I recently posted some thoughts about the DC Infinite Heroes toyline on a toy forum, and figured I should share them here as well. If anyone has any input they'd like to share, please feel free.
I think my main point comes down to this: The toy making business is a BUSINESS first, and makes toys second. It should be called a Business toy making. We would all be better served if we kept that in mind.
Mattel has gotten tons of flack for their DC Universe Classics and DC Infinite Heroes toylines lately. Scratch that. Mattel has gotten tons of flack for their way of doing business lately. The toys are fine. The business mdels they are employing are frustrating to the collector/consumer who has it in their heads that Mattel loves Batman or the Blue Beetle as much as you and I do. Get this straight: Mattel would sell you a lump of poop if you would buy it. So would Hasbro and Jakks Pacific and Playmates and Ford and General Electric for that matter. Mattel might only top the rest by making that poop a Walmart exclusive.
So anyways, here are some thoughts on the DC Infinite Heroes line in general. Read on if you are low on sleeping pills. Those things aint cheap.
DCIH
So I've been thinking about the way this line is managed, this line's mere existence, and it's potential for a future, and I've come up with a theory (of sorts.)
You know how a toy company can lose the rights to a toy's name if it isn't used? Transformers are an excellent example of this. Just look no further than the recent re-release of the Insecticons. Having not used all the names recently enough, some had fallen out of Hasbro's legal use rights (picked up by someone else?) Another example would be MOTU Fisto/SW Kit Fisto. MOTU Fisto becomes "Battle Fist."
I'm no attorney, so I don't know all the logistics, but one thing seems apparent: If you copyright a name for a toy you have a set amount of time to use it or renew it. If you do not, your rights fall into either a) limbo or b) get snapped up by someone else. In limbo, you have to retain the rights (read: pay some governing body for the rights to use them again,) or if they fall into someone else's hands...they name the price. Or you abandon the name and are forced to rename your toy.
Are you still with me?
So Mattel has this amazing toyline: DCUC. They know it has staying power and have every intention of seeing it through and milking that cash cow for all it's worth. But they also know they can only pump out so many $13+ figures per month to balance that fine line between a happy consumer and a flooded market (okay okay, they are far from flooding the market. But stay with me.)
So they say to themselves "How do we cement our rights to use these names in toy form when we know we can't get to them all made as DCUC figures in the timeframe we have alotted for that toyline?"
One solution. Create a "cheap" line with a high profit margin even at a low sales rate (what do these things cost Mattel to make, a nickle each? Probably less.) Slap as many figures out as you can, slapping as many names onto them as you can that you need to plant your flag into. Voila! The name is copyrighted, a toy is made, the Cement is set. Mattel exec: "We can all breathe easy, we've got the name Hawkman in the bag until 2026."
Again, I'm no lawyer, and I don't know if someone could make a toy and call it Hawkman if Mattel hadn't laid claim by making a DC comics based Hawkman toy. But names like "Arsenal" or "Question" or "Wildcat" or "Raven" or "The Brain" are pretty vague and could conceivably be snapped up by someone else if Mattel tarried too long getting them queued up in the DCUC roster.
So there you have it. DCIH as legal loss leader/financial gain in the long term. Toy making at it's business best. In other words, DCIH will last as long as the loss at the retail level < potential loss in the future from copyright perspective.
Somewhere in there making a good toy is important, but if any of us think it's priority #1 we're deluding ourselves.
Thoughts?
This all totally makes sense Bubba just wish they would just simply make more figures to get all the heros and villains out there but i don't think we will be seeing that happening anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteSometime these toys are so mcdonald happy meal looking if you know what I mean. I will pay for price of happy meal more i guess as I got to filled my hunger.
ReplyDeleteThe toy business is completely effed up. All I have to say is that toys were fairly meaningless to so many people when I was young. I was one of the few kids who 1) took good care of my toys 2) actually looked down the toy aisles on a frequent basis. Most kids I was friends with didn't give a crap about their toys. Some of my friends had rooms full of toys and half of them were broken, neglected, and collected dust. Basically, toys have become a business to suck the money and patience out of collectors. It's so disheartening. The toys we want SHOULD be available at the toy store or any other store. Reading your post only got me more pissed. F- the toy business.
ReplyDeleteI do not think you can compare a line like Transformers or He-Man if you want to keep it at Mattel with lines like the DCUC or DCIH, and here is why I think that. He-Man is an in house brand, that Mattel owns and even licenses to companies that make things like lunch boxes. They would have an interest in what names are trademarked for this line. A line that is owned by a licensor, means those names are trademarked by those licensors so in the case of DC Comics, Warner Bros. pretty much controls those names and are the ones that have the interest in keeping them. So as a licensee, Mattel would only care for approval sake that they are using the name properly. If a company was not vigilant enough to keep their names protected it results in name changes, or a name change could take place to reflect a current movie, story line, etc. I guess in short Mattel doesn't really care if "Hawkman" or "the Question" is trademarked, is he or she a popular enough character, featured in a cartoon or movie, or make sense to add variety to a line, all to better the bottom line.
ReplyDeleteFurther, a license like DC Comics might change hands from say Hasbro to Mattel, not because of a company doing a bad job with the license, but that the companies practices do not fall in line with what the licensor expects or that the contract has run its course and the licensor or licensee does not to renew. It could also be a number of other reasons, like you said it's a business. If Batman has made a decline in sales, its time to let him go and move onto another property you want to pour your energy and resources into. This comes out as a win for us as we will have different versions of Batman to collect.
In the case of DCIH, I see this as Mattel trying to diversify the license among the different product types and scales out in the market, more than likely the DC License is handled by a brand manager, who does love the property for what it is, and has assigned different people to design it. They are all going to throw in their two cents and populate the line with a mix of characters that sale, characters kids will like, collectors will like, and what they like. In my opinion the characters the collectors like probably doesn't drive the market as much as we might think, maybe an exception would be some in the DCUC. Collectors are basically a bonus to the toy company who would use these groups to market new figures, sort of a viral campaign if you will, the same way studios use their fan base to market and build buzz on upcoming movies.
Plus, I think it is fair to complain about quality of the toys being provided, I feel distribution is a problem shared by retailers and their policies and safety tends to throw things off as far a schedules, plus it increases cost, but this is a whole other can of worms.
Sorry to take up so much room... stop thinking about toys, it'll get you in trouble.
ReplyDeleteThanks all for your opinions: fact is, we all just want good quality toys (as LEon stated) with reasonable availability (as jboy says.)
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Jay. I was also raised to take good care of my toys, and I remember going into toy stores/supermarkets etc and actually finding what I wanted, or actually getting what I wanted for holidays/birthdays. Distribution issues are a massive component of the frustration of both collectors and parents nowadays.
And special thanks to CB, who works in licensing so he has a real world understanding of how these things work! Thanks for your input CB!:)
PS; CB - these thoughts are what fills the void when I find empty pegs. ;)
The current state of the toy industry has me stumped. I really miss the days when a company would produce a toy or figure and keep producing it for years and years. The idea that a toy would show up on shelves for a month or so and then be gone forever just wasn't a thought that crossed your mind, way back when.
ReplyDeleteSure, I'm generalizing a bit. However, for the most part, if you passed on a toy like a Mego Batman or Superman in 1974, you had the opportunity to pick one up way into 1979 or even later. If you missed out on Farmboy Luke in 1978 when the original Star Wars figures were released by Kenner, you still had the opportunity to pick him up at any point up until about 1985.
These days, I almost have a panicked feeling inside when I see a figure on the shelf that I've been looking for. From experience I've learned (far too many times) that if I "pass" at the time I see the figure, I may never see it for sale at retail again.
I'm not sure why toy companies feel compelled to keep producing all new product at the expense of getting previous product into waiting consumers' hands, but it seems pretty ridiculous at times.
What Mattel has done with the Batman Imaginext line (highly under rated, IMO) seems about right to me. They keep producing the figures, playsets, and vehicles that they started the line with...and they update the line with new figures and vehicles occasionally. However, they don't replace what's on shelves. They augment it and have kept all the pieces in the line available for the duration that the line is available. Which has already been a year or two. I'm guessing they will keep this stuff on shelves for quite awhile, too.
I wish they would use this distribution and production model for their other lines.
Just my two cents.
Dittoes across the board to all of the above posts....and kind of makes the e-mail I just sent you, Bubba, a little irrelevant!!
ReplyDeleteSee, that is what i get for delaing with e-mails and Twitter before reading the blogs!!
Wow, this thread really kicked off some good conversation!
ReplyDeleteThanks all for your input - all VERY good points and the toy companies (companies who deal in toys) would be well served to LISTEN to a different tune than just the kids-who-buy-and-break and the "collector" - there are more angles than that, and I think most of us fall into the "other" box.
Brian A. - GREAT points re: toys staying power of old, and the Batman Imaginext line.
Keep the chatter up, kids!
Oh man, I know there are many people that complain about Mattel but they'll continue to be problems since they are in the business of selling Barbie dolls and could give two flying monkeys about the "adult collector". The mismanagement of the DCUC and Masters of the Universe lines has simply amazed me especially how they tried to please the fans with the Masters subscription and then messed up badly in October shipping non-subscriber figures first. The subscribers, the ones who paid Mattel over a hundred dollars in advance to get the figures delivered to them every month (a NON CANCELLABLE 100+ DOLLARS MIND YOU), instead were left scratching they're heads about where their figures are. The company is a trainwreck? There was so much fingerpointing between Mattel's Toy Guru/Matty Collector brand manager Scott Neitlich and their e-commerce partner Digital River that no knows which way is up over there.
ReplyDelete