This article from the end of February talks about Hasbro's sales during 2023 and their new strategy going forward:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hasbros-cfo-sharpens-focus-on-cost-savings-as-toy-shoppers-pull-back-949493ad

Some highlights:

Worldwide toy sales in the 2023 fiscal year were down 7% overall.

Hasbro sales were down 15%, and they're looking to cut costs and find ways to decrease spending on materials.

Nerf was cited as an example, and they figured out about 40 different ways in which they could spend less money, including adjusting plastic thickness and making changes to packaging.

Hasbro's new chief financial officer, Gina Goetter, was known for finding clever ways to cut costs at Harley-Davidson, and is now bringing her expertise to Hasbro. One of her programs is "zero-based budgeting" which requires Hasbro to take a hard look at every single expense in the budget and be able to speak towards why it's important.

Up to this point I've just been cherry-picking and paraphrasing snippets from the article, but let's look at Transformers and how significantly it could be affected in the coming months.

We've seen time and time again that the Transformers toy line is often subjected to slashed budgets and cost-cutting, with planned toy features being excised, paint applications being dropped from the prototype to the production stage, or other attempts at bringing down expenses. Transformers is, at its core, a toy line about recycling assets. We're all well accustomed to toys getting redeco versions and being sold to us mutiple times, and it's been a staple of the brand since 1984.

I worry that it's about to get worse, however. Hasbro previously reported a growth of 25% for the Transformers brand specifically, for the 2023 fiscal year. Now, toy sales don't exist in a vacuum. There's a reason why people were buying this brand, specifically, and it's likely got to do with Hasbro offering a character selection that fans and collectors considered to be worth purchasing. We got our first generic troop builder packs, we got great new Insecticons, we got retro G1 reissues, we got Guardian Robots, we got some great Studio Series '86 releases... lots of stuff to get excited about. It was a damn good product year. People speak with their wallets.

But, if they're going to sabotage the toy line with excessive cost-cutting, then people are going to jump ship. We've already seen how bad the toy line can get during the Great Cheapening, which seemed to affect toys from around 2012-2018 or so, with poor-quality plastics and minimal paint operations and (especially during Combiner Wars) seemingly endless redeco toys. 2019 marked a distinct uptick in quality materials assembly, along with a small price hike, but now I'm concerned we might see a drop in quality again.

What are everybody else's thoughts on this? How much cost-cutting is acceptable, and at what point will you simply stop collecting? At what point is enough truly enough?

Zob (doing my part by being as lazy as possible today, so that I do not waste energy needlessly)

Zobovor wrote:

> Worldwide toy sales in the 2023 fiscal year were down 7% overall. Hasbro sales were down 15%

Is Hasbro half of all toy sales? Probably not…

> Hasbro's new chief financial officer, Gina Goetter, was known for finding clever ways to cut costs at Harley-Davidson, and is now bringing her expertise to Hasbro. One of her programs is "zero-based budgeting" which requires Hasbro to take a hard look at every single expense in the budget and be able to speak towards why it's important.

Isn’t Harley-Davidson one of those brands that has been basically hollowed out and is coasting on nostalgia? Part of the grift nostalgia-extraction economy?

A lot of brands, from Doc Martens to Brooks Brothers have shifted from quality products that will last ages to nearly disposable, and I recall similar complaints about Harley, but I’m not a motorcycle person, so I’m not sure if it was just a few gatekeeping whiners or a real problem.

Companies like to say that no one wants to work these days, but I think companies not wanting to provide goods and services. If they aren’t willing to take pride in their products and put in a little extra, I don’t see why anyone should take pride in their work and put in a little extra.

> Up to this point I've just been cherry-picking and paraphrasing snippets from the article, but let's look at Transformers and how significantly it could be affected in the coming months.

> We've seen time and time again that the Transformers toy line is often subjected to slashed budgets and cost-cutting, with planned toy features being excised, paint applications being dropped from the prototype to the production stage, or other attempts at bringing down expenses. Transformers is, at its core, a toy line about recycling assets. We're all well accustomed to toys getting redeco versions and being sold to us mutiple times, and it's been a staple of the brand since 1984.

> But, if they're going to sabotage the toy line with excessive cost-cutting, then people are going to jump ship.

> We've already seen how bad the toy line can get during the Great Cheapening, which seemed to affect toys from around 2012-2018 or so, with poor-quality plastics and minimal paint operations and (especially during Combiner Wars) seemingly endless redeco toys.

I think that with Combiner Wars they got good at using that limited budget. Remolding seems to be a lot cheaper now, due to CAD designs, so if they were to do it again the redecos would be less painful. But most of the toys were great — not always accurate to G1 animation models or toys, but great.

I assume that there were people complaining about Laser Optimus Prime in the G2 days because it didn’t look like G1 Optimus.

> 2019 marked a distinct uptick in quality materials assembly, along with a small price hike, but now I'm concerned we might see a drop in quality again.

I think the quality has been suffering for a bit, and people have been blind to it since they are producing the right characters.

Big, visible hinges on the outside of alt-modes leap out at me on toys like Studio Series 86 Ratchet. There was a time when that would be handled with two 90-degree hinges, rather than one 180 degree hinge, so the hinge wouldn’t stick out (there would be a smaller piece between the two large pieces.

And a lot of the softer materials they use now wouldn’t be able to handle that anyway without parts falling off all the time. (Look at the shoulder pad positioning assembly on TM Tarantulas — there’s some very precise engineering going on there) as it is, parts fall off toys pretty regularly.

But I’ll also be the first to admit that the current priorities (g1 animation model, flawless robot mode, posability) are very much not my priorities (alt-mode, robot that looks like alt-mode come to life, playability), and it may just be a drop in quality on the things *I* like as they focus on the rest. If sales are up, then I’m clearly an outlier.

> What are everybody else's thoughts on this? How much cost-cutting is acceptable, and at what point will you simply stop collecting? At what point is enough truly enough?

> Zob (doing my part by being as lazy as possible today, so that I do not waste energy needlessly)

>> What are everybody else's thoughts on this? How much cost-cutting is acceptable, and at what point will you simply stop collecting? At what point is enough truly enough?

Best case scenario, they achieve cost savings through a renewed emphasis on package refreshes/re-releases, redecos, and remolds, relieving them of the need to cut corners with respect to plastic quality or design.

GustavoWombat wrote:

> Companies like to say that no one wants to work these days, but I think companies not wanting to provide
> goods and services. If they aren’t willing to take pride in their products and put in a little extra, I
> don’t see why anyone should take pride in their work and put in a little extra.

There are some companies (Mezco, Super7, NECA, etc.) that produce high-quality collectibles and they charge a premium price for them. Hasbro isn't ever going to be known as a producer of premium toys, though. They're known for Lite-Brite and Mr. Potato Head.

I guess what I'm saying is that Hasbro probably could produce very high quality Transformers if they wanted to, but then we'd all be sitting here complaining that Deluxe-class toys were $50 and Leader-class toys were $200. Which would be outrageous.

> I assume that there were people complaining about Laser Optimus Prime in the G2 days because it didn’t
> look like G1 Optimus.

Yeah, but during a time when G2 consisted of wildly inappropriate redeco toys that supposedly represented the G1 characters (Megatron as a stealth bomber, Soundwave as a race car, etc.) Laser Optimus was designed specifically to resemble that character, and his robot body design took a lot of cues from his G1 look even though it absolutely didn't have to. It wasn't like Machine Wars Optimus Prime, which was clearly intended to be somebody else, but got the Optimus name slapped on it after the fact.

> Big, visible hinges on the outside of alt-modes leap out at me on toys like Studio Series 86 Ratchet.
> There was a time when that would be handled with two 90-degree hinges, rather than one 180 degree hinge,
> so the hinge wouldn’t stick out (there would be a smaller piece between the two large pieces).

I think it's a different design phisosophy. During the Diaclone days, the goal was to come up with a realistic 1:24 scale die-cast vehicle, and the robot mode was also incidental. It was like, "Hey, look at this snazzy authentic-looking Porsche 935, and it also unfolds into a robot."

The hinges and things tend to be hidden on the Masterpiece toys, which tend to have thinner plastic walls and smaller mechanisms. They're also a lot more fragile. Hasbro does need to design these things so that they can hold up to a modicum of punishment, because at the end of the day, they're still toys.

I'm not sure. I guess I just sort of ignore the hinges and pretend that they're not there, like the zippers on the Ewoks. For me, they're easy to overlook as a toyetic aspect that isn't "really" there.

Now, when they actually draw the giant hinges on the characters, like the way the Micromaster Air Strike Patrol appears in Marvel Comics... THAT bothers me a LOT.

> But I’ll also be the first to admit that the current priorities (g1 animation model, flawless robot
> mode, posability) are very much not my priorities (alt-mode, robot that looks like alt-mode come to
> life, playability), and it may just be a drop in quality on the things *I* like as they focus on the
> rest. If sales are up, then I’m clearly an outlier.

I think there's room for both. And, obviously they've catered to what you like, at least some of the time, or else you wouldn't have collected the toys at all. (Or I guess you could just hate the toys and just sort of begrudgingly collect them anyway, but that seems less likely to me.)

To me, it shouldn't necessarily be an either/or situation. The alternate mode of a Transformers toy should not be absolutely terrible, because then there's almost no point in having it transform. But, during G1 it was almost always the robot mode that made sacrifices in service to the vehicle mode. We frequently got toys with flaps for arms or stumps for legs. Now I think the design philosophy tends to be, usually, the other way around... that the toys are an action figure, first and foremost, with all the required articulation and (often) fidelity to the animated look, and the vehicle transformation is almost secondary. Is that a better approach? Not if you get vehicles that can't roll due to awful ground clearance. Not if the alternate mode is an unconvincing disguise, with patently visible robot parts sticking out.

But, I'll admit that I do prefer when the robot mode is given priority. I think most collectors display these things in robot mode, so that's the mode that needs to look good.

Zob (never did get around to yanking that orange plug out of my Masterpiece Megatron, but perhaps I need to)

Zobovor wrote:

> I worry that it's about to get worse, however.

I have long believed we are living in the end times for Transformers toys as we know them. The question isn't how much more cost cutting will they do, it's how much longer is Hasbro planning on making Transformers at all. Fans are in a much more dire situation than they realize.

We may have just lived through a golden age of the line but I believe that was just the grand finale of a 40 year long fireworks show and now it's over. The crash landing is coming within the next five years or so. The line is more expensive and complicated to produce than regular action figures. It's a miracle they've kept it going this long.

We will move to a world where toys will be more like virtual models or avatars in a game-like interface or holograms projected from cell phones. Physical toys made by large corporations for sale in toy departments will be very rare. Maybe they'll do it once in a while. The entire action figure aisle will be reduced to maybe a four foot section for EVERYTHING, like the smaller adult targeted collectibles sections in the electronics department at Wal-Mart. And each line will be represented by maybe one or two figures of the most popular characters.

There isn't going to be a 50th anniversary toy line-this year is the last big anniversary there will ever be with Transformers as physical toys, so enjoy it!

I hope you're wrong, GoBackaTron, but I fear that you're not.

I agree that the idea of individual, physical toys almost seems a bit quaint nowadays, with the influx of technology and ways in which people spend leisure time these days - to say nothing of shipping and mailing costs these days.

Do kids still ask for toys at the holidays anymore? Or is all basically electronic goods?

I also feel like there is an increasing stratification between mainline TF toys - which are being increasingly cheapened - and higher-end Masterpiece and 3rd party toys. How many adults are collecting mostly the latter, and how many mainstream Hasbro customers are falling away from the former? And what is this doing to Hasbro's bottom line?

(Out of curiosity, how many people are continuing to buy and collect vintage G1 on the secondary market, as opposed to the Hasbro reissues?)

JB

Zobovor wrote:
> To me, it shouldn't necessarily be an either/or situation. The alternate mode of a Transformers toy should not be absolutely terrible, because then there's almost no point in having it transform. But, during G1 it was almost always the robot mode that made sacrifices in service to the vehicle mode.

Except we know what a car or a plane looks like, while robots are just made up things. If they have slightly odd proportions, or a backpack or a ugly feet, or whatever... the robot mode is more forgiving.

As are robotic beasts and futuristic vehicles that are more than a slight step away from Earth vehicles.

> We frequently got toys with flaps for arms or stumps for legs.

Well, those just sucked as toys.

> Now I think the design philosophy tends to be, usually, the other way around... that the toys are an action figure, first and foremost, with all the required articulation and (often) fidelity to the animated look, and the vehicle transformation is almost secondary. Is that a better approach? Not if you get vehicles that can't roll due to awful ground clearance. Not if the alternate mode is an unconvincing disguise, with patently visible robot parts sticking out.

I miss ground clearance on Transformers.

I do, however. like when there's just a little bit of robot cruft peeking out. Not all the time, and not to the point where it doesn't pass at first glance, but when you look a little longer and think "Who do you think you're fooling, Universe 2.0 Inferno?" They aren't cars, they are disguised as cars, and sometimes the disguise should slip just a little bit.

Not Titans Returns Broadside slippage, but just the "Oh, that's not just a toy car/plane/toaster." (If Broadside canonically thought that's what a plane looked like, and was surprised that no one else agreed, he would get full credit for his plane mode, by the way)

> But, I'll admit that I do prefer when the robot mode is given priority. I think most collectors display these things in robot mode, so that's the mode that needs to look good.

I display mine in a bin of toys next to my chair in the living room, or scattered on my desk, in various states of play. Less display and more clutter. If you don't transform them regularly, how will they know you love them? And how will the ones in bins know to be jealous?