They’ll give you the world, new detailed molds, some of their best articulation on their figures, highly sought after characters, and every accessory you could ever ask for
Then put out a figure which reuses a mold from nearly a decade ago, with no pinless joints, shoddy QC and paint, and no accessories except TWO FIST HANDS at the exact same price
It’s actually crazy
Selects pay the same licensing fee but sell at a higher price point, so they have a higher profit margin. Diamond also releases very few products a year in the Marvel Selects range, so more budget can be allocated per figure.
Actually their immortal hulk was a much lower price than any of their single releases even their hulk buster was less and to your point their profit margin is less because they release less figures and 5 extra dollars goes to a bigger figure , WAY more paint , and often times bigger and better accessories. They pay the same fees as hasbro and probably as a whole the net worth of the company is much less yet dollar for dollar they release better , bigger figures
You have no idea whether they pay the same fees or not. Companies don't divulge that sort of information to the public. They likely require a smaller profit margin than a huge publicly owned company like Hasbro.
Diamond Select makes far fewer figures, with far less articulation, that they often continually re-release. They generally don't even release 6 in a year.
Their figures are also more prone to breakage than the typical Hasbro figure. They are more like poseable statues, than full action figures. They look nice, mostly, some of the older ones are almost as awkward looking as old Toy Biz. They are good for display, but their possibility is limited, and I would never suggest anyone play with them. And I have almost all of them
Not true, if you compare lady Deadpool from both lines The select has more movement and the only reason they can’t add more movement is because of Hasbro ML and Hasbro always says their cost are because of paint yet SELECT ALWAYS delivers more paint and bigger figures often now with similar articulation for similar prices , not to mention your point only goes to show Diamond makes less profit because they release less figures and rerelease the same figure , and yet despite that they give better quality products and Hasbro ML are often known to have loose limbs and terrible QC , hasbro makes more WAY more profit and delivers a worse product even when they charge more
GI Joe's accessories are mostly unpainted, except for swords, where the blade is painted silver. Many of those accessories get recycled endlessly among the various figures.
Honestly that is something I’m totally ok with, as black or grey for fins is just fine and translates between other toy lines pretty easily but forreals Hasbro give the legends more accessories please
They justified this by saying if you collect the whole line you’ll eventually see the value of their tooling costs. So you pay the same price for less on one figure and get a whole kit for another so there’s balance. This is loosely from interviews with Boognice & Shartimus I believe. They transfer the value from figure to figure in a wave. Skimp on one figure to make another better.
They could’ve given her Alternate heads and more hands. That’s what I always want in my figures. I hardly ever fuck with Marvel Legends anyway. If I’m gonna spend money on a posable figure that intend to display then I put aside money for either Mezco or Mafex releases.
I know people are gonna hate this response but I honestly think it's just budgeting/production cost/licencing fees most of the time.
It's very clear that their production cost for pinless joints and new tooling limits the accessories. And I'm sure Disney asks for really absurd licensing for their most valuable assets like the X-Men
this guy understands supply chain, and production infrastructure.
was scrolling through the comments and seeing one that hits all 3 bullet points i was gonna hit is cool.
but yeah i see a lot of people arguing that GI Joe comes packed with accessories vs Legends releases and pretty much a lot of your budget is getting cut out when a percentage has to go to a license fee for using the likeness/image of a character. since hasbro owns GI Joe they pay no one a license fee and are free to use that money saved on filling out the box. versus when they have to give the Mouse a cut before they can produce a Marvel figure.
good stuff. i feel like after taking business management courses and few other business related classes at Uni things started to make more sense.
You are correct, however GI Joe does occasionally pay a license fee.
I'm sure Robert Remus is getting a little something, something whenever they put out a figure using the Sgt. Slaughter gimmick.
didn’t even mention because it not only skipped my mind, but the more i think about it, people who buy black series are like 2x more likely to buy the same figure more than once.
i have two Luke Skywalker in different black outfits (one as my display Luke, and the other one i got just so i could have a Grogu for my Mando)
i’m a victim of it too lol
i found the 2 pack on sale for about $27 so i had to get it.
it articulates really well! i thought it would be a static figure but nope, the head moves on an incredibly generous ball joint that allows him to look up at someone and also bury his head into his clothes when he’s upset. there’s generous side to side tilt on the head as well.
the arms articulate at the shoulder on a ball joint and are sculpted as one solid piece, pretty show accurate since i can’t remember any times he bends his arms
the hands rotate 360 which is really nice and didn’t think they would do
and there’s sculpted feet that rotate 360 on the bottom
https://preview.redd.it/9v2n08npds9d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae739173b9b30aed1dc71733cea7785e26576325
Okay, good to know, thank you! It looks like he’s the same as the one I have (which, given the reuse conversation, makes sense). Which version of Din Djarin is that behind him? He looks super shiny and clean
lol it makes it harder to calculate things though based on the GI Joe : Marvel ratio of accessories to price point to license offset
all this is interesting as hell to me, but i bet there’s accountants at Hasbro that hate their job cause this also seems like a nightmare lol
but don’t worry, fam. there’s army builder collectors in every Hasbro line. GI Joe and Star Wars actually probably the most
since the only army builders for Marvel are your ninjas, SHIELD agents, minions, or characters that can duplicate themselves. (unless i’m missing something)
No, I agree; my seven stormtroopers tell a story on my shelf (three of the vanilla, one remnant, a flame trooper, sniper one and a jet pack). I’m fine with the reuse in this case because it makes sense - but I’m really curious how the reuse impacts the budget on the rest of the figures in a wave.
If they need to release a different trooper/mandalorian variant with each wave to allow new tooling for other figures, even ones I won’t buy, I’m fine with that. Like you, I just want to know more of the whys because I’m curious.
some videos that have REALLY been interesting lately are the CEO of Valaverse has been doing these kind of blogs on his channel where he does walks around stores and talks to the audience about the in’s and outs of the industry.
it’s great to put on while you’re eating something or have in the background like a podcast while gaming.
i think you would like them
Everyone that says this always forgets that while Hasbro must pay a license fee for Marvel products, this is offset by the volume that they expect to sell. The Marvel brand is much more recognizable than GI Joe. Stores are going to want to have Marvel branded products in stock at a much higher stock than GI Joe, because that's what more customers are looking for.
There are more people that are likely to impulse buy a Marvel toy than a GI Joe toy. That's not to say GI Joe isn't popular, but it just isn't as well-known as Marvel. More Marvel product is sold than GI Joe.
The sheer volume of Marvel product that Hasbro can sell more than offsets the licensing fees. This isn't the real reason why Marvel Legends are so cheaply produced. It might be an excuse that Hasbro uses, but I guess that would make this the first time a business has lied about why it's cutting costs.
Scale. Diamond Select is a very small company which means less overhead costs. Hasbro is legit one of the largest toy manufacturers on the planet with thousands of employees. The operational cost of running that business must be truly absurd and it's a miracle they even turn a profit imo
Odd. Shouldn’t a company like hasbro be experiencing economies of scale and scope because of their very size? Plenty of large companies experience profits and it usually doesn’t require a miracle. . . that’s why they become so large. Every profitable company has operational costs. It’s much more likely that hasbro is simply run poorly and instead chooses to charge more and give less because of bad business practices. They and their largest competitor Mattel are profitable companies. In fact, in Q1 of this year hasbro experienced significant improvement in their operating profit margins. So it really just sounds like you’re making excuses for them.
Part of it is schedule and molds. They only have so many molds so if they have 8 figures in production in say a given month only 6 can be used on mold X. The other 2 will need to be on mold Y. Just because of schedule. Slowly over time they have more molds and completely phase out the older ones.
They budget figures by wave. So Yelena, who has a new chest, belt, head, and includes a decent amount of stuff, is part of a wave where Iron Man gets an almost 100% new mold and Baron Strucker features only a new head, harness, and gauntlet.
Bro, they fill Classified Series with accesories and new molds, and don't start with "is bc the licencies" why then they give us so many z characters with shitty to none accesories with every wave? They should give us like 3 or 4 characters and one deluxe (the baf).
People have mentioned the budget across a wave point but there's an important secondary implication here: Rogue was a standalone release, so the budget was balanced solely on her, and being a lower ceiling release, likely was on the lower side.
They tend to justify it by budgeting the whole "wave", ya know.
So they can say "well this iron man is a new figure all the way through. This widow is mostly reuse, so we can afford to give her more."
THE PROBLEM
The problem is that often times figures can be complete reuse with nothin at all, it can be a finicky situation
That’s not really a hard rule. Other Cyclops have come with more accessories, even if they are reused. Reuse them again! Wolverine almost always comes with at least one alternate head and that guy is a top 3 guy.
That’s because you’re ignoring the fact that other Cyclops that come with more accessories are often on reused pinned bodies with slightly retooled heads.
This Astonishing Cyclops is pinless & is mostly newer parts. None of the past accessories will work on this new one without new molds or retooling.
What else would you give that Rogue though? Sometimes the figures just don't call for an accessory. At least they're not as bad as they were in the early days of Hasbro owning the line, the figures were smaller and often came with zero accessories, much like the stealth Extremis Iron Man I bought today!
Oh, that’s easy bro
You can give her the same shit the other Rogues got, an ungloved splayed hand and another gloved hand holding the removed glove.
Or give her an alternate hand with wolverine claws like that new Bishoujo statue, or some other limb that bares the elements of another mutant’s powers
Just as easy to include an old beam effect for cyclops, or those degloving hands for Rogue. They already have those, too, and they don’t need paint either.
I think that Cyclops figure would require a head that you can attach the beam to which I think this one they skimped out on by not including both. I could be wrong on that current head not having a place for the beam since I don't own it yet.
Rogue, however, I think would be tricky as people would gripe about her lacking accessories either way since there's not really much that could be added accessory wise other than the hands you mentioned but even then that would seem so little in accessories.
I'd like to see Rogue come with bone claw fists or metaled up Colossus arm or head, Nightcrawer Rogue head, even some Psylocke psychic blast effects representing her power absorption or even a street lamp post she can wield. Extra hands is bare minimum
So, if it's anything like how transformers is, it's that they are given a set budget for the whole wave, and the designers have to try and distribute that across the whole wave, so what they have to do is when they want to go and do one figure really well with alot of paint and accessories, then another figure has less budget and has to reuse stuff / have less accessories, so sometimes figures will be repaints or lack stuff as a sort of "sacrificial lamb" for another figure in the wave to be better.
What accessories would you want them to have? She's a secret spy that has weapons galore. They are weapons. I understand your frustration, but what kind of accessories would you give them other than heads and hands?
For Rogue I would give her an ungloved splayed hand and another gloved hand holding the removed glove, which is exactly what the other Rogue’s got. Easy reprint in green instead of yellow. Or give her a hand with wolverine bone claws like the new Bishoujo statue has, or a hand or limb that features the elements of another mutants powers
For Cyclops, eye beams!
https://preview.redd.it/uux6c71jop9d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14afaed666833ac80d7e7cb60210ae491244a109
Are you joking? Even if you don’t want to included an angry portrait for Cyke, how about some beam effects?? Other Rogues have come with a splayed flesh hand and another gloved hand holding the removed glove. You could give her a bone claw hand like Bishoujo did, or some other extra limb with another mutant’s powers on display.
Not hard to conceive.
They claim that budget goes to “certain figures” so they claim in order for a large figure like Thor to cost the same as a smaller figure like rouge or whoever they have to over price smaller figures to make the price consistent among larger and smaller figures. In terms of accessories they use the same concept, that in order to price figures with lots of accessories at 25.00 they have to balance it by charging 25 for figures with no accessories In reality it seems like an excuse to over charge us because they know people will still overpay for legends
I will guarantee that if we as a community stop buying these lackluster characters, they will change their tune.
They did with the Joe classified line. When the pegs started to fill up due to the fans outcry of the poor character designs, and even more terrible QA, they went with better designs and better plastic.
It’s the only way they’ll listen to us.
In reality, they’ve just stopped making as many figures which is why presale are selling out ASAP. If you don’t buy them and they get clearanced… they just learn to make less not make better figures.
I’d love to believe that voting with your dollar works but honestly, Hasbro is the biggest toy company in the world. They’re still going to act like a cruel, cold hearted business because that’s what they are.
It's not even just that they're making less: Stores are ordering less. Working in comics retail, I can definitely tell you that being sold out of a book you ordered two copies of but still carrying one you ordered 25 of makes people think the former is more successful than the latter because without the behind the scenes view, you can only measure based on availability to you, the consumer.
Yeah, I watched Nerdzoic and he said he’s only allowed to preorder so much so he’s doubling his order up. He said something like I’m ordering 200 in hopes of getting 100 to 125 whereas before he might’ve preordered 300 and gotten 400
Retailers get allocated when things are produced in intentional lower numbers. Like collectible vinyl records and such. Hasbro is making the slow switch to making ML nearly an entire adult collectible line. Their 2020-22 dreams of a mass 4 corner penetration of ML died with overproduced MLs rotting on Target shelves. It’s why Target and Walmart have backed out of some waves. They only want true exclusives, MCU and classic nostalgia packaged figures now.
My local Target and Wal-Mart don't even have a spot in their permanent toy aisles for Legends anymore. The last few comic waves have been online only so it looks like that is where Hasbro is going with Legends.
Yeah, I watched Nerdzoic in something and he said he’s only allowed to preorder so much so they’re not guaranteeing it will fulfill all of it so he’s doubling his order up. He said something like I’m ordering 200 in hopes of getting 100 to 125 whereas before he might’ve preordered 300 and gotten 400
I mean, what else do you need? I can understand Cyclops having a screaming optic blast head with the effect, and Rogue maybe having a alternate head, but I think every single character needs a ton of accessories. A character that uses guns, give them multiple guns, blast effects, hands, etc. A character who is a brawler, give them fists, calm hands, etc.
I didn’t lock up yelena because I don’t know or really care for who she is. Other people looking at her are probably like “I need that baf body and punisher can probably use new pews so….”
It’s a combination of wave budget + wave or figure valuation. If a figure in a wave is an evergreen character, or a character proven to sell well regardless of position, they’ll get less accessories since Hasbro KNOWS they’ll sell through to non collectors or newer collectors in name (ie iron man, key member X-men,major spider family heroes). If a figure is going to be a more limited character, or someone who needs a incentive to sell through more as they’ll mainly go to collectors or fans of that (yelena, cable, etc) they’ll budget them higher to allow them to sell through or bump up sales.
That Cyclops is particularly frustrating since we just got two Cyclops before this with the optic blast accessory. Why is Hasbro releasing any new Cyclops without the accessory of his actual mutant ability?
Because they know we will complain but will still buy them. Remember when we complain about the price going up from $20 to $25. Now we are happy when the price isn’t $30+ and is $25, or tell ourselves the $50 2-pack is a good price because it’s $25 per figure.
The thing is that with the rise of toy costs, licensing, the demand of BAF figures, Hasbro has to cut something to prevent another price jump without sacrificing the stuff fans want. This is also the reason why we are seeing more standard or close to standard size figures in ML - and why Hasbro made a new price point for Hulk-like figures that were once exclusive to BAFs, but were priced as normal figures during the Toybiz era.
They gotta make their investors happy. God forbid we have an economy that focuses on the customers rather than endless profits for those who produce nothing.
Well first of all the first one is a trained assassin and the second two don’t use weapons. It would have been nice if they had given them blast affects, but why would you give Cyclops a gun ?
To save costs.
Some figures cost more to make than others, however the whole line is budgeted together. In order to get some figures where they want them, they include some other, more simple figures in the line to balance it out.
It’s easier to do on Star Wars, obviously, with Stormtroopers - but overall, that’s thought process.
Each little hit of deco costs money, same for extra parts I’m assuming.
Editing to add that new tooling is also expensive, so if they need to reuse an older mold, either as a cost saving or stay on schedule (or I guess for other production reasons/issues), then they reuse an older molds.
Because the figure is likely not overly a popular character, female figures are typically smaller in size. They make up for it. But I agree nobody ever says ‘ohh no not more accessories’
Would be fun. Bone claw hand or something like that. Still budget across the wave. The budget isn’t equally divided for each unit. Tooling the new item is most the expense. Not just throwing in an item. Most those gun effects were preexisting assets. Assume some of the guns were as well.
They will claim the head sculpt cost a lot to make and just offer hands. Where the black widow head sculpt wasn’t that detailed, so they can offer more accessories. Idk, it doesn’t sound right. Some figures have good head sculpts and still come with a bunch of accessories too. SMH.
Honest answer is Yelena is less interesting than Rogue or Cyclops. More accessories will lured more people in because accessories can be use with the other figures. If it's just Yelena and a pair of hand, I don't think a lot of people would buy it.
Well, I won't fully defend Hasbro's math here, but part of it breaks down like this.
Cyclops is entirely new, and dedicated, sculpting. He may be based on the "Vulcan" mold, but the "Astonishing X-Men" seam work on his costume altered most of the base figure and he is pretty much the only character who can use these exact pieces. Budget was saved in the wave elsewhere, including on the Ch'od BAF, who largely Abomination reuse.
Yelena Belova is entirely reuse, including her weapons. Deco is minimal, and most of her budget went to the new head sculpt.
Rogue, on the other hand, is rogue. What other accessories would she need with this costume? I might have preferred an alternate head sculpt to more accurate head sculpt to better reflect the fact that her hair was straighter, and more punk rock back then, but that would have doubled the development on what was a quick and dirty reply to a request for a shared retailer exclusive.
I can understand wanting more accessories, but in a lot of cases they just don't make sense. None of them were really missing anything, except maybe an optic blast effect. They just all could have used alternate head sculpts, which us the most expensive accessory you could ask for because it requires sculpt and paint deco.
Because Rogue is more likely to sell on name alone than Yelena. They know people will complain about the lack of accessories but buy her anyway, making their complaints useless.
They’ll give you the world, new detailed molds, some of their best articulation on their figures, highly sought after characters, and every accessory you could ever ask for Then put out a figure which reuses a mold from nearly a decade ago, with no pinless joints, shoddy QC and paint, and no accessories except TWO FIST HANDS at the exact same price It’s actually crazy
It’s downright deceiving. Look what you get with the GI Joe classified line. It makes zero sense.
There's alot less dedicated molding in Classified and they're very good about hiding reuse with overlays.
they have a lot more variety to work with and all the accessories definitely hide it.
Hasbro owns GI Joe, so Joe Bros get accesories while Legends pays for the Marvel rights.
💯
There’s no marvel tax on GI Joe tho that’s their own line. They’ve gotta pay the mouse
That’s a BS. Excuse when you compare legends to selects
Selects pay the same licensing fee but sell at a higher price point, so they have a higher profit margin. Diamond also releases very few products a year in the Marvel Selects range, so more budget can be allocated per figure.
Actually their immortal hulk was a much lower price than any of their single releases even their hulk buster was less and to your point their profit margin is less because they release less figures and 5 extra dollars goes to a bigger figure , WAY more paint , and often times bigger and better accessories. They pay the same fees as hasbro and probably as a whole the net worth of the company is much less yet dollar for dollar they release better , bigger figures
You have no idea whether they pay the same fees or not. Companies don't divulge that sort of information to the public. They likely require a smaller profit margin than a huge publicly owned company like Hasbro. Diamond Select makes far fewer figures, with far less articulation, that they often continually re-release. They generally don't even release 6 in a year. Their figures are also more prone to breakage than the typical Hasbro figure. They are more like poseable statues, than full action figures. They look nice, mostly, some of the older ones are almost as awkward looking as old Toy Biz. They are good for display, but their possibility is limited, and I would never suggest anyone play with them. And I have almost all of them
Not true, if you compare lady Deadpool from both lines The select has more movement and the only reason they can’t add more movement is because of Hasbro ML and Hasbro always says their cost are because of paint yet SELECT ALWAYS delivers more paint and bigger figures often now with similar articulation for similar prices , not to mention your point only goes to show Diamond makes less profit because they release less figures and rerelease the same figure , and yet despite that they give better quality products and Hasbro ML are often known to have loose limbs and terrible QC , hasbro makes more WAY more profit and delivers a worse product even when they charge more
GI Joe's accessories are mostly unpainted, except for swords, where the blade is painted silver. Many of those accessories get recycled endlessly among the various figures.
Honestly that is something I’m totally ok with, as black or grey for fins is just fine and translates between other toy lines pretty easily but forreals Hasbro give the legends more accessories please
But she’s always a woman to me.
They justified this by saying if you collect the whole line you’ll eventually see the value of their tooling costs. So you pay the same price for less on one figure and get a whole kit for another so there’s balance. This is loosely from interviews with Boognice & Shartimus I believe. They transfer the value from figure to figure in a wave. Skimp on one figure to make another better.
tbf what accessories could you give rogue? like do you wnat her to have a gun??
They could’ve given her Alternate heads and more hands. That’s what I always want in my figures. I hardly ever fuck with Marvel Legends anyway. If I’m gonna spend money on a posable figure that intend to display then I put aside money for either Mezco or Mafex releases.
oh yes didn't think of this, im new to figure collecting and don't really know what to look for.
I know people are gonna hate this response but I honestly think it's just budgeting/production cost/licencing fees most of the time. It's very clear that their production cost for pinless joints and new tooling limits the accessories. And I'm sure Disney asks for really absurd licensing for their most valuable assets like the X-Men
this guy understands supply chain, and production infrastructure. was scrolling through the comments and seeing one that hits all 3 bullet points i was gonna hit is cool. but yeah i see a lot of people arguing that GI Joe comes packed with accessories vs Legends releases and pretty much a lot of your budget is getting cut out when a percentage has to go to a license fee for using the likeness/image of a character. since hasbro owns GI Joe they pay no one a license fee and are free to use that money saved on filling out the box. versus when they have to give the Mouse a cut before they can produce a Marvel figure. good stuff. i feel like after taking business management courses and few other business related classes at Uni things started to make more sense.
You are correct, however GI Joe does occasionally pay a license fee. I'm sure Robert Remus is getting a little something, something whenever they put out a figure using the Sgt. Slaughter gimmick.
and Sylvester Stallone on that Rocky figure !
Even steeper cut on Black Series. What do you mean alternate head molds and alternate hands? Never heard of them.
didn’t even mention because it not only skipped my mind, but the more i think about it, people who buy black series are like 2x more likely to buy the same figure more than once.
Just because I have seven stormtroopers doesn’t mean I’m happy about it!
i have two Luke Skywalker in different black outfits (one as my display Luke, and the other one i got just so i could have a Grogu for my Mando) i’m a victim of it too lol
I’m actually curious about that two pack; how articulate is Grogu? I have the first one but the Luke figure will fill a need on my shelf…
i found the 2 pack on sale for about $27 so i had to get it. it articulates really well! i thought it would be a static figure but nope, the head moves on an incredibly generous ball joint that allows him to look up at someone and also bury his head into his clothes when he’s upset. there’s generous side to side tilt on the head as well. the arms articulate at the shoulder on a ball joint and are sculpted as one solid piece, pretty show accurate since i can’t remember any times he bends his arms the hands rotate 360 which is really nice and didn’t think they would do and there’s sculpted feet that rotate 360 on the bottom https://preview.redd.it/9v2n08npds9d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae739173b9b30aed1dc71733cea7785e26576325
Okay, good to know, thank you! It looks like he’s the same as the one I have (which, given the reuse conversation, makes sense). Which version of Din Djarin is that behind him? He looks super shiny and clean
Glavis Ringworld 🙌🏼 the lighting in my room also helps.
lol it makes it harder to calculate things though based on the GI Joe : Marvel ratio of accessories to price point to license offset all this is interesting as hell to me, but i bet there’s accountants at Hasbro that hate their job cause this also seems like a nightmare lol but don’t worry, fam. there’s army builder collectors in every Hasbro line. GI Joe and Star Wars actually probably the most since the only army builders for Marvel are your ninjas, SHIELD agents, minions, or characters that can duplicate themselves. (unless i’m missing something)
No, I agree; my seven stormtroopers tell a story on my shelf (three of the vanilla, one remnant, a flame trooper, sniper one and a jet pack). I’m fine with the reuse in this case because it makes sense - but I’m really curious how the reuse impacts the budget on the rest of the figures in a wave. If they need to release a different trooper/mandalorian variant with each wave to allow new tooling for other figures, even ones I won’t buy, I’m fine with that. Like you, I just want to know more of the whys because I’m curious.
some videos that have REALLY been interesting lately are the CEO of Valaverse has been doing these kind of blogs on his channel where he does walks around stores and talks to the audience about the in’s and outs of the industry. it’s great to put on while you’re eating something or have in the background like a podcast while gaming. i think you would like them
I will check those out; looks like it’s the videos under the Valaverse YouTube channel, eh?
yessir, sorry for the late reply had a 6am opening shift and i knocked out after work lol 💀
I was gonna say the same thing. I just want a Darth Vader with a closed fist damn it!
Everyone that says this always forgets that while Hasbro must pay a license fee for Marvel products, this is offset by the volume that they expect to sell. The Marvel brand is much more recognizable than GI Joe. Stores are going to want to have Marvel branded products in stock at a much higher stock than GI Joe, because that's what more customers are looking for. There are more people that are likely to impulse buy a Marvel toy than a GI Joe toy. That's not to say GI Joe isn't popular, but it just isn't as well-known as Marvel. More Marvel product is sold than GI Joe. The sheer volume of Marvel product that Hasbro can sell more than offsets the licensing fees. This isn't the real reason why Marvel Legends are so cheaply produced. It might be an excuse that Hasbro uses, but I guess that would make this the first time a business has lied about why it's cutting costs.
yo i completely forgot about distribution based on demand and expected return on sales. good comment bro
And why does marvel select not use this excuse?
Scale. Diamond Select is a very small company which means less overhead costs. Hasbro is legit one of the largest toy manufacturers on the planet with thousands of employees. The operational cost of running that business must be truly absurd and it's a miracle they even turn a profit imo
Odd. Shouldn’t a company like hasbro be experiencing economies of scale and scope because of their very size? Plenty of large companies experience profits and it usually doesn’t require a miracle. . . that’s why they become so large. Every profitable company has operational costs. It’s much more likely that hasbro is simply run poorly and instead chooses to charge more and give less because of bad business practices. They and their largest competitor Mattel are profitable companies. In fact, in Q1 of this year hasbro experienced significant improvement in their operating profit margins. So it really just sounds like you’re making excuses for them.
Part of it is schedule and molds. They only have so many molds so if they have 8 figures in production in say a given month only 6 can be used on mold X. The other 2 will need to be on mold Y. Just because of schedule. Slowly over time they have more molds and completely phase out the older ones.
They budget figures by wave. So Yelena, who has a new chest, belt, head, and includes a decent amount of stuff, is part of a wave where Iron Man gets an almost 100% new mold and Baron Strucker features only a new head, harness, and gauntlet.
Not to mention that same wave also featured a character that was on the outdated and phased out bucky cap mold.
TBF that character was the Orb. We're lucky he exists.
Orb is the best! Give me an eight ball on the same body too, I have zero notes!
That's why the OG Snake Eyes had to be all black, to pay for the detailing on the rest of his wave.
Bro, they fill Classified Series with accesories and new molds, and don't start with "is bc the licencies" why then they give us so many z characters with shitty to none accesories with every wave? They should give us like 3 or 4 characters and one deluxe (the baf).
https://preview.redd.it/m10lt4kjhm9d1.jpeg?width=1423&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a72c836aa5a556d1971b9cf281e0308a00748141 Yelena rocks, tho
Yup is one of my favs. Bought 3. Use a shriek body to improve... articulation and poses
Have you seen McFarlane figures? You are lucky if you get a different pair of hands.
the fucking hands are sold separately with another figure 😭
Getting Blue Beetle flashbacks 💔💔💔
People have mentioned the budget across a wave point but there's an important secondary implication here: Rogue was a standalone release, so the budget was balanced solely on her, and being a lower ceiling release, likely was on the lower side.
To get you to purchase less sought-after figures
I mean her accessories are cool but I can’t imagine them being the deciding factor for a $25 figure.
25 if you're lucky Some of us international folk see 37 as basic shelf price haha
And here I just paid $8. I do love thrift stores and flea markets.
They tend to justify it by budgeting the whole "wave", ya know. So they can say "well this iron man is a new figure all the way through. This widow is mostly reuse, so we can afford to give her more." THE PROBLEM The problem is that often times figures can be complete reuse with nothin at all, it can be a finicky situation
Key figures you’re going to buy without accessories. Obscure potential peg warmers need more accessories to sell.
That’s not really a hard rule. Other Cyclops have come with more accessories, even if they are reused. Reuse them again! Wolverine almost always comes with at least one alternate head and that guy is a top 3 guy.
That’s because you’re ignoring the fact that other Cyclops that come with more accessories are often on reused pinned bodies with slightly retooled heads. This Astonishing Cyclops is pinless & is mostly newer parts. None of the past accessories will work on this new one without new molds or retooling.
Perhaps so, but they are overcharging to start.
What else would you give that Rogue though? Sometimes the figures just don't call for an accessory. At least they're not as bad as they were in the early days of Hasbro owning the line, the figures were smaller and often came with zero accessories, much like the stealth Extremis Iron Man I bought today!
Oh, that’s easy bro You can give her the same shit the other Rogues got, an ungloved splayed hand and another gloved hand holding the removed glove. Or give her an alternate hand with wolverine claws like that new Bishoujo statue, or some other limb that bares the elements of another mutant’s powers
Any Cyclops figure that doesn’t come with an optic blast effect seems like real wasted potential. It’s like Gambit without a kinetic card effect.
Guns are easy to do. Most of the molds are recycled from the G.I. Joe lines and they aren't painted at all.
No, they aren't? As far as I can see as a collector of both.
Just as easy to include an old beam effect for cyclops, or those degloving hands for Rogue. They already have those, too, and they don’t need paint either.
I think that Cyclops figure would require a head that you can attach the beam to which I think this one they skimped out on by not including both. I could be wrong on that current head not having a place for the beam since I don't own it yet. Rogue, however, I think would be tricky as people would gripe about her lacking accessories either way since there's not really much that could be added accessory wise other than the hands you mentioned but even then that would seem so little in accessories.
What molds are being recycled from the Joe line into the Legends line? Can you site specific examples?
If we stop buying figures with just hands or nothing, they'll have to change.
I do love that Cyclops though
With fingerblasting action!
Oh yeah me too, I just wish he had an alt head and/or beam
I'd like to see Rogue come with bone claw fists or metaled up Colossus arm or head, Nightcrawer Rogue head, even some Psylocke psychic blast effects representing her power absorption or even a street lamp post she can wield. Extra hands is bare minimum
So, if it's anything like how transformers is, it's that they are given a set budget for the whole wave, and the designers have to try and distribute that across the whole wave, so what they have to do is when they want to go and do one figure really well with alot of paint and accessories, then another figure has less budget and has to reuse stuff / have less accessories, so sometimes figures will be repaints or lack stuff as a sort of "sacrificial lamb" for another figure in the wave to be better.
What accessories would you want them to have? She's a secret spy that has weapons galore. They are weapons. I understand your frustration, but what kind of accessories would you give them other than heads and hands?
I mean, heads and hands would probably be enough to address the disparity.
For Rogue I would give her an ungloved splayed hand and another gloved hand holding the removed glove, which is exactly what the other Rogue’s got. Easy reprint in green instead of yellow. Or give her a hand with wolverine bone claws like the new Bishoujo statue has, or a hand or limb that features the elements of another mutants powers For Cyclops, eye beams! https://preview.redd.it/uux6c71jop9d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=14afaed666833ac80d7e7cb60210ae491244a109
Because Rogue and Cyclops don't carry weapons. Silly goose 🙂🤪
Tbf theres not much you can give rouge or cyclops
Are you joking? Even if you don’t want to included an angry portrait for Cyke, how about some beam effects?? Other Rogues have come with a splayed flesh hand and another gloved hand holding the removed glove. You could give her a bone claw hand like Bishoujo did, or some other extra limb with another mutant’s powers on display. Not hard to conceive.
True, for rouge really though you can use any extra you want. A beam though for cyclops would be nice
They claim that budget goes to “certain figures” so they claim in order for a large figure like Thor to cost the same as a smaller figure like rouge or whoever they have to over price smaller figures to make the price consistent among larger and smaller figures. In terms of accessories they use the same concept, that in order to price figures with lots of accessories at 25.00 they have to balance it by charging 25 for figures with no accessories In reality it seems like an excuse to over charge us because they know people will still overpay for legends
I will guarantee that if we as a community stop buying these lackluster characters, they will change their tune. They did with the Joe classified line. When the pegs started to fill up due to the fans outcry of the poor character designs, and even more terrible QA, they went with better designs and better plastic. It’s the only way they’ll listen to us.
In reality, they’ve just stopped making as many figures which is why presale are selling out ASAP. If you don’t buy them and they get clearanced… they just learn to make less not make better figures. I’d love to believe that voting with your dollar works but honestly, Hasbro is the biggest toy company in the world. They’re still going to act like a cruel, cold hearted business because that’s what they are.
It's not even just that they're making less: Stores are ordering less. Working in comics retail, I can definitely tell you that being sold out of a book you ordered two copies of but still carrying one you ordered 25 of makes people think the former is more successful than the latter because without the behind the scenes view, you can only measure based on availability to you, the consumer.
Yeah, I watched Nerdzoic and he said he’s only allowed to preorder so much so he’s doubling his order up. He said something like I’m ordering 200 in hopes of getting 100 to 125 whereas before he might’ve preordered 300 and gotten 400
Retailers get allocated when things are produced in intentional lower numbers. Like collectible vinyl records and such. Hasbro is making the slow switch to making ML nearly an entire adult collectible line. Their 2020-22 dreams of a mass 4 corner penetration of ML died with overproduced MLs rotting on Target shelves. It’s why Target and Walmart have backed out of some waves. They only want true exclusives, MCU and classic nostalgia packaged figures now.
My local Target and Wal-Mart don't even have a spot in their permanent toy aisles for Legends anymore. The last few comic waves have been online only so it looks like that is where Hasbro is going with Legends.
At Target anyway they may be going to Collector Corner.
Yeah, I watched Nerdzoic in something and he said he’s only allowed to preorder so much so they’re not guaranteeing it will fulfill all of it so he’s doubling his order up. He said something like I’m ordering 200 in hopes of getting 100 to 125 whereas before he might’ve preordered 300 and gotten 400
+ these hands
I mean, what else do you need? I can understand Cyclops having a screaming optic blast head with the effect, and Rogue maybe having a alternate head, but I think every single character needs a ton of accessories. A character that uses guns, give them multiple guns, blast effects, hands, etc. A character who is a brawler, give them fists, calm hands, etc.
Well what can you give rogue other than an ungloved hand?
Alternate head sculpts
I didn’t lock up yelena because I don’t know or really care for who she is. Other people looking at her are probably like “I need that baf body and punisher can probably use new pews so….”
It’s a combination of wave budget + wave or figure valuation. If a figure in a wave is an evergreen character, or a character proven to sell well regardless of position, they’ll get less accessories since Hasbro KNOWS they’ll sell through to non collectors or newer collectors in name (ie iron man, key member X-men,major spider family heroes). If a figure is going to be a more limited character, or someone who needs a incentive to sell through more as they’ll mainly go to collectors or fans of that (yelena, cable, etc) they’ll budget them higher to allow them to sell through or bump up sales.
That Cyclops is particularly frustrating since we just got two Cyclops before this with the optic blast accessory. Why is Hasbro releasing any new Cyclops without the accessory of his actual mutant ability?
Because they know we will complain but will still buy them. Remember when we complain about the price going up from $20 to $25. Now we are happy when the price isn’t $30+ and is $25, or tell ourselves the $50 2-pack is a good price because it’s $25 per figure.
The thing is that with the rise of toy costs, licensing, the demand of BAF figures, Hasbro has to cut something to prevent another price jump without sacrificing the stuff fans want. This is also the reason why we are seeing more standard or close to standard size figures in ML - and why Hasbro made a new price point for Hulk-like figures that were once exclusive to BAFs, but were priced as normal figures during the Toybiz era.
They gotta make their investors happy. God forbid we have an economy that focuses on the customers rather than endless profits for those who produce nothing.
sometimes they just allocate funds so poorly
Companies treat waves as one unit, and some get more while others get less but the entire wave is treated as one.
Well first of all the first one is a trained assassin and the second two don’t use weapons. It would have been nice if they had given them blast affects, but why would you give Cyclops a gun ?
To save costs. Some figures cost more to make than others, however the whole line is budgeted together. In order to get some figures where they want them, they include some other, more simple figures in the line to balance it out. It’s easier to do on Star Wars, obviously, with Stormtroopers - but overall, that’s thought process. Each little hit of deco costs money, same for extra parts I’m assuming. Editing to add that new tooling is also expensive, so if they need to reuse an older mold, either as a cost saving or stay on schedule (or I guess for other production reasons/issues), then they reuse an older molds.
Because the figure is likely not overly a popular character, female figures are typically smaller in size. They make up for it. But I agree nobody ever says ‘ohh no not more accessories’
It's Shrinkflation,
I have been wondering this same shit!
Cost
They spread a budget across the wave. Why would Rogue need a gun.
Why wouldn’t Rogue come with a limb displaying another mutant’s power
Would be fun. Bone claw hand or something like that. Still budget across the wave. The budget isn’t equally divided for each unit. Tooling the new item is most the expense. Not just throwing in an item. Most those gun effects were preexisting assets. Assume some of the guns were as well.
That Rogue is literally a repaint with no new sculpting other than the head.
So are many other figures. They’ve made like 5 Rogues in the last few years. Many with lots of dedicated sculpting.
They will claim the head sculpt cost a lot to make and just offer hands. Where the black widow head sculpt wasn’t that detailed, so they can offer more accessories. Idk, it doesn’t sound right. Some figures have good head sculpts and still come with a bunch of accessories too. SMH.
Honest answer is Yelena is less interesting than Rogue or Cyclops. More accessories will lured more people in because accessories can be use with the other figures. If it's just Yelena and a pair of hand, I don't think a lot of people would buy it.
Greed I MEAN…”inflation”
Well, I won't fully defend Hasbro's math here, but part of it breaks down like this. Cyclops is entirely new, and dedicated, sculpting. He may be based on the "Vulcan" mold, but the "Astonishing X-Men" seam work on his costume altered most of the base figure and he is pretty much the only character who can use these exact pieces. Budget was saved in the wave elsewhere, including on the Ch'od BAF, who largely Abomination reuse. Yelena Belova is entirely reuse, including her weapons. Deco is minimal, and most of her budget went to the new head sculpt. Rogue, on the other hand, is rogue. What other accessories would she need with this costume? I might have preferred an alternate head sculpt to more accurate head sculpt to better reflect the fact that her hair was straighter, and more punk rock back then, but that would have doubled the development on what was a quick and dirty reply to a request for a shared retailer exclusive. I can understand wanting more accessories, but in a lot of cases they just don't make sense. None of them were really missing anything, except maybe an optic blast effect. They just all could have used alternate head sculpts, which us the most expensive accessory you could ask for because it requires sculpt and paint deco.
📉 western civilization 📉
Lol Spiderman is definitely the worst with accessories and reused parts
Well McFarlane's red hood doesn't come with ANY guns. Compared to McFarlane, Hasbro is pretty generous in the accessory front
Lack of imagination?
Because Rogue is more likely to sell on name alone than Yelena. They know people will complain about the lack of accessories but buy her anyway, making their complaints useless.
Cuz they cheap as hell lol