WHY do people insist this hobby is dead?!

[Bromine]

I think we had this topic before, but I wanted to rant.:) While it's true that interest is dying down and people simply out to make money have (thank goodness) started to head for greener pastures, I personally think collecting SW stuff is alive and kicking, especially the Hasbro stuff. Sure, you hear lots of people complain they're fed up and quitting, but when I hear that I'm glad, because it means there's more toys for the rest of us!:) Yes, a lot of stuff is on clearance and isn't moving, but I see this as a decline in interest among scalpers and their type, and the fact that retailers simply over-estimated their sales.

I admit, I'm far from being a "die-hard". I buy just what I like, and I'm such a cheapskate I usually wait for stuff to go on sale or I buy less. I pick and choose so half-hazardly, too: I'll get that one because I don't have a Han Solo yet; I won't get this one because I already have an R2, I'll get this one because he has a neat gun and a cool cape, I won't get that one because the face looks funny, etc.
But you know what? I NEVER feel the need to complain about crappy figures. I simply don't buy 'em. No skin off my nose, and it saves me some money! Same goes for not finding a figure. I also just reason that not being able to find it is the same as if it had never been made, I wouldn't have it then, either! Maybe you think that's comically optimistic, but it's the way I think.

So, to anyone angry and complaining that the hobby is dead and wanting to quit collecting, go right ahead. Fact is, there will always be a market for SW toys and there will always be happy customers.

Btw, I haven't bought anything in months because I can't find much. I finally found Rune Haako and the Ep. 1 R2, but decided Rune was dumb and I already had an R2. Go figure.:)

[Jedieb]

The hobby certainly isn't dead, but it has been in a major slump for several months now. Many collectors have grown so frustrated they've quit the hobby and sold off their collections. I can understand quiting, but why would you sell off your collection? Was the only reason you bought and kept those figures the availability of the current figures? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Many collectors just lost interest when they repeatedly made trips to stores only to find nothing new. The drought really began around the fall of 99 and it hasn't let up in some places. Retailers just ordered way too much product and then cut back drastically on future orders thus making everything from Holographic Sidious to Holo R2 rare. Some fans just couldn't deal with their frustrations and dropped the hobby, calling it stupid and pointless. I know one poster here who slammed the hobby simply because he had trouble finding new figures. He couldn't find stuff so that made the hobby and those who still collected childish. It actually made him seem like a spoiled brat. But I digress...

I think the hobby is headed for a healthy recovery. The second half of this year should be excellent, provided retailers and fans use some common sense. Retailers need to order more realistic amounts of product, and fans need to remain calm when the initial waves of POTJ figures sell out. Don't go nuts and give in to scalpers when you see that first wave has sold out. When you buy from scalpers you help create future peg warmers. Future peg warmers lead to fewer retail orders and we end up right back where we are now.

Keep the faith, Power Of The Jedi will keep us fat and happy until Episode 2 rolls around. :)

[Jedi Master Kyle]

keeping the faith has been hard to do. i used to be super hardcore into the figs, but since they stopped coming, i've almost given up. i need a reason to continue!

[jjwr]

I think Hasbro needs to give people a reason to continue collecting. But not aim their line towards collectors, I don't think the Star Wars toys have had a big of a impact as the originals did back in the late 70's and early 80's. There were no collectors at that point, it was just the kids buying the toys from the movies they loved. And if that was the case today I don't think they'd have a problem. Course at $7 a pop and basically just resculpt after resculpt the kids probably have all they want of the characters and at current prices don't wanna pay that much more for a re-sculpt. These figures shouldn't cost more than $5 each, each figure should be packed the same and they should make figures people want, enough of the endless variations of the same figures.

[Jedieb]

Yes, resculpts are a major problem. And the reason we have so many of them can be traced to Hasbro trying to take advantage of both collectors and kids. Kids are going to buy core characters and cool aliens. Collectors will buy just about everything. So Obi-Wan #7 will cause a completist to shell out $7 and a kid is still likely to buy him because he's a main character. The kid may have never even seen Obi-Wan 1-6, so it's a brand new figure to him.

Hopefully POTJ revitalize the line. It may even be showing up earlier than expected. As early as August instead of September.

[Bromine]

The weird thing is, many of the resculpts sell quite well, for the reasons Jedieb stated. Meanwhile, the one version of Ric Olie and Palpatine clutter the shelves. I think Hasbro tries to reach a happy medium between bringing out brand new figures and bringing out resculpts that will sell well. However, I think it would be better if they just made the same sculpt of the main characters in a larger quantity and ship it with every wave. I don't mind occassional improvements, like the Cantina Han.
On the other hand, some people LIKE all the resculpts. There are people complaining Hasbro is making too many dumb aliens and they want more Lando's and Leia's. As far as the POTF2 line went, I liked most of the resculpts as well. With the Ep1 line, though, the resculpts are undeniably lame: Obiwan with cloak, without cloak, with sabre hilt, with cloth tunic, etc,etc,etc.

Just to clarify my first post, I didn't mean that I think everyone should still be all enthusiastic about the line; I just don't understand people who get fed up with it all, curse out Hasbro, and sell off their collection saying it's all a big waste of time and LFL is greedy.

The price point is definitely too high as well. I really get a kick out of reading old press releases from Hasbro where they rave about the new ComTech chips. I can't believe they actually expected it to be popular! If the price point stays high with POTJ (apparently they needed to keep the price point high to pay for materials costs and the chip was thrown in to justify the cost to the consumer), then they should include a bonus droid with every figure, like they did in other countries.

[jjwr]

I don't believe the price is high because of materials, the new G.I.Joe figures that are coming out are 2 Packs for $7.99. The figures are the same size, have loads more articulation and are made of stronger plastic(not bendable like SW toys). Thats $4 a figure for the $6-$7 your paying for SW figs, and the G.I.Joe ones come with more stuff.

In my opinion another problem is the lack of cheap vehicles. They need to make more of these and not have them priced so damn high. Vehicles were a huge part of the popularity of these toys back in the 80's cause there were so many of them. Now Hasbro doesn't dare put out vehicles cause they don't feel they'll sell at the prices they'd sell them at. Hmmmm.....how about lowering the prices? I think if they had a bigger assortment of vehicles are more reasonable price then more kids would get those to go along with the figures and would probably buy more figures to boot. Hell the local TRU and Wal-Mart don't even have any vehicles, the onl place that does is the KB and they've got a few speeder-bikes. The vehicles were some of my favorite toys back in the 80's, they made the figures more fun.

[Jedieb]

All you have to do is look at the G.I. Joe figures ($7.99 for 2 figures) jjwr was talking about or the new Simpson line ($4.99 a figure) to realize that SW figures are priced way too high. Why so expensive? I see two main reasons. First, the incredibly high price Hasbro had to pay Lucasfilm for the merchandising rights. No other company has ever been able to demand and get such a high price. Hasbro even gave GL millions of dollars of stock for goodness sakes. Second, the Star Wars brand name. You slap Star Wars on the packaging and you're gauranteed a certain number of sales. Are these reasons fair to cosumers (cllectors and kids)? no, but they're the reality of the situation.

The good news as far as price goes is that the POTJ price point shold drop around $1. The figures are still too expensive in comparison to other lines, but you can always roll the dice and wait for clearance sales.

[jjwr]

When POFT2 first came out the figures were about $5 a pop, why have they gone up from that number? Have they had to re-negotiate the rights? I'm sure the TPM liscense was seperate but the POFT2 stuff should have gone up too. And the quality of the figures hasn't really changed(better sculpts but not overall plastic quality) so I can't imagine that warrents the price increase.

[Jedi Master Kyle]

the prices went up because of the hype and excitement surrounding the special editions and TPM. Hasbro knew that the figs would sell, so they could jack the price up and make a fortune. Basically, they raised the prices just because they could. and did you see the gloss on the boxes of the EP1 toys? surely that warrants some kind of increase! :) I wish hasbro would wise up and realize that if they lowered the price of figs to like $6, alot of people (myself included) would be buying more than 1 of each figure. one to collect and one to open. Hopefully POTJ will be a cool line and not have anything stupid to "justify" a price hike.

[jjwr]

At $5 I'd be happy, at $6 I'll probably still on get a figure here and there. I bought a ton of the POFT2 figs in the $5 range and I know I'd buy more new ones if they were priced the same. Instead I plan on spending my money on the G.I.Joe toys($4 a figure) and the Simpsons guys $5 a figure.

[Jedi Master Kyle]

i want to see these new transformers!

[Bromine]

Well, that excuse about materials costs going up is direct from Hasbro; I don't really buy it myself but what do I know. Still, I think that if they're going to keep the price high, give us a bonus figure.

I agree about the vehicles. Considering they used the OLD molds from the original line, you'd think prices would go down. Even if they didn't make much profit on the vehicles, the vehicles encourage more figure purchases so they'd make their money that way. I can't remember which vehicles have actually come out. I know there was a Millennium Falcon and an X-Wing...so long ago! One thing they could do to make the figures cheaper is not bother with stupid sound and light effects. This is a common tactic to add cost to the toys. Personally, I never liked toys with built in sounds and every time I'd press the button my parents would tell me to turn off that noise!
Also, I don't want vehicles like the X-Wing. I want vehicles that are miniature playsets, like the Falcon or the Skiff. The AT-AT was another good one, but of course they made that impossible to afford, also.
Remember the flash speeder, though? That was a fairly decent price, IMO. No useless electronics, either. Let's hope we get more like that!

[Jedi Master Kyle]

No more silly gadgetry on star wars toys!!!!

[jjwr]

Adding a 2nd figure wouldn't be a bad idea, but what would they add? Maybe a Battle Droid in the TPM stuff and a Jawa in the regular line? If they gave you 2 figures for $6 that would be cool, though if you buy a bunch of figures the 2nd figure would get repetetive.

The reason I don't believe the materials increase is the G.I.Joe figures are made by Hasbro also and are $4 each and built much better. Though to be fair the G.I.Joe figres are just remolds at this point, hopefully the line will do well and they'll make all new figures.

[Jedieb]

jjwr
"Have they had to re-negotiate the rights?"

The rights for SW toys were basically up for sale back in 97/98. I'm not sure of the exact date. Everyone from Hasbro to Playmates were in the mix. In the end, hasbro decided to stick with what had worked so well in the past. But once Hasbro had their new contract it affected both the POTR2 and EP1 lines. Everything fell under the new contract, the old one had expired. In fact, I think this current one is for around ten years and it's due to end sometime late this decade.

Electronics
If no electronics means more ships than I'm all for it. Hasbro has done this before. The POTF2 A-Wing was an old mold with some minor changes. Mainly, the old electronics were removed. You can still see the molding for the old battery flap on the bottom of the A-Wing. I'm wondering if they'll due the same with the Y-Wing. The vintage one had a cheesy electronic turrent effect and sound. I wouldn't mind if Hasbro dropped that and gave us a lower price.

[Bromine]

Those lucky foreigners never got commetech chips and got a second figure instead. I don't know what they did for classic trilogy figures, but for TPM the first few waves got a battle droid(limited articulation) and after a while they switched to pit droids. You can never have too many battle droids!
Maybe for the original trilogy figs they could include Boba Fett. Collectors will never get tired of him!:)

[jjwr]

I guess that would explain the jump in price. With TPM looming on the Horizon they probably paid out the butt for the rights to put out the toys. Still sucks though.

[Jedi Master Kyle]

I think they should give us stormtroopers. millions of stormtroopers! i've always wanted a massive army of stormtroopers!

[jjwr]

I've got 10 :)

[Jedieb]

Those additional battle droids the Europeans got were awesome! Can you imagine if we'd had that deal in the states? Most of us would have dozens of battle droids lined up in formation on shelves everywhere!

[Jedi Master Kyle]

that's why i want the stormtroopers! to line them up, get some royal guards and set up emperor's arrival!

[Bromine]

I think we've got a better shot at getting battle droids, though. They look a lot cheaper.:)

[Jedi Master Kyle]

yeah, they're just mass constructed, stormtroopers in all likelyhood are clones! :) cloning is probably way more expensive than mass production.