[Slackr]

I have been collecting since the early mid 70s.I had the original Mego Trek figures and have or had most of the follow up offerings since then. But what I see lately is the near total collapse of this license offering in spite of Trek having one of its stronger comeback in years(it seems to come in waves).
So being an outsider to the manufacturing side as I am just a collector, I am wondering what the heck has happened?. In my view it started back in the 90s with Playmates. They did a really nice job of putting a lot of Trek stuff on the shelves at different scales and had numbered items on several of them. But from what I have read, they had too much product out there and that buried the licence for them. The results are toys that for the most part have less value or equal value then their original price tags in today's secondary market.
I think this is the start of the tainting of the Trek brand.
Next came DST/Art Asylum, not sure what they were called when they started. They did a nice long line leaving fans to this day wanting more but they claim there is no or very little market to make it worth their while. They still offer a trickle of product the once offered.
Then Mezco got into the game and made some initial offerings that looked fantastic. They were going along nicely and gave us a glimpse of their upcoming figures,like McCoy and a Kirk variant. Then this line just disappeared without explanation.
Then flash forward to McFarlaine who boldly picked up the licence with the new CBS shows on TV. After much anticipation, two figures debuted and then.....nothing! Has this brand been tainted or cursed? Why would a toy manufacturer in today's day and age even start a line with a twenty year history of decline? Is the licence fee overpriced?
Excluded in my post are Q-master and Mego. The Qmax price point puts it out of this conversation. They have a nicely line but have shown their Wrath of Khan figures for over 4 years now and have not been able to get them to market. Mego has done a nice job with their line and playing upon the nostalgia purchase for guys like me. It worked. But again, I dont put them in the category of subject of this post.
So if you know more about this subject than I do or have your own theory, I would love for you to chime in.

[Joe Moore]

Star Trek has a few hurdles to overcome, unfortunately. It's an expensive license. A lot of long time collectors have been burned too many times by action figure lines that don't last past a few waves, so they don't invest in anything right out of the gate anymore. That in turn lends itself to poor sales, which then contributes to a line being cancelled.

Both McFarlane's and the One:12 Star Trek figures sold poorly. I bought Spock on clearance for $20 and Mirror, Mirror Spock for $10 on clearance (RIP ThinkGeek). So there was no reason on their end to continue.

Now DST, I have no clue what's going on there. They haven't done anything in some time. However, when people ask, they still say things are in the works. So, I don't know if they're having problems getting things approved, or if Paramount has them put stuff on hold, or if they really just stopped and are waiting for their license agreement to be up or renegotiated.

[Slackr]

So based on what you are saying with regard to Mezco and FcFarlane there is no demand. This is similar to the claim DST has been making and the reason they are down to producing about two trek toys a year,if that.
I'm guessing that the only way this licence will persevere is if it lowers its fees. However I do not see that likely in the near future.

[tlasjr]

It seems to be a common theme for a number of properties these days. Over valued licenses leading to over priced figures. I see the same thing with BSG and Buck Rogers.
With Trek I think you're also fighting "which Trek" syndrome. Do you do TOS. The movie series, TNG, The spinoff? If you do modern do you focus on Discovery, Picard. Lower Decks, online or the new one I cant recall the name of. You have 60 years of lore and a Fandom that all want to see their favorite.
I wonder if like Hiya with DC someone could focus on a sub license like ST Online to lower the cost of the licensing.

[ghostbogey]

Yeah....
Last dough I spent on ST figures in a major way, was when Playmates were doing them. That shows you how long its been for me. A few companies like Art Asylum did a decent ST figure IMO.
And what was mentioned about the expense of the licensing. Some time you can overplay your hand. Some of the other ST licensing probably does well. The ST Figs, not so much I'm guessing.

[IMJ]

It might be counter intuitive, but rather than large scale figures I really think Star Trek needs an "all-in" 3 3/4" line. The Abrams-Verse figures (2009) weren't so bad, but they had the worst scaling and sizing. They need a Trek line more akin to GI Joe 25th, but proliferated with releases akin to Star Wars.

That scale can get market penetration everywhere and the promise of a line representing the entire franchise with vehicles, etc would probably draw a lot of people in.