Is Hasbro Cutting Too Many Corners?
I would like to talk about something today that has bothered me for quite some time: the apparent lack of any perceived value you get for your money when you buy a Star Wars action figure at full price. You pay too much and get too little and then the little you get is also quite often wrong in certain ways. Is Hasbro cutting too many corners? Click through to read more!
Spot the Hasbro product in this photo
I will primarily talk about the Black Series here, since this is what I collect, but you can apply what I have to say to any Hasbro Star Wars line. So what is it I am talking about? A lack of perceived value for money. Figures that lack paint apps, figures that lack weathering or a paint wash, figures that come with close to no accessories, figures that are in one or more ways just wrong. Yet Hasbro have been raising prices all across the board in the past few years. But customers/collectors will not necessarily care what Hasbro’s rationale is, all they will see is “I have to pay x amount of money… and get y amount of value in return”. And quite frankly, in my opinion that “value” has decreased a lot especially with what Hasbro’s pricing policy is.
So let me show you just some examples. First there are the various fake deluxe figures. Figures that mostly have new tooling (but not even all new in some cases) and where Hasbro comes up with excuses for wanting more money. For the Cobb Vanth figure Hasbro made a lot about the “many paint apps” this figure received. And what we got is this:
Yes, there are silver scuff marks on the armor and jetpack. But Hasbro failed to even paint the nozzles on the jetpack (in the show the nozzles are not plastic grey of course). And on top of that a character who lives on the sandy, and dusty world of Tatooine received zero weathering or paint washes, the entire body of the figure is just plain unadorned plastic, sure you get a few dabs of paint on the belt and other small details, but almost all of the figure is shiny plastic.
And of course there are, as usual, no extra hands for anything.
Is that what people think of when they hear “deluxe”? I would argue they do not.
Then there are instances where the likeness of an iconic Star Wars character is just way off, to the point you wonder how the sculpt was ever greenlit in the first place, because two parties are always involved here, first someone at Hasbro, then someone at Lucasfilm. But in the case of the new Luke Skywalker figures (based on his appearance in the Mandalorian, which has received numerous variants by now, including Return of the Jedi versions) those parties involved must have been blind.
Alfie Allen cosplaying as Luke Skywalker
Sure, there is a resemblance to Mark Hamill, but it is a cartoonish parody resemblence and the figure looks like a 5th generation Luke clone at best.
Now this may be ok if a figure is, say relatively “cheap”, but the more you have to pay for something the more quality you expect. And a figure that comes only with a lightsaber, but no blaster, but still gets a trigger finger hand suddenly becomes something that may seriously annoy you, when you were willing to overlook that issue when figures were more affordable.
Then we get figures that simply leave you mind-boggled. Who at Hasbro (and Lucasfilm, since they have the final greenlight) thought it’s a great value for money to release a figure like Morgan Elsbeth with the staggering number of zero (0) accessories?
Empty box of nothing
No extra head with her alternate witch look. No weapon. Not even a teensy tiny map, which is roughly the size of a thermal detonator. Nothing. Do they expect people to pay full price for that?
And let’s turn to one of the most puzzling and egregious examples of Hasbro cutting corners AND getting it wrong all in one go. The brand new Baylan and Shin Black Series figures. It’s tragical and comical at the same time.
Source: Landspeeder Luke YouTube Channel
There are so many things wrong in this screenshot of Landspeeder Luke’s review video of Baylan and Shin.
- Ray Stevenson was 1.91m tall (6’3”), Ivanna Sakhno is 1.73m tall (5’8”). And you can even see it in the series, Ray is more than half a head taller than Ivanna. Yet here Baylan is the exact same height as Shin. How or why did no one at Hasbro (and Lucasfilm) catch this error? You would think in the age of digital sculpts and photogrammetry data of faces and costumes that Hasbro would get the basic scale right. Yet they don’t
- Baylan’s face looks like someone glued a beard on a baby face and quite frankly, I do not really see a decent likeness to Ray Stevenson here
- Shin… not only is Shin’s likeness to Ivanna Sakhno also questionable, the figure, like virtually any other Black Series figure, lacks a proper wash, some weathering, you mostly get plain unpainted plastic here. And then look at Shin’s hair… it’s plain plastic as well, not even her Padawan braid received some attention. I would say that Shin’s hair, the hair of many Black Series figures, is on the level and has about the same quality as that of a $4 Playmobil figure
Is Hasbro using Playmobil hair for their figures?
Tell me if you can see a qualitative difference between the hair on this Playmobil figure and a $25 / 31 euros “collectible” meant for adults. I seriously can’t.
Now as to why all this is happening… Chris Cocks wants to make the Hasbro partner brands more profitable (and the whole company, the ambitious overall goal was to reach 20+% operating margin for the company, an increase of about seven percentage points), this was stated as a goal about two years ago. But then inflation happened and the Covid boost that had everyone buy board games and other toys because they were bored at home only lasted for a short while. And now Hasbro’s revenue is not only in free fall, partner brands (Star Wars, Marvel) revenue is also rapidly declining.
As I said in the beginning section of this article, the consumer does not primarily care why Hasbro raises prices, they will care about what they get for their money. So the question is if Hasbro have made their action figures too much of a bad deal, so bad that eventually most, if not all of them, eventually end up at Ollie’s because few people are still so dumb (i.e. hardcore collectors) to buy anything at MSRP these days when the value you get is just so bad. But value is not all, quality is another matter and quite frankly, while Hasbro can still knock it out of the park they also make many mistakes. Luke’s likeness… Baylan’s height and likeness. Shin’s likeness and Playmobil hair. When this is added on top of the missing value – no meaningful accessories, lack of paint apps across the board – Hasbro should not be surprised that revenue is declining.
Now if we believe designer Chris (there is no real reason not to) then Hasbro’s production costs are so immense these days that a brand new figure with all new tooling will not amortize its costs even when it sells the entire initial production run. So they reissue figures left and right and simply repaint them. This was specifically brought up for the Vintage Collection Boba Fett figure.
If that is the case it can mean only one thing: production runs are very low in the modern era, because not enough people buy the figures anymore. The collector base has been shrinking and furthermore casual fans who only buy the occasional figure have left the hobby in droves.
Now this may be a vicious cycle… production costs increase overseas, you have inflation at home, you need to raise prices, but you also want to increase margins and you want to be more profitable. But in turn unit sales are circling the drain, production runs decrease as a consequence, making the manufacturing cost per figure even higher (eating away at your lousy margins), you just sell less and less. So what is Hasbro doing? They fire employees, they cut development budgets, they try to cut production costs (all of this can be found in their earnings report) and Chris Cocks is then very proud of his “operational excellence”.
While unit sales for Hasbro toys tank revenue is declining and stock price is just above $43 these days. A little over two months ago it was at $73… in other words Chris Cocks’ “operational excellence” – and general market conditions – have reduced Hasbro’s market cap by more than 40% (!) just in the last 9 weeks or so.
So what is the remedy? I believe there are no easy solutions, but honesty would help… and, as much as many would hate it, maybe even somewhat higher prices. I believe the age of mass produced Star Wars toys that are sold to tons and tons and tons of people out there may be coming to an end, maybe it is already over. Maybe it’s time to be honest: stop pretending the figures are (also) meant for kids. Get rid of that stupid and silly “ages 4+” label, design the toys with adults in mind, make the boxes say “ages 15+” or so just as your Japanese colleagues do for their Star Wars figures. Add more accessories, at least one or two sets of extra hands, some other meaningful props and maybe, depending on the figure, an extra head, add more paint detail, give figures that need it proper weathering or some dry brushing and a wash.
My belief is that the people who still buy Hasbro Star Wars figures would be willing to pay even $30 (or 35 euros) or maybe even $35 (or 40 euros) if you get decent value in return and buying a figure at full price does not make you feel like a sucker and complete fool.
The harsh truth is: the age of $10 TVC and $20 TBS figures is over. Gone. It won’t return. Ever again. Maybe it’s time to turn both lines into true high (or at least mid) end collectibles that do not need to worry about toddlers choking to death on small parts or poking an eye out. Of course Disney / Lucasfilm have the final say here, if they want Hasbro to make figures that mythical kids could theoretically buy, then Hasbro has to oblige. But maybe it’s time for a reality check at both companies, and good golly, does Disney need a reality check. And Chris Cocks needs to take the red pill. His corpo speak is hard to bear these days. And Wall Street does not believe any of his pep talk anyway. The stock price is clear evidence of that.
You cannot seriously expect people to keep buying sub standard lazy products at prices that are perceived to be much too high, especially provided what you get in return. Unit sales will keep declining. You cannot put a McDonald’s Happy Meal Toy in a Hot Toys box and expect people will fork over $250.
Get your act together. Hasbro can make amazing figures, could make amazing figures. But penny pinching, cutting corners everywhere, making puzzling – and easily avoided – mistakes and being dishonest about who your true customers are will almost certainly not be the road to success.
But what do you think? Do you think you get your money’s worth with modern Star Wars toys? Or do you feel beeing ripped off when you do buy something at full price these days? If you buy anything at all, that is… would you be willing to buy $20 or $25 TVC figures and $30 or $35 TBS figures IF those figures always came with extra hands, extra heads, meaningful accessories and detailed paint apps? Or would that be too much money for you, even if the quality drastically improved? Leave your thoughts and suggestions how to solve the issue of not enough value for your money in the comments! Let Hasbro hear what their most loyal customers are thinking.
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