[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by K Dubious

Great point of views, let me lend my two cents.

Disney and Fox are two (Out of only 6) of the biggest media companies on Earth. These 6 companies control everything we see and read, that part is tough to believe, but I promise it is true.

All that is true.
Though Fox is now two entities since their split with Newscorp. So they don't have as much weight as they did abroad, but they're still in the top 6.

Quote:

Originally Posted by K Dubious

Also I do feel like the big retail chains are most definetlely Hasbro's Bread and Butter, but there is no way they have any say in the direction of these lines. For years we heard that the stores demand Ironman, Spider-man, and Wolverine that is why they are so abundant. While I agree that the average joe wants those three more than other figures, but the average joe does not buy the entire line like collectors do so why should their opinion be the one that matters? I think stores are smart enough to realize that when they buy into a line it will change from shipment to shipment, I could be wrong and maybe their is a Walton out there going "I can't wait for our stores to get more of the figures that never sell!"

That's because a Walton is the top of the food chain and doesn't even know the bulk of what their stores really even carry anymore. I doubt they could even name a toyline in their toy department. The problem is at a lower end in the chain, but higher than an individual store. What those retail ordering people know is what's popular by media presence. Captain America, Ironman, Spider-man, the named movie title characters and brand names. They balance what they want to spend and what they think will sell against how much they want to pay for it by bulk orders. So yeah, they want named characters because that's what they think will sell. Getting them to purchase into the line by meeting these requests is what hasbro does. They have to hype the store into it by talk of how much they'll make, and once they buy into it, with the consecutive waves Hasbro has to sustain the line and sales numbers by the selection they provide in the waves. So as long as product is moving and those named tiers still pop up occasionally when those that handle orders check, they stay happy and keep ordering.

Like over with Transformers. We see a lot of optimus prime and bumblebee because that's the names now that everyone knows. But if Hasbro can talk their way into getting orders for a line and sustain it, then we start seeing things like combiner wars. Those took some build up to get to though. Power Core combiners paved the way for that to retailers, but the continued strong sales opened the door for much more. Combiner wars is also an offshoot of Generations though, and early generations this go round had a minor fixation on prime and bumblebee to get themselves on shelves. Even combiner wars itself had to work in a prime figure which thankfully was planned to be retooled into Motormaster. Hasbro is trying to balance that system to get what they know sells out on shelves past the retail ordering people.

If you've ever worked for those retail stores, you know how 'in the know' those various representatives and corporate types actually are too. And that is to say not much if at all. They know what their kids watch maybe, and what's in theaters.