PLEASE Tread Gently with the EU Stuff!

[jjreason]

Dear Hasbro;

As a long time fan of the movies and your toys, I hereby implore you to go easy with the Expanded Universe themed figures and vehicles. I'm concerned that the recent ToyFare magazine poll results may have led you to believe that there is a vast market for these types of figures - but I'm still worried this isn't the case.

In particular, I'm concerned about you guys devoting a large chunk of the 2007 line to Expanded Universe characters. I hope you're already considering carefully monitoring their sales specifically - so that you can compare them to main characters from the movies and background characters from the movies. I for one would like to see how the numbers stack up between those 3 categories (and honestly, I'd like to see your movie characters broken up between OT and PT as well - just to see where the interest truly lies).

IF the majority of the market turns out to be clamoring for Expanded Universe figures and they sell through time after time - I would agree you should consider devoting more and more resources to filling figure slots with EU characters. IF, however, they sit on the pegs in 49 of 50 States and most international countries - they should probably be scale back in favor of the figures based on movie characters.

I feel that, as time goes on and the movies get further and further behind us, the viability of the line will come into doubt. If you try to do what Marvel Comics repeatedly does - produce TONS of product trying to appeal to everyone - you'll fail just like they do. What Marvel needs to do when the chips are down is produce FEWER books of BETTER QUALITY. Can you see where I'm going with this?

My opinion is that you'll have continued success with the line if you do a couple of simple things: produce fewer figures, and do careful reseach of your sales so that you can truly see which particular types of figures sell and which don't.

That is all.

[El Chuxter]

As an EU fan of sorts, I feel I must implore you: focus on the big guns of EU. By that I mean characters with more universal appeal, characters EU fandom as a whole has asked for for years: a new Mara Jade, some Noghri, Talon Karrde, a handful of Yuuzhan Vong, etc. Please go easy on the video game guys, especially since it looks like you'll be re-using GIJoe parts on some of them. (Cough, Darth "Iron Grenadier" Revan, cough.)

AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, MAKE US A TEEK FIGURE!!!
Pack him in the Star Tours line and make him a Disney exclusive. Toss him in a clamshell and charge $12.99 for him at Target. Even a Celebration IV exclusive. Whatever. We don't care. Just get the little rascal in our hands.

[2-1B]

What Chux said about Teek.

[Phantom-like Menace]

What Marvel needs to do when the chips are down is produce FEWER books of BETTER QUALITY.

Would you be able to qualify this sentence? Someone might think you're making the blanket statement that Expanded Universe automatically means lower quality.

[jjreason]

I didn't say anything of the sort. I'm suggesting Hasbro tighten up the line as opposed to producing a million figures of characters that I don't want. That's all.

If my opinion is different from the masses - so be it. I'm asking them to monitor sales so that I'm not stuck with pegwarming EU figures for the next 3 years, with no new movie figures after that because the line is dead. That's all.

[JON9000]

I would suggest the Foul strategy... release an odd one here or there every other wave or so.

going berserk and putting out whole waves of them is pretty much suicide... look how long SOE sat around.

I think the best call is like you said- put out the ones people really want. don't just put out some half baked Han solo wannabe like Dash Rendork.

[Blue2th]

What Chux said about a Noghri. With a knife to put behind Admiral Thrawn with that Ysalmir thingy, and kill him so "artfully" as he did so.

[Phantom-like Menace]

I didn't say anything of the sort. I'm suggesting Hasbro tighten up the line as opposed to producing a million figures of characters that I don't want. That's all.

I was just looking for clarification.

If my opinion is different from the masses - so be it. I'm asking them to monitor sales so that I'm not stuck with pegwarming EU figures for the next 3 years, with no new movie figures after that because the line is dead. That's all.

I'm not looking to be stuck with any pegwarming figures. There doesn't seem to be any impartial reason to bring up a specific type of pegwarming figure.

As far as what Hasbro should do, the more accurate answer is what they should have done already. Hasbro should have taken note of the sales of the '98 EU figures, and I can understand they still hadn't forgotten the SotE figures, so I can't fault them too much. Hasbro also should have realized they needed to fill the line into the future, but I realize it hasn't been known for too long that the rights would be purchased until 2018. If Hasbro had done these two things instead of waiting until this late in the game, they could have already shown that adding EU figures to a mix of movie figures isn't going to end Star Wars collecting as we know it.

Now as long as we are giving Hasbro our two cents, I see no problem with finally adding a steady supply of EU figures, and I hope it isn't too little diversity too late. If popular opinion on this site is considered, few here think Star Wars toys can go until 2018. There seems to be an exaggerated opinion that EU figures will hasten that eventuality. I'm of the opinion that Hasbro's flirtation with EU was inevitable and that the only reason it has taken so long is because the opinion that nothing EU is worth buying has been taken into account, despite the fact that some think EU fans have recently won a run away victory. It doesn't make sense to drain the movie well before moving on to EU figures. Though I doubt sincerely that Lucasfilm will allow Star Wars to be all EU, an all EU line simply will not work, so tapping EU at that time will guarantee the line's death. Introducing EU now while there are still a handful of movie figures that don't have to be looked up on Wookieepedia so the consumer knows who or what the character is is the only viable option of the two, the only option of the two that makes any sense, the only option of the two that guarantees the maximum number of years for the line.

Now, if I can risk getting yelled at, I suggest to Hasbro a variation on what I suggest to political parties: you are not going to convert some of these people to EU fans. You can make an Expanded Universe action figure that turns water into wine and lead into gold and there are those who will simply not purchase it because it was in a Star Wars product other than those six movies. In fact, if you're counting on the upcoming TV series to keep these consumers, you can stop counting, because they're not going to be good enough, and they're going to be too EU. So stop trying to convert them, stop trying to make them happy. If you have to sell EU figures with movie figures, and I think you do, your best bet is to focus even more on the EU fans who you can more often and more easily make happy. And just so I am not misunderstood, this isn't a suggestion to make more EU figures than movie figures, nor is it even a suggestion to make a considerable fraction of your figures EU. It is simply an observation that this diversity is the key to your success, and only some of us will help make that diversity profitable.

And again addressing Hasbro, I do have one fear of the EU figures. It is possible to be a little too faithful to the source material. I applaud the version of Asajj Ventress Jedi vs. Sith Battlepack because it departed from the cartoonish look, but I cringe at the adherence to accuracy that brought us the giant boots on Foul Moudama. Thankfully, the boots of the latter are removable and I certainly removed them. Foul, incidently, could have been improved greatly by using the plastic spent on his boots on a lightsaber he could hold.

And I think some of the doom and gloom will be lifted from this scenario if it's pointed out that another difference between EU fans and movie fans is that EU fans aren't as interested in getting one of every figure ever mentioned in any scenario. No one here is dying to get that Jenica Sonsen figure. Hell, the most obscure figure I could think of as having much shot at being made has already been mentioned on this thread. Rukh was my initial vote before the finalists. If anyone is worried anyone too much more obscure than that will be made, you're worrying for nothing, because while the movies pretty much have five or six main characters in each of the trilogies, the novels and video games and comics are full of main characters.

[Blue2th]

I would rather see one obscure EU figure, than an army of Vaders in four slightly different packaging variations clogging the pegs. Or regurgitated Heroes and Villans. I guarantee a resculpted Mara Jade would outsell Lustros Dofine or Hem Dazon, though I'm happy they made those figs. I think for every future wave in 2007 there should be one EU character. At least with the new EU 2-packs we get to see them in action with the comic book included, for those who aren't familiar with who they are in the EU. Look how many EU clones we got with ROTS. Some of them were never seen in movies or comics. Of course clones would sell even if they were pink (well we're getting purple EU clones aren't we)

[2-1B]

What Blue2th said about what Chux said about a Noghri.