[Snowflakian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sean C

In mid 2005 Hasbro ticked off some people by cancelling 3 3/4" at retail for was seemed to be a new direction with 8" Sigma Six. Not long after announcing Sigma Six, they tried the online Direct to Consumer 3 3/4" stuff and it petered out after 3 1/2 waves or so, with TRU eventually picking up the excess for retail (Maye they should've done a shared online/TRU thing from the get go?). They also made 2.5" stuff for Sigma Six, which seemed like the dumbest move...wasting tooling on something that flopped with kids and collectors. The 8-inchers actually seemed to be doing okay, even winning over some 4" collectors, and lasted like 2 and 1/2 years, I think. But the cartoon got pulled half way through season 2 because...I dunno. Of course they never made 8-inch Scarlett or Baroness, because it was larger scale kid-aimed line.

I couldn't seen a 6 inch GI Joe line lasting beyond a year. The die hards wouldn't be enough to make up for the more casual people who'd only buy the 5 or 6 characters they like. I see 6-inch Star Wars and Marvel stuff getting deep discounts and their collector bases seem much larger.

Little bit more to it than that.

This is the entire toy history from 2001 to present though, and you see how the market shifted.

The toon died from low ratings. The figures themselves weren't exactly something retailers liked either. And it had other issues because they couldn't exactly do vehicles in that line either outside of motorcycles and similar smaller. It cut off an entire area of the franchise due to that.

The smaller scale was supposed to go more towards micro machines. The toon essentially came from Hasbro's experience with RiD, and then Armada/Energon/Cybertron.

Sigma 6 had no Jinx either. It lacked all female figures. Even though there were only 3 in the show.

The original GI Joe standard was dying though, so this was a means to shake it up and rejuvenate it. Kids weren't buying it at all. Even the collector side of it was really meh and getting bored with it as the line grew entirely stale and no real innovations were being made to fix that. Then sigma 6 came in to rejuvenate and give a fresh start, but it had a lot of its own issues, between fan shock and disdain, and overly big, and how it lacked any wide array of vehicles, to eventually retailers not liking it either for how much space it took up and how cost prohibitive it was in general on the Hasbro side. The last eaves of it went to discount stores. Some almost didn't get released at all or did in very low numbers. Retailers completely stopped ordering it and wanted something new.

When Sigma 6 died, then came Modern Era. And that's what brought the line back to prominence. The concept of modern era stemmed from the fact that they could also retool older vehicles, and more. Which led to a wealth of material that was easier to do. And could create new faster.

Modern Era had so much success it led to Toy Biz attempting it with Superhero Showdown, which essentially collapsed in on itself, Toy Biz's legends line wasn't moving merchandise either, so eventually they lost the Marvel toy rights to Hasbro. Which gave rise to the Marvel 4" Eventually the demise of the 6" legends. Toy Biz tried to get back on their feet using independent comic heroes(mostly Top Cow), that flopped. Toy Biz eventually went out of business after only having Curious George and other children's material to keep it afloat that wasn't moving enough volume.

Modern Era's success led to other's attempting it. Marvel 4" came to prominence. Mattel tried to capitalize on GI Joe success with James Cameron's Avatar for that toyline, rather floundered, but not horribly. They tried a different pattern imitating Mego pocket heroes for DCIH, then upped articulation as it progressed. Eventually that evolved into Multiverse using game rights and batman as a testing ground because of imitating Kenner with the Nolan films. Which led to the GL line, then the MOS line. To then all of that collapsing in on itself. Also why Tron Legacy tried it, and the new Robocop. Even Terminator tried to get in on it.

Eventually 6" made a comeback, became the dominate market trend to now nearly everything doing 6" and relatively self-sustaining on it. 4" is slowly dying out, but will likely make a return later too.

And that brings us to the modern day. Where Toy Biz style marvel lines are again taking prominence on shelves, with collector-centric 6" legends self-sustaining, and 1:18th on the back burner about to cycle back in per as the cyclical nature of toy trends go.

6" GI Joe is actually even more acceptable now thanks to Sigma 6. The initial shock is mostly what kept it from surviving, alongside the lack of vehicles and retailers not happy with the space it took up and the lower volume of it moving. The final waves of it barely made it to shelves. Some of it ended up discount shops. Besides the cost prohibitive nature of it in other aspects.

Consumer mentalities are different now though. Scale isn't as much of a concern for material. So things like Micro machines and figures co-existing isn't as much of a complaint as it was back then. You know how "fans" get when new things come around. But now all that isn't new either.

And that's basically toy history from 2001 to present, and how Hasbro essentially was shaping the toy market early on, to where we are now with the cycle going back 6" prominence, 3.75" in the wings ready to come back, and Toy Biz style "all ages lines" gaining traction on shelves again.

The toy market really is that cyclical. And now that the initial shock is over of how GI Joe attempted to briefly reinvent itself, the market is actually more accepting of that. As well as how consumer mentalities and range have shifted too to become larger and more accepting of diverse material.

It's kind of interesting when you really look at it. But it is all connected to how the market moved and made waves to how some styles ended, to new ones taking prominence to the burnout those caused eventually, to new 6" coming back, and so on and how that impacted the trends of the market as a whole to the point now the toy industry is much larger than it was.

It's really no surprise that Hasbro is one of the bigger toy companies with landmark profits. They've been rather pioneering the progression of the industry as far back as the rebirth of Transformers with RiD and AEC and are what caused various trend waves. Including Toy Biz's attempts to capitalize on the rising Transformers popularity in the early 2000s with their own attempt, and then much later their "Superhero showdown" attempts.

Really, even Skylanders, and Amiibo came from what was originally a star wars toy gimmick from Hasbro that they did during the prequels. The RFID communication stands are what eventually inspired Skylanders, which led to Amiibo, and Lego Dimensions, as well as the Disney version.

*edit* The first time I tried to post this had an internet outage issue so the post got lost. This was a rewrite of it. But contains much of the same history and cyclical growth data of trends to how the market shifted and the social aspects of how the market bucked trends, grew out of outrage of change, and how mentalities have shifted to where they are now.

I've been a rather observant collector over this time for various "reasons."
But it is interesting how entire lines shifted changed, and seeing how mentalities changed over that time too. To what grew in popularity, what declined, what died, and what got reborn.

6" GI Joe would last more than a year in the new market. But it definitely wouldn't move the volume retailers are used to. But volume has shifted too as well as expectations. It's been a rather long windy road to this point.