Disappointed in today's toys?
 

Anyone else just disappointed in figures these days?

I mean not ALL figures are bad. Transformers have come a decent ways. I enjoy collecting those. Marvel 3.75" line is still good as is their 6" TMNT is good. But the avengers 2, guardians lines yuck!, DC could have a decent line with multiverse but seems like all I find is zod or Arkham knight batman. Nothing new: can't find robin ever. Nothing else from DC. Jurassic park was a major let down. I grew up owning every vehicle, character and like 10 of every Dino plus random Dino's from other lines and would create a Jurassic park out in the woods . Fences, tracks everything. Wish I taken pictures back in 1995 lol. But Jurassic worlds toys? Bleh. So disappointing. Then their prices for everything is beyond crazy.


Sorry for my rant. I was just hoping figures would get better but seems like they get worse. I guess it's saving me money though. Bummer ha

Depends on what you collect
As a Marvel Legends Collector they have improved a lot some with articulation ,the small cons i have is, sometimes lack of accessories depend on the character, Or i don't like that character or they don't interest me.
Although looking forward to getting the new DC Icons later this year

its so refreshing reading a toy rant thread without the star wars mission series/saga legends line getting mentioned:D

I have to say that the qc is gone down. I love the neca line, especially predator and aliens but its so sketchy on whether or now the fig will break just coming out of the package. With them now delving into the kenner line my intrest is defintely there, especially with the Renegade/Xenomorph two pack comin out, but the durability is seriously lacking. Plus like one said prices have skyrocketed to seriously wtf levels. Its just nuts. That's not to say there aren't good stuff out but the bad seems to be outweighing the good.

I don't know if you got any Predators from series 13 but those (or at least the two I got) feel a lot more durable and action figure-y compared to anything before them in the line, the only thing it seemed anyone would have to watch out for is the wrist-blades. Still the best Predator toys I've ever had, granted the only competition is the old McFarlane stuff (which was also super fragile), and so far I've run into zero out-of-the-box breakages/problems with NECA.

The NECA Aliens, all 3 of them, have been very good on durability in my experience. Just some joints being either tight or loose.

That's true, I guess depending on what you collect. Those marvel are good. As are let's say the walking dead figures are good. But just normal figures whether it be Mattel or hasbro to me have gone down even worse than the 90s. They're like toys you'd find at a dollar store or tj Max.

Star Wars haha hmmm I mean the 6" are good just slow at coming out. At least here in Chicago. 4" the black box are decent I enjoy those. Now the white packaging with pretty much nothing but head swivel and let and arm up and down movement...yuck. 90s all over again but smaller and for more money. I do like a few and have bought a couple just because their characters weren't made before.

Again I see where it's the depends on what you collect. Neca and more collectable figures are doing well. :)

One line that's not very mainstream is doctor who. I'm buying them just because I have a ton of 3.75" figures which j personally love. However the figures aren't that great but because their doctor who I buy them. Haha. Typically I think I'd buy a new figure or five a month (gf would always get mad.) but now I've been wondering why she's so happy...because there's not really anything good out.

My elder v2 broke at the hip even before it got opened ( couldnt tell till i opened it). I got luck on my bad blood as i got it loose.....which is howi tend to look for anything neca unless i wanna hang it on my wall. I found a loose renegade but the arm was fused at the shoulder as was a bishop i found ( heard from many fellow collector soooooo many bishops are faulty). I am lookin forwards to the renegade twoack though as it was my all time fave kenner pred back in the day. I do keep hopin somehow we get smart gunners...even if they are game based..... Though id love for a vasquez and drake. Dunno why the former wctress wnd actor wont sign off....its not like theyve done anything really....at least goldstein ( vasquez) really hasnt.

I do love how awesome the preds n such look dont get me wrong......... Its just i would think for the increased pricing we'd get figs we didnt have to fix as often ( hadnlotsa neca ive had to soakmor heat to get unstuck.)

In my opinion, we entered a golden age of action figures roughly about 15 years ago. Since then, there have been moment of both progress and great decline.

Sculpts, articulation, and character variety have all drastically improved, while quality control has declined. Also, I would probably complain about distribution becoming a problem, but considering we can basically pick up a smart phone, and within days, own whatever figure we're willing to pay for, lol, I won't even open that whole can of worms concerning inconsistent distribution.

At the turn of the century, DC Direct and McFarlane had been giving us amazing sculpts, and then Toy Biz gave us previously unheard of articulation with their Marvel Legends. The bar was raised at that point, and many current figures still have great sculpts along with great articulation.
Sadly, over the past 7 or 8 years, there has been an influx of cheap, poorly sculpted, poorly painted, non-articulated figures. However, despite the influx of crap clogging the toy aisles, there are still some great figures to be found.

However, once we find the figures worth buying, we still have to worry how the paint is going to look, or if the figure is going to break right out of the package. I won't elaborate further, lol, because we all know who the worst culprits are, and they've been mentioned enough already.

I love the fact that there are so many potentially great figures available to us, but I agree that poor quality control has cast a dark shadow over our hobby over the past few years.

I just remembered that technically my Elder v2 is also messed up (sort of). His head isn't plugged on right. I am not very sure how to describe the problem, it's like the hole in the head is too loose for the neck peg. Thankfully gravity saves the day and as long as he's standing upright the problem is 100% hidden/solved. NECA is nowhere near perfect but they're way better than McFarlane was so I love them. Hopefully they continue to iron out issues as they go forward. It is also so much that I love the licenses and nobody else is doing them as traditional toys so I'm glad to take whatever is offered. If another company seriously rose to challenge NECA maybe then we'd see better QC, but McFarlane toys took a nosedive and companies like Funko or Mezco are still too focused on things like bobble-heads.

My main focus is MU, so most of my observations are baised on what I see this line going through,internet ordering is probably the cause of poor distro, companies like Walmart and TRU figure "F" it we cant compete with direct market prices and selection through the internet so why bother carrying the figures at all while collectors are just going to nit pick the rare ones and leave the rest peg warming and taking up space. for us this creates the problem of buying sight unseen over the web.

as far as what we've been getting lately, I think back to the early 90's (before Toybiz) when there was no expectation of a toy of your favorite character, hell the last spider man figure was the 84 SW spidey, and before that was the Mego pocket heroes in 78. so really next time your pissed that they didn't make a better version of some obscure character that you like, remember it wasn't long ago you had to wait like a decade for a new spidey, and the scale and style was different every time.

When the collector bubble burst in the mid 90's there was, and still is people that dumped there hoards that they thought would covet there student loans (that's why there are very fey early Spawn figures on ebay for over 10$, which is below there retail price new. But I think the stores shifted there paradigm towards these big spending collectors(with even Walmart carrying super well sculpted and painted figures) now that the mid level collecting has basically died the stores are shifting back towards children and leaving us stuck in "collector clubs" to get collector figures, or at the direct website. I think the saddest part is the death of the "hunt" now it's just a matter of planning out your spending, and order a case every few months. I don't know if it's just me, but the hunt,and finding something no one else had were a big part of why I liked collecting, sure you always had ebay as a last resort for the compleationist, but now everyone just waits for the site to refresh for like a week, then a month later it's back up at discount.

I still participate in the hunt with varying success. It is a ritual of collecting I intend to preserve, the joy of going out to TRU or Target and finding what you were looking for or even something else that surprises you. I am thankful to online stores though because the hunt is getting harder and harder. Store employees don't know or care what I'm asking for half the time I call to see if something is in stock and general distribution has been dealt a hefty blow.

Quite extremely the opposite of that, good sir.

Amen man. I too still go out but only because i hate that online doesnt show actual,photos of figs and uses lotta stock photos. I would rather see the fig im getting in person so i can look st it for derpy paint, same direction appendages, improper joint attachments etc. plus i dont have to pay over the top shipping rates.

Every time I'm a little disappointed at a figure I look back to when I was a kid and played with my He-Man, Ghostbusters, Silverhawks figures and think how far the toy industry has come since then and automatically say "is not that bad". That being said as collectors we still have to voice our opinions and ask for better quality/distribution considering how expensive toys are today.

Having just arrived home from a local toy and comic show, and browsing through literally thousands of lines of toys both new and old, my opinion on this is that it really depends on what you collect, and how hard you stare through rose-colored glasses and choose to remember history.

I collect from several different lines and scales, and I think that figures have honestly gotten better over the years. While I love nostalgic toys, and still have several of my older figures growing up, a lot of figures from the past do not hold a candle to the offerings of today in terms of sculpt, playability and options. That's not to say they are without faults, (such as the legacy QC issues that companies like Mattel and NECA are lambasted for now a days) but to be honest, I had just as many (if not more) toys break straight out of the packaging back in the day as today, so it's not like things were that much better in terms of QC, although I do agree that with what we drop on these things now a days, they should be able to last a tumble or two off the shelf.

A large part of this feeling of being jipped by today's toys I've noticed seems to come heavily from fans of the 3.75" scale market, which to you I say that many of you have simply been spoiled by the renaissance of articulation that the scale has received over the last few years. Does the cutbacks in articulation stink? Hell yeah it does. Unfortunately, all things do peak, and eventually fade away. There was a time when Marvel Legends and G.I.Joes disappeared off of our shelves for years. But if the line was strong enough, it could eventually raise itself from the ashes and be reborn anew, and even better than before. We've seen it happen time and time again with Star Wars and TMNT, so have faith. It might take a while, but we'll get there.

And on a closing note...enjoy some of this 5POA stuff. Star Wars is hitting it out of the park with a lot of it. While the Vintage, Clone Wars, and various other lines had superior amounts of articulation, remember that it wasn't long before that that Star Wars figures only had 6 points of articulation...and we all loved and devoured them from store shelves like a stack of free pancakes from iHop. I remember people PHYSICALLY FIGHTING over 6POA Qui Gon Jinn and Darth Maul figures back when "The Phantom Menace" came out. =P

I personally think what we've seen the last 6 or so years has been a much needed "market correction" spurred by changing retail habits and increasing costs in China.
For a while, toy companies were able to reach a point where they were able to provide a "collector friendly" toy at mass market/kid prices. And we all loved being able to get a super articulated 3.75 figure for $6-7.

But the big things I saw was that over that period of time, we saw action figure space (already smaller than the 90s) reach some of the lowest shelf space I've seen in my lifetime. A big part of that was the surge of costs we saw around 2009 caused, IMO, by two big factors:
1. Retailers (like Walmart) stopped treating toys as loss leaders. Toy prices were kept artificially low for DECADES by stores taking little or no real profit on toys to drive people to their stores (I remember GI Joe in 2007 saw a 30% undercut across the ENTIRE range at Walmart). Around 2009, that stopped, so that Transformers deluxe that Walmart bought for $8 and sold for $10? Well, now they wanted a healthier margin so the price kicked up to $13, which was also fueled by..
2. MASSIVE increases in production costs in China. Hasbro stated back in 2013 that the average increase PER YEAR of production costs was 20%. And since Hasbro still wants to make money, that cost got passed along to retailers who, wanting to keep their margins, passed that along to the consumer.
The increases of labor have gotten to the point Hasbro has shifted a LOT of their manufacturing to Vietnam (pretty much all of Transformers Combiner Wars is produced there instead of China)

And I think it is important to note that those 5 POA figures are half the price of a super articulated figure.
Kind of amusing to think that (theoretically, anyway), a current 5 POA Darth Vader would retail for $5.99. Fifteen years ago, a single carded Darth Vader was $4.99

In some ways, I think the trajectory of the action figure market echoes what happened to comics: after their bubble burst in the 90s (I'd argue the action figure bubble burst in the early 2000s), the companies doubled down on their established market (the collector), which only served to further distance the market from the mass retail that fueled its success to begin with.

I see similar thing in action figures where toy companies doubled down on collectors, only see retail space shrink and costs continue to go up. And now we're seeing that issue addressed with a much greater emphasis on cheap toys that kids can actually buy.

Because remember, many of the toys we had growing up were just cheap toys we happened to make an attachment to, and were often sold to us by branding and gimmicks than screen accuracy or articulation.

I agree with you 100% here. I remember my local Walmarts DRASTICALLY cutting the prices of G.I.Joe merch back in 2007. It helped me pad my collection sure, but I can't imagine that it helped Walmart very much economics wise. Very well stated.

This was another thing that stuck out my mind when I was making my previous post, but I didn't know how to exactly address so I left out.

Say what you will about the greatness of toys (action figures in particular) in the 90's and 2000's but as I walked around the toy show I went to today, I found myself looking back in hindsight at how ridiculous some of the offerings that I would chase down back in the day were, as they often looked like this...(and these are two of the actual toys that I saw today that caused me to think back a little...)
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...Walken/_57.jpg
...or this...
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j1...Walken/_58.jpg
That Sentinel gimmick hand thing was nearly bigger than Jubilee, would probably only work a few times, and in the long run was going to be tossed aside, leaving me with a 5 POA figure that could barely stand on it's own, and due to it's sculpt, couldn't really be posed in anything other than the pose it arrived in. And while the Blade figure was a ton better than Jubilee in terms of articulation and likeness, they still managed to package him with a huge gimmick weapon that he could barely hold as a selling point. As I pointed this out to a friend today at the show, I found myself laughing at how ridiculous it was, because now I was looking back in hindsight as to what did I really purchase...Blade....or the ridiculous rocket launcher?

Branding and gimmicks.

Sorry if I'm a bit disjointed in my presentation, but again...very well put.

I think that one of the huge problems that killed toys in the '90s was when Mcfarlane toys heavily enforced variant toys. What started as a paint mishap turned into "let's make thirteen of one character" and then let's mass produce them beyond demand and then people will buy stupid amounts of them because toys from the '70s are expensive now so clearly these will be too. EXTREME!!!

I think that today's play toys are not so much disappointing as they are lapsing back to what they used to be, we were spoiled by those super articulated toys so now the return to actual play toys is an apparent decline in standards. I think it may be that those super articulated toys were the peak of what some of these toy lines could do and it got to be too much so a return to basics was in order.

I will say that adult collectible toys are better than ever now with a much wider selection of companies and more diverse licenses than ever before. Let's just hope we don't get a '90s style collapse any time soon.

I agree with all the good points above. Local toy departments are turning into peg warmer museums; most manufacturers are putting cost reduction before quality; what I want nowadays is generally only available online; prices for some of the best things are scary high; and there really isn't much out there that I want anymore. (Example: I'm still waiting for a 5POA Spiderman that resembles the classic cartoon, but up to the standards of the Black Series.) Interestingly, the best figure I've found in months turned out to be a bootleg (Iron Man MK43). You know the industry is due for a shake-up when bootlegs outperform the mainstream!

I actually think the "variant thing" was more endemic of the increased focus on collectors and speculators over kids in the toy market in later 90s to mid-2000s (though I think speculation largely died out by the early 2000s, with nostalgia fueled collectors becoming a factor after).
Kids don't care about variants (assuming they ever actually saw one), but variants are a great way to get collectors to buy the same figure multiple times.

I do find it amusing to look back at what was "hot for collectors" in the 90s (Star Trek, early STar Wars, Batman Total Justice, etc) be worth almost nothing today, while the actual kids toys (Transformers Beast Wars, Jurassic Park) have become rather pricey.

Oh yeah, I've been saying over at TFW that collectors that came into the hobby in the last decade entered into a relative "golden age" and became spoiled by what was accomplished during that period (in Transformers case, largely fueled by a HUGELY successful feature film)
It's amusing to hear all the complaints about how expensive toys have gotten, only to see the same people turn around and complain how insulting toys have become (largely to address the cost issue)

I think the prevailing issue with the 90s collapse was that companies were trying to sell "collector figures" in a mass market environment where they just didn't belong: the price point didn't allow for the level of detail collectors want, but were still too expensive or too "above the heads" of kids to sell at that level.

With the internet, we're firmly seeing the "kid market" and "collector market" split. Which has its own issues as much of the success of Star Wars and similar lines was built on both kids AND collectors buying into the same product line. And I think some of the weakening of action figures is due to the fact a LOT of collector dollars aren't there to support those sort of items, which were costed higher than impulse to give the collectors feature and deco they want.

I still think the shifts in the industry have happened such that companies like Hasbro and Mattel just don't know what to do about it. I still believe both are guilty of "fracturing" their own kid market by making a bunch of competing items in the same price brackets. They're putting so much different stuff out there to compensate for lower volume, that the overall brand is hurt by so many different figure styles (none of which given the focus to build a complete "line")

Avengers is endemic of this problem: the big focus on marketing has been the talking Titan figures, but they've also got the 2.5 system and its tower and jet AND a slate of 3.75 figures, plus some 6" collector figures.
Maybe I'm just an old fogey, but which of those are the "primary" line? Back in the 90s, there would have been ONE core line of figures supported by vehicles, with a couple of outlier items.
And because you have all these compete styles (many repeating the same characters), I think the "world building" element is lost and kids aren't going to build the same attachment to the brand as they might have.

Wow. Very well said. It's a very old mistake, trying to cover all the market bases and losing focus in the process.

I think for me it isn't the quality I have the biggest concern with, it's the cost. Companies are still pumping out the same old figures but charging us so much more for them. I was a huge SW collector, but figures these days, depending on the line, can run you almost $20. It's just ridiculous. ANd this goes for most, not just SW. I stopped collecting all of that stuff a while ago and moved on to Hot Toys and more higher end collectibles. Yes, they are a lot more, but the details and art work and accessories are far better.

Agreed. Most anything AF marketed directly to younger kids is a hunk of plastic now and expensive to boot. If you have even a couple accessories or a little detail or articulation you start at $11-12 and go from there now. It's extremely disappointing.

Good observation. Playmates did the same with the 2009 Trek movie and look where it got them. TransFormers has been doing more and more of it since Animated too. I feel like I have to wade through all kinds of junk to get to the real toys and then don't find any because there's practically no space allotted for them.

Personally, I hate the 2.5" scale. They're just too small to do or look like anything and the price differential between there at 3.75" is paper thin anyway. Seriously, why bother with it at all?

The only thing that really disappoints me as a collector of Marvel Legends is they keep pushing the same characters like CA, IM and Wolvie. I'd love to see more variety.

But otherwise the selection of toys to choose from is insane right now. NECA stuff, Star Wars, Marvel, Funko Legacy, ReAction. I want so much but really can't afford to collect it all.