because none of them are dedicated toy stores (RIP TRU) the action figure aisle makes up a teeny tiny portion of their profits. I don’t think they think there is sufficient benefit to maximizing action figure sales efficiency to make it worth their while. It works well enough for them, Hasbro dances to their tune, so we’re stuck with it. As a collector, there really isn’t much reason to keep hunting the toy aisles for most toys. Online preordering with reliable retailers is the only sane option now.
I really doubt kids are going to target all by themselves to get toys anyway. These kinds of toys should be sold at walgreens or gamestop not bigger retailers.
Get rid of all of them. You say 1 step changers are supposed to be for toddlers and under 5, but in the very box you use as an example it says 6+. Those crappy figures have no target public! Remember TFA activators line? Compare them to the modern 1 step changers, it makes no sense that they were capable of doing that all those years ago and we have to swallow this garbage
Favorited this video! Thanks for speaking our minds. It pains me to see such a monumental waste of plastic with the gimmick toys Hasbro makes, for TFs and Marvel and Star Wars. Everyone sees them, no one wants them because for a few more bucks invested you can get a more timeless and durable figure like Studio Series that actually transform!! Im astounded the TF store is not stocked with “serious” collector’s TFs and instead stocked with cheap garbage gimmicks when the most serious TF fans are adults now with money! Hasbro needs to wake up and understand collectors should be their focus, not some phantom kids that are proving they are not interested in cheap tricks
I like gimmicks but I hate the way Hasbro builds modern gimmick toys. During Cybertron every Transformer Hasbro made was a gimmick toy, they were also fun toys on top of that. Modern gimmick transformers don’t do anything outside of their gimmick, most of them don’t even have shoulder articulation. How is a kid supposed to play with an Optimus Prime who can’t even point his blaster at anything?
Honestly just buy your transformers online. I’ve been doing it long ago when all stores in my country just started having only gimmick toys/cheaper mainline toys
Vtech Switch N Go are better transforming robot toys for little kids than EVERY SINGLE 1-STEP TRANSFORMER GIMMICK TOY. Better value, better build quality, better features, better price for what you get. Those stupid Prime Battler things for One should not have been made.
if hasbro brought back gobots I could see those clearing up much faster than tf one gimmick slop you can hardly find the 2022 crasher mirage recolor even
Transformers One robot designs are awful, nobody wants them. Wish Hasbro would just go back to making good toys first instead of allowing the studios dictate there own toy line.
The issue is.. There is no "Mainline" anymore. We got like 4 or 5 mainline then nothing else since the rest goes to SS or Legacy
Yup this the biggest problem I see too, collector line, cartoon line, store exclusive line, online only line and then all the gimmick stuff. Just give us all a main cartoon line and adult line and have a theme across the line aka that lines gimmick
@@galvon Honestly, this year we shouldn't have gotten any ss tfone figures. Just pure mainline for all the main characters and side characters then you can start ss the year or 2 after.
@@dillydraws the last two years we had two movies most were still trying to share the shelf earthspark and ss and United line way to much and then Walmart had there own exclusive line way to many lines for Hasbro to make. This is why most the good stuff is never on the shelf that and the stores are trying to fit all this in a 3 foot wide floor space
Legacy... is mainline, dude. It's literally generations, aka the line a vast majority of TF toys have been a part of for nearly 20 years now. It's on the box.
Generations is mainline, and legacy is part of Generations...
I don't understand why kids would even want the gimmick toys. When I was a kid, the gimmick toys were always a disappointment. I never wanted them and when I got a few as gifts, I never played with them.
I used to work for Toys R Us. Hasbro requires a minimum purchase order that is really high & certain items have to be part of your order. They force you to buy games & toys they know don't sell well.
no wonder they are losing money
Imagine if hasbro was normal and focused on stocking on what people want like those ss 86 optimus primes instead of gimmick toys nobody wants and actually reissued mainline figures they know will sell instead of waiting years upon years
A lot of bit companies do that though, it's not exclusive to Hasbro.
Kamen Rider is proof that a Gimmick heavy Toy line can completely work but Hasbro just doesn’t seem to understand how to do it right.
Second this.
I wonder why Hasbro doesn’t do more role play toys?
Gimmicky, transforming ion blasters like the one you see on 2007.
Or TF one Megatron’s triple barrelled fusion cannon that you can actually mount on your forearm. Maybe a combining or transforming gimmick put into it!
Matrix toys for crying out loud!
With Kamen Rider, I would say the Drivers are always going to work but with figures, not really.
Gotchard didn't even finish doing figures of all forms and with Gavv, they realized that kids care more about articulation.
Eh, I wouldnt say so.
With the Drivers, yes but the gimmicks are also an extention of the Driver.
With the Gimmick figures (Like Gotchard's) they usually either shelfwarm or don't make it that far into the line.
Gimmick KR figures dont sell well because kids already know that they can either get the same figure for much cheaper (So-do) or with much better quality (S.H Figuarts) if they just wait a bit. Hell, most of the time those lines come out faster than the gimmick line
Hasbro fumbled the ball with TF One figures. Why the hell do I have to wait 6 months to get the 4 main autobots from the movie.
Meanwhile Yolopark has the 4 characters ready to go in cogged and cogless mode.
This is so real. My birthday is near christmas so bless my lovely mother suggested going to this store for it but I'd honestly just rather go to indemand physical store because they have both blokees and mainstream/collector lines
I just got a blokees 01 for Christmas it was nice
i love gimmick toys but i definitely agree. i think the division of "cheap gimmick toys for kids" and "serious gimmickless figures for collectors" was ultimately bad for the transformers brand. I wish Legacy/AOTP had springloaded missiles or other silly stuff. Bring back Powerlinx with modern engineering!
I miss the Prime Wars trilogy
Eh, I don't think a lack of gimmicks is an issue.
Sure, they're neat if unobtrusive, but for transformers the sacrifices needed to include gimmicks into a figure is too much for what they provide.
the stupid gimmicks that took up space on figures that could be used for transformation are useless imo
this is something i can get behind!!
a lot of hardcore collectors just want the gimmicks completely gone. But honestly i prefer a more balanced approach to gimmick vs mainline
remember: the old toylines also had gimmicks like 07 Cyber Slammers, Animated Activators, or other misc toylined like Bot Shots, so having it completely gone is unfair
also cause i liked some of the silly gimmicks soooo (One Power Flip Optimus is actually so cool imo)
ima be that guy today: transformers is still mainly a toy brand for kids, ofcourse gimmick toys are gonna be the main focus. collectors have their legacy series, they have masterpiece, they have haslab, they have a lot so i think it's fair to leave some fun gimmick toys for the kiddos on the shelves. i mean yea theres a lot but you gotta remember who the main demographic is here.
Honestly, this. Toy stores (and department stores with toy aisles) aren't for collectors, they're for children. If you want to buy collector lines, go to a collector store like RobotKingdom or BBTS.
When they do exclusives in Generations, like the Star Seekers, G2, or Velocitron capsule collections, which their exclusive partner stores don't even bother stocking (especially when those partners rarely stock Generations in the first place) that's a problem, but that's a whole different video really
I don't think kids' toys for kids are a bad thing but I'd prefer better quality for younger fans
As a kid I never liked gimmicks I just wanted cool looking toys. Some gimmicks are integrated better than others but generally they make the figure worse.
@croakinc3670 the second better toys are put in a kid's toyshop collectors will have come and left nothing my guy.
this would make sense if kids bought the gimmick toys, in reality they do not, it’s why you see them shelfwarming and (for the most part) not CHUG
You’ve gotta wonder. Does Hasbro even profit from selling these? Like I actually wanna see the profit from these gimmick toys and then actual transformers
well, Hasbro is being sued by investors.
Probably do but not enough
This needs way more likes
The only good one-step changer for me personally is cyberverse whirl
Throw out the current One-Step-Changers out and bring back the Activators (from Animated)
YES YES YES
What pains me the most is that some of the gimmicks are fun but they are either so incredibly expensive for what they are worth or just too many of them exist that they clog up space that can easily be filled by a Studio Series or Legacy figure.
Best example is the Cyber Combiners from EarthSpark. These are good sets if you want combining toys. However, they aren’t worth 30 bucks. The fact there is only two of them also hurt that we see the same Twitch and Robby set over and over again. If they were 10 dollars, I can see someone picking them up and being genuinely surprised by how fun they are.
Oh yeah, prices suck. Why is a giant hallow Bumblebee with a eagle from his chest worth 55 dollars when you could’ve gotten a Legacy Leader figure and have better value from that.
Half the toys are crap that shelfwarm and half the toys people want (usually CHUG) are sold out and poorly restocked.
The gimmick should be good toys😭🙏
Bakugan in a sense has and had this issue of gimmicks being more important than mainlines, I remember working at a Walmart and telling my co worker work did the toy aisles that he has stock that has been around more than I’ve been there (at that point it was over a year) and as soon as I told him and I went back on my lunch all of it including some shelf warmers were on clearance 😂
One of the reasons Hasbro makes these cruddy gimmick toys is because they think kids above the age of toddlers don't play with toys anymore because they have tablets and PCs. While it's a very compelling argument, I don't believe that to be the entire case. Personally, I think it's actually due to the fact that they not only overload shelves with these knock-off quality kiddy toys but also the fact that they have the audacity to overprice them, like they somehow expect a kid or their parents for that matter to afford gimmick toys at such a price. They're not attracting newcomers; they're scaring them away.
My younger cousin got one of the newer Optimus Prime toys, half of it was hollow and the vehicle form was stored ENTIRELY on the back so it could do some sort of pathetic half-assed attempt at transforming itself.
Originally the one-step changers were a line. Now it is a feature that they'll put on random ones. Sure, you could argue that it makes transformers more accessible for younger kids or people with disabilities- but that isn't what they are at all! Half of them don't even have moving legs and only have swinging shoulders. They aren't getting to play with Transformers, they are getting to push a button, or accidentally tap a wheel, and getting jumpscared by the thing folding in half. They don't look cool anymore, and they keep leaving the backs hollow.
Here's a challenge, find a Bumblebee that not only look presentable, but doesn't become see through when a light source so much as brushes an atom of it. Bonus points if he can be posed with elbows and knees bent!
Whenever we get an actually decent figure it'll be scaled randomly and not fit the last decent figure, and it'll cost your grans kidneys to afford it. What was once standard issue is now seen as some sort of amazing reinventing of the wheel- like we couldn't do that 10-15 years ago for the cost of what most one-steps cost now. The one-steps are now the main toys, it's not that people actually like them more so they keep buying them, it's just all there is in shops anymore.
Honestly those butterfly style one steps changers are my favorite the best kind of figet toys
yeah, in my area in france, its a problem that's been killing the brand presence there for a while. a few years ago, you used to be able to see up to oeader class of titans returns with leader class from the first wave of studio series. nowadays, at the same spaces, IF you still have transformers, its 1 collumn with MAYBE if you're lucky, an earthsparks warrior class (all pegs or optimus).
hell, at one of my local supermarket, the transformers section still has the rid2015 cardboard decoratio installed for the transformers aisle
I stopped seeing leader class figures at most if not all of my local Walmarts because ALL of that bottom shelf space is taken up by those big TF One gimmick toys. It was straight up annoying seeing all the section cluttered with that stuff for months while very little of the Star Raiders toyline arrived.
For me the gimmick with transformers is that they convert from something like a vehicle to a robot.
7:40 very true, when I was a kid I didn’t like the one step changer age of extinction Optimus bc it was very small and not that cool as a normal toy (despite me actually liking it more fondly lately), I wanted the actual age of extinction toys, with articulation and everything
This is exactly why Earthspark failed.
The spring action toys and click switch weapons were awesome as a kid I think those were gimmick enough but serious enough to still enjoy especially bc the transformers weren’t horrible morso everything post revenge of the fallen I thought was cool and even some of the g1-wfc stuff was really cool, still have my leader class voice line ROTF sword claws prime from when I was younger, the sideswipe corvette was one of my favorite figs, I had wfc bee, there was a bee that was g1 inspired I wish I could find. Used to do stop motion with them on my 3DS
What happened to mainline figures that featured gimicks?
this is a problem. their lightsabers? shitty just random character face on the sword.. who the fuck wants that? "oh it's for kids" then why are the shelves full of them? so on and so on. I as a kid never liked the super gimmicky toys. for transformers? I liked the chunky ones from like energon or whatever we found at garage sales or older + repaints for modern lines of the time. lightsabers? "wow that looks just like the movie!" (to a kid at least)never did I want these dumb gimmick things. NEVER, I don't know who does or they just think kids want this.. I didn't and I can't recall anyone from then who did, nobody did, nobody does
if they want to do gimmick why not try to emulate the rid 2000 one step changers like towline, that figure was a 1 step changer and was really fun but then again they might just charge 20
I mean the reason why we have stuff like this because parents complained about the transformers figures being too complicated at the time leading to hasbro to downscale their quality around rid2015, aoe, tlk
It wasn't all bad... at first we used to have good figures during that time even with the need to simplify and down grade the quality. Now we have figures that are too simplified, cheap, and just a way to make kids feel bad because their transformers can't pose like the others can
In short it start because parents went:"think of the children" leading what we got now, too be fair their not completely wrong but hasbro shouldn't have downgraded that much after those three series ended
They should've taken some cues from the unicron trilogy and the 2007 toyline with their gimmicks that don't hinder the figures that much
It's so bad here in Yuma that whenever I try to look for a deluxe or Studio series especially all I get are these stupid cheap gimmick toys and yet any Studio series figures I do manage to find are the ones no one cares about
As @dillydraws has pointed out, we have five mainlines too many. Two are fine, one to promote the movies and one to promote a TV show. But when you have seven "mainlines", twelve exclusives AND three "evergreen" slots, it means you're pumping out far too much plastic tat without spending nearly as much money on quality control.
Gimmick figures are good as a novel change of pace from the usual Transformers fare. Having 90% of all physical store stock be gimmick figures destroys any interest in going to the store to find a new figure, and they don't sell to kids either. I worked at Toys R Us, those things do not leave the shelf more than once in a blue moon.
Strongly agree, with both you and GotBot. I go to the local Walmart and see nothing but the same toys over and over. That sight doesn’t fill me with excitement; it makes me think Hasbro is running Transformers into the ground. It also brings up another issue that’s been raised with Transformers (and completely justifiably): the cost of the nicer toys. For example, the SS86 Bumblebee to my knowledge is quite a nice toy, very screen accurate to the movie, but it’s barely larger than a Core Class and is not worth almost $25. If Hasbro would actually focus on toys that appealed to collectors and kids alike, instead of stuffing the shelves with toys that appealed to neither, maybe they could bring down some of these prices and I’d buy Transformers more often.
It always has been like this... Ofc I'd love some normal transforming figures but this is a kid's toy
3:24 So true!!! Happens in every single ToysRUs i go to
I think you’re working with a misconception - that the gimmicky crap doesn’t sell. Hasbro’s biggest customers are not us the collectors or even kids - it’s WalMart, Target, and Amazon. If there is a bunch of gimmicky crap on shelves it’s because the retailers bought them. The retailers wanted those items taking up space on their shelves. They place these orders a year out or more and don’t have the flexibility to put in a rush order when deluxes sell out. And because none of them are dedicated toy stores (RIP TRU) the action figure aisle makes up a teeny tiny portion of their profits. I don’t think they think there is sufficient benefit to maximizing action figure sales efficiency to make it worth their while. It works well enough for them, Hasbro dances to their tune, so we’re stuck with it. As a collector, there really isn’t much reason to keep hunting the toy aisles for most toys. Online preordering with reliable retailers is the only sane option now.
8:04 you should've said "you don"t got the touch or the power"
I really doubt kids are going to target all by themselves to get toys anyway. These kinds of toys should be sold at walgreens or gamestop not bigger retailers.
8:06 facts though
hasbro invests on these lines cause theyre cheaper to produce, hasbro's always looking at their bottom line
Yeah I went to multiple stores the other day and all the had were gimmick transformers that no one wants.
Get rid of all of them. You say 1 step changers are supposed to be for toddlers and under 5, but in the very box you use as an example it says 6+. Those crappy figures have no target public! Remember TFA activators line? Compare them to the modern 1 step changers, it makes no sense that they were capable of doing that all those years ago and we have to swallow this garbage
Favorited this video! Thanks for speaking our minds. It pains me to see such a monumental waste of plastic with the gimmick toys Hasbro makes, for TFs and Marvel and Star Wars. Everyone sees them, no one wants them because for a few more bucks invested you can get a more timeless and durable figure like Studio Series that actually transform!! Im astounded the TF store is not stocked with “serious” collector’s TFs and instead stocked with cheap garbage gimmicks when the most serious TF fans are adults now with money! Hasbro needs to wake up and understand collectors should be their focus, not some phantom kids that are proving they are not interested in cheap tricks
I like gimmicks but I hate the way Hasbro builds modern gimmick toys. During Cybertron every Transformer Hasbro made was a gimmick toy, they were also fun toys on top of that. Modern gimmick transformers don’t do anything outside of their gimmick, most of them don’t even have shoulder articulation. How is a kid supposed to play with an Optimus Prime who can’t even point his blaster at anything?
Honestly just buy your transformers online. I’ve been doing it long ago when all stores in my country just started having only gimmick toys/cheaper mainline toys
You sound like baltimatrix
And all the actual non gimmick figures are cores or just bad legacy figures
Vtech Switch N Go are better transforming robot toys for little kids than EVERY SINGLE 1-STEP TRANSFORMER GIMMICK TOY. Better value, better build quality, better features, better price for what you get. Those stupid Prime Battler things for One should not have been made.
I grew up with G1. We had the touch back then. GoBots use to be the Gimmicks IMO. I always went with Transformers.
if hasbro brought back gobots I could see those clearing up much faster than tf one gimmick slop
you can hardly find the 2022 crasher mirage recolor even
My ToysRUs has the very uninteresting studio series figures, just g1 and couple WOC ones.
Geewun and movie prequels on their way to contribute nothing in society
Transformers One robot designs are awful, nobody wants them. Wish Hasbro would just go back to making good toys first instead of allowing the studios dictate there own toy line.