Sure, but we're discussing GI Joe specifically here.

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Times have changed, but I think that the basics could still be applied.
Multi platform marketing. Make a TV show, a console video game and a portable app and once your brand is popular and kids are attached to your characters and their world then you can make the toys.

We grew up with Saturday morning and after school cartoons, now they grow up with video games. Hasbro needs to adapt their way or they'll have to be content with only have us around to buy GI Joe.

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This reflects my point about return on investment. This would be a huge up-front cost, as you say before they can even make the toys themselves. Hasbro has better uses for its money if that's what it would take to build the popularity of GI Joe.


Exactly. So why would a TV show be an important part of the marketing? And with the sheer number of popular video games, the chance that a significant proportion of them would grow attached enough to the property to invest heavily in toys is slim. Especially when they could use that money to buy more video games instead. Compare the number of Saturday morning cartoons we had to the number of video games they have. It's a tiny fraction.


There's likely nothing they can do to revive GI Joe's popularity. It was lightning in a bottle, a lot of things coming together at the right time. It was a product of its time, and this time is gone. Things have changed, nothing lasts forever.

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Exactly, which is why Hasbro needs to focus on adult collectors if they want to make it beyond 2025. They're trapped by their relationship to WM and need to cultivate their other distributors that will carry the product that will sell to the market that buys. It's impossible to look at BBTS' front page and say the adult collector market is declining, imho.

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I think that they should do a GI Joe game like Transformers Devastation.
Relive the cartoon of your childhood through a fun shoot 'em up video game.
Choose your favorite Joe, upgrade his/her gear and abilities as you fight through the legions of Cobra.
The again, such a game would appeal to us older fans, but I think it's fun enough to bring in so new recruits.

Of course, shooting robots is probably more acceptable to parents than shooting masked terrorists dressed in blue.

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The adult collector market is largely made up of people who played with Joes in their youth in the 80s. Obviously there are no more of these people that will ever be created, and while some of these people who have not been collectors before will become collectors at some point, others who have been collectors will drop out. And since there is a finite number of these people, chances are that there will be a small amount of erosion each year. Not a significant amount, but a small amount.

Hasbro is a toy company, so if they have to focus on making collector's items in order to stay in a particular market, chances are they'll just abandon that market. And that's not an irrational decision, because toys are what they're good at. Selling $30-a-figure collector's items isn't in their game plan, and that certainly wouldn't interest Wal Mart or any other large retailer. Collectors are a niche market, not a broad one.

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Yes, you've hit on something here. This is why the cartoon had them shooting lasers instead of bullets, and having every single pilot who was ever shot down visibly eject on screen. Blowing people away isn't going to fly in a game targeted at younger kids.

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Well, I've got some great news!


Battle Android Troopers

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Yes, BATs were a godsend to the cartoon. The Joes could blow the "LASER BLAST" out of them all day long.

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Now, compare the natural erosion of the adult market to the hasty erosion of the kid's market and project that into the future. Once that Oculus Rift tech becomes commonplace and applied to kidplay, action figures and pretty much *every* form of physical playtoy for kids above the age of an infant is dead. Hasbro foresees this enough to try to become a creative property company, but I don't see them finagling that well enough for anything other than TFs and that's simply not enough to maintain their several-thousands workforce long into the future, imho.

Beyond 2025, if they have any interest in still producing physical toys the adult market is their sole option, and they're not keeping their bread-n-butter 18th fans interested enough in the present day to ensure we'll be there for them when that day comes.

Hasbro needs to learn from Bandai, who tread the line between servicing 'Japan's WalMart' and the niche adults very well. Looking at all the money being reaped by 3P TF companies, Hasbro is losing money they don't need to lose simply because they don't want to put in the effort of taking it.

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The Marvel model is the way to go. Make a high quality figure line, like Marvel Legends, to appeal to the adult collectors as your base market. And make decent movies like Avengers and Ironman to generate interest in younger people.

Mega Bloks HALO (a "sci fi / super hero / space drama mash up" theme) and Call of Duty (modern day gi joe) products seem to be selling to video game fans , non gaming adults and non gaming kids. I've noticed far more legitimate kids (i.e. between 10-14) posting on Mega Bloks forums than i ever have on any Joe forum. It was a bit eye opening actually. Perhaps it's the inclusion of building blocks that attracts more kids.

Apply that information how and where you will .

And how many kids post on Joe Kreon boards? Are there Joe Kreon boards? Kreons fail because Hasbro imitated Lego minifigs and didn't innovate brick-compatible action figures like MB did. Hasbro would do best by licensing their properties to MB, which will never happen now that Mattel bought them out. Yet another instance of poor decision-making by this generation of Hasbro executives. You can't even give them credit for Marvel Legends since they're just riding the coattails of a company they drove into nonexistence.

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This will always be the future of toys, as with the kids of today/tomorrow and their video game driven mentality building type toys with the ability to be whatever the kid wants them to be at the time sparks creativity and imagination. Lego has even jumped into the video game market which will help them keep growing. They took note of Skylanders and Infinity and included building into the game. I think we just have to face it that the action figure market is on the way out, as an adult driven line would fail over time, do to rising costs and space constraints that ever collector faces at some time.

momaw nadon

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FTFY. The biggest reason adult product fails over time is that none of the companies do any market research of any true reality. The closest Hasbro's ever done for researching what the adult collector wants is that lame Kindle Worlds figure poll that's gonna end up nothing more than a repainted cobble of parts already in the library. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

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