Hasbro lays off nearly 20% of its workers

[UsernamePrime]

I keep ringing in on this but over production when concerning failed Disney IPs is also an issue.

World Class Bullshitters has been making videos for years of US liquidation stores full of drastically discounted Disney IP toys that stay unsold for years. Eventually the shelving cost becomes too much and they get destroyed.

You can still buy 2015 Force Awaken toys for retail or less on Amazon. That's coming up to being 9 years old.

[UsernamePrime]

Originally Posted by Northerncrowe

2 out of 4 aint bad for 2024

looking forward to swoop. the other 3 i feel are for the sake of completionism.

[Darkroar]

I've been collecting as an adult for a long, long time now and I've gone from buying 50+ Transformers a year to buying 1-5 and selling many.

There are a lot of reasons for this. As someone said the prices are too much. I can afford it, but I just don't feel like the figures are worth the prices they are charging.

Another aspect is I have basically everything I want and more. Nothing new they've come up with has caught my interest and everything else is rehashes.

Finally, the D&D policy really turned me off Hasbro as a company.

It's funny after that D&D fiasco, Unity (game engine) tried retroactively changing their license agreements with developers and had to walk it all back. Crazy they didn't learn and these companies are trying this stuff.

[Patate]

It's very unfortunate for the employees that this happened near Christmas.

Hasbro had their shares of bad decisions and some IP that aren't doing too well, but them losing sales is just adjusting to the abnormal spike from the lockdown.

Even at my job, we were hiring like crazy while on lockdown that it was really difficult to find good workers and since then, we had to lay off about 20% as well.

[justprime]

Pricing
... availability , too many qc issues ,crowdfunding funding cheaper plastic, crappy open faced packages,etc have dramatically curbed my purchasing of hasbro tomy toys add in imho a so so movie and cartoon after massive collecting of TFs I have slowed to a crawl this years purchase of official TVs are less then a dozen ......third party now that's a different kettle of fish.

[Tyrannosaurus Rex]

Speaking as a younger collector still in school, the hobby has really taken its toll. The price hikes alone have become more and more of a turnoff as product releases rapidly and quality struggles to keep up. Hasbro has become too big for its own good which has led to the consumers suffering the most. And getting your job axed right before Christmas is something even Ebenezer Scrooge would frown upon.

Come to think of it, I feel like they did this same thing last year. They really can't keep up this whole "the toy industry sucks" scapegoating forever; lines are going to be drawn someday.

2023 was actually a great year for TF in my opinion (official Nova Prime!!!) but I've already begun a blackout on buying them. I'm just getting Animated Optimus and BB Megatron preorders fulfilled and then working on downsizing (aside from 86 Swoop cause I need to complete my Dinobots hah). Too much is too much. Not quitting the hobby but I'm gonna be doing what others here have said & scale my purchases waaaay back.

[Skorpulator]

Rough times. After having two record years during the pandemic, my employer has been firing batches of employees every month or so this year. Last batch was last week.

[xueyue2]

Originally Posted by Skorpulator

Rough times. After having two record years during the pandemic, my employer has been firing batches of employees every month or so this year. Last batch was last week.

are u working for Hasbro?

[Skorpulator]

Hell no! lol

[Sun Swipe Prime]

This doesn't surprise me. Constant price hikes. Supply chain issues. No real cohesive plan in terms of how to move their IPs forward. Over reliance on nostalgia.

Even when I wanted to spend the money, I couldn't reliably find what I wanted. So, that broke me out of the habit. Now, even when I do find stuff, I look at the price, and put it back down.

I can't even remember the last time I was excited for a piece of TF fiction. The Netfilx show had me for a hot minute, and then, it shit in my mouth.

It seems like they're starting to license out their IPs to other companies to make. Are they just going become the company that holds on to the IP and licenses it out for other companies to actually do something with them?