Tightening The Belt At Hasbro

[Sunstorm]

I read a few articles and watched a few commentaries on YouTube about this yesterday, but I'm interested in what the long-term effects are, specifically as it relates to the Transformers franchise, obviously. Thoughts? Insights?

Hasbro laying off 1,000 workers to cut costs

 

[Dekafox]

IIRC they're shelving a bunch of IPs. Transformers is one of their few success stories so there might be a hit but I think a lot of it will be absorbed by them shelving other things. I do wonder if GI Joe will be one of the things shelved, considering the lack of success they've had with it in recent history...

 

[Superomegaprime]

I wouldn't be surprised if Gi Joe falls down the list of priorty brands, outside of the US its not that well known, sure the movies kind of boosted its level of awareness but it was never that big on the international level, where's Transformers is, along with MIP, I can see Wizards getting hit hard after the bad PR they had resently over what amounts to third party content I believe, with Transformers, its hard to say but I doult much will change, we'll still likely have three mainlines and the MP line running, time will tell, it could mostly be those loosing their jobs are surplus to requirements

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Hasbro is so huge that when we find out what brands are getting deemphasized I can imagine us saying "Wait, Hasbro owns that?" a few times.

 

[The Phazer]

If they cut costs on the production of TFs any further at this point you'll just get an email from Pulse telling you to imagine the $48 dollar deluxe you just ordered.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

Unless we, in large enough numbers, just stop buying the products that come out, they'll continue to cut more and more corners as they chase record breaking profits at the expense of everything else, in their efforts to try and please their increasingly unreasonable "exponential growth forever" investors.

Complaining about hollow spaces or painted windows on a random forum isn't going to do anything to stop it. Complaining to the designers isn't going to stop it either; believe me they already know and if they could get better budgets, they would. Only the executives can make that decision and they'll only do it if the investors demand they do it, and they'll only do it if it effects their bottom line worse than the money saved by cutting corners.

We've seen Hasbro capitulate on this already; when their new vision for D&D proved to be far too exploitive,
people spoke out, they organized, and most importantly, they canceled the hell out of their online subscriptions by the thousands. Hasbro not only did a 180, they actually ceded ground by putting D&D's core rules into a Creative Commons license.

Unless the Transformers fandom can do something similar, things are only going to get worse and worse.

 

[LBD "Nytetrayn"]

If they cut costs on the production of TFs any further at this point you'll just get an email from Pulse telling you to imagine the $48 dollar deluxe you just ordered.

Well, they have already started doing NFTs...

 

[Steevy Maximus]

If they cut costs on the production of TFs any further at this point you'll just get an email from Pulse telling you to imagine the $48 dollar deluxe you just ordered.

Power Rangers already got an NFT Megazord, why not Transformers?

IIRC they're shelving a bunch of IPs. Transformers is one of their few success stories so there might be a hit but I think a lot of it will be absorbed by them shelving other things. I do wonder if GI Joe will be one of the things shelved, considering the lack of success they've had with it in recent history...

I think "shelving" might be too strong a word. I DO think that, without Goldner's direction and drive, we're going to see Hasbro pull back on the "IP company" side of things...hopefully with a renewed focus on fundamentals that seem to have been ignored as Goldner pushed the company into being more than a toy company.

That said, the big focus was reportedly to be on fewer, but more significant, brands. And more importantly, more licensing. THAT'S the big one. Already, we've seen Hasbro take part in a shared license with Fortnite. But I think we'll be seeing more action like these in the following years:
-Hasbro hasn't made a classic Tonka truck in over 20 years. They've licensed it out to, currently, Basic Fun (who also does a lot with retro Hasbro properties like old school My Little Pony and Pound Puppies).
-One time Franchise Brand Littlest Pet Shop, after a few years of declining sales, is being handed over to Basic Fun as well.
-Just Play is making moves and was granted the master licenses for Easy Bake, Furreal, and scooped the Sesame Street master license as well.
-Wicked Cool Toys (now part of Jazwares) heralded a successful relaunch of Micro Machines. Jazwares also produces a number of official Nerf accessory items and made a fairly big splash with Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadrons, starting to step into "Hasbro's space" in the Star Wars product arena.

And I feel Hasbro's back catalog has a TON of licenses that could do well in the right situation: Action Man, Micronauts (which seems dead on Hasbro's end), MASK, Visionaries....
As of this moment, I think Hasbro's working hard to keep the full license on Marvel and Star Wars, less they get chopped up like the DC license ended up (3 different companies produce mass market DC action figures, not counting stuff like Mego). GI Joe's probably walking the line- the movie didn't have much of any real impact, but Classified seems to be doing well as a mass market item. But I can still see the "kids stuff" getting spun off.

In terms of Transformers? Transformers is safe. It's the largest in house action brand they have, the toys still seem to be selling, the media is still being produced and (seemingly) well received. Frankly, Transformers has the potential for MORE expansion as Hasbro tries to milk the franchise for whatever they can.

 

[The Phazer]

Unless we, in large enough numbers, just stop buying the products that come out, they'll continue to cut more and more corners as they chase record breaking profits at the expense of everything else, in their efforts to try and please their increasingly unreasonable "exponential growth forever" investors.

Complaining about hollow spaces or painted windows on a random forum isn't going to do anything to stop it. Complaining to the designers isn't going to stop it either; believe me they already know and if they could get better budgets, they would. Only the executives can make that decision and they'll only do it if the investors demand they do it, and they'll only do it if it effects their bottom line worse than the money saved by cutting corners.

We've seen Hasbro capitulate on this already; when their new vision for D&D proved to be far too exploitive,
people spoke out, they organized, and most importantly, they canceled the hell out of their online subscriptions by the thousands. Hasbro not only did a 180, they actually ceded ground by putting D&D's core rules into a Creative Commons license.

Unless the Transformers fandom can do something similar, things are only going to get worse and worse.

This is broadly true, but fwiw I think this is happening even without formal organisation. Less than half a dozen toys from the past twelve months weren't available at heavy discount in the UK over Christmas - i.e. 30 -60%.

That suggests the line isn't moving.

 

[Superomegaprime]

In terms of Transformers? Transformers is safe. It's the largest in house action brand they have, the toys still seem to be selling, the media is still being produced and (seemingly) well received. Frankly, Transformers has the potential for MORE expansion as Hasbro tries to milk the franchise for whatever they can.

Don't forget that Transformers is a partnership with Tomy Takara, so the costs are partly offset by Tomy when it comes to Transformers, plus those desgining figures require actual skills in engineering, so they are worth the cost, so I expect the job losts are mostly admin roles which will likely come back in a few months

 

[Dekafox]

Of note, one of the vacated positions was the COO/President. There may be operational changes coming too, given that.

 

[Undead Scottsman]

This is broadly true, but fwiw I think this is happening even without formal organisation. Less than half a dozen toys from the past twelve months weren't available at heavy discount in the UK over Christmas - i.e. 30 -60%.

That suggests the line isn't moving.

Right, but that doesn't mean the correct message is going to reach the top of Hasbro. For one, they would be need to be able to distinguish that people don't like the lines because of the cost cutting measures and not for another reason - general franchise burnout, specific dislike of the line due to character or style choice, people's interests changing, etc. etc.

Also we are in an economic downturn, so that'll provide a LOT of cover for failure in the meantime, as they can just point to everyone else's bad sales and go "It's not just us, the economy is hosed right now! Inflation!"

 

[Haywire]

I would probably not be sad if Hasbro licensed a GI Joe 3-3/4" line out to Spin Master. Their DC line is decent at a reasonable price.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Sometimes licensing is the better opportunity. They wanted to be an IP company, and this is what that actually entails.

 

[MrBlud]

Bigger budgets would almost certainly entail bigger price tags.

$25 Deluxes are already pricing people out of the Hobby. $40 (or more) would be a bloodbath.

 

[The Phazer]

Bigger budgets would almost certainly entail bigger price tags.

$25 Deluxes are already pricing people out of the Hobby. $40 (or more) would be a bloodbath.

Not neccessarily - Hasbro made a quite deliberate decision that it was going to seek a double digit increase in Ebit. They said so in their financial statement.

Bigger budgets would certainly mean Hasbro could not use the cover of the economic crisis to try and significantly increase their profit margin as a percentage of every item sold.

 

[AgentOrange]

I'm fine with them pricing people out of the hobby as long as the product's good. It's a luxury hobby, it doesn't need to be affordable for everyone

 

[Steevy Maximus]

FWIW, McFarlane cut prices for the 2023 non-BAF, non-Page Punchers DC figures to $19.99. And from what I read, freight costs are down to below what they were pre-pandemic.

I have also stated in the past the view that Hasbro "over stepped" on the price increases to give them a buffer on changes. But I don't expect them to "drop" the price now that we're all used to it. That and maintaining the collector premium. It's noticeable to me that Earthspark deluxe figures are retailing for $19.99, NOT the 24.99 we're seeing on collector oriented lines.

 

[Haywire]

I'm fine with them pricing people out of the hobby as long as the product's good. It's a luxury hobby, it doesn't need to be affordable for everyone

See, this is how I view the Masterpiece figures, but not necessarily the entirety of the hobby. That said, if there was more support and variety in the Core-class figures, I would probably not buy as many Deluxe and larger figures as I currently do. It's those characters that don't get made in Core that keep me buying the larger size classes.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

If they cut costs on the production of TFs any further at this point you'll just get an email from Pulse telling you to imagine the $48 dollar deluxe you just ordered.

They've already done that:

Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner stated that the company is looking forward to generating NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) based on Hasbro properties such as Transformers and G.I. Joe.

“NFTs are a real opportunity for us. As you know we have so many brands that really operate on multiple demographic levels; whether it’s Transformers, whether it’s Magic [The Gathering] and the D&D brand, and brands like G.I. Joe. We have a team that is leading our effort out of the west coast. We have our arms around this and see multiple opportunities on the NFT side and you’ll hear more about that as we move forward. But, we are actively developing our opportunities here and we do see it as substantial.”

And:

- https://hasbropulse.com/pages/starting-lineup-nft-faqs

- https://corporate.hasbro.com/en-us/...ft_debut_with_power_rangers_collection_on_wax

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