For every 1 good step Hasbro does they do 2 wrong!

[bigbarada]

Hasbro made it very clear that vintage would last for 2 years back in 2010, so we all knew that it would end in 2012. It's no surprise.

I can understand how this might be confusing for those people who jumped on board in 2010 and didn't pay any attention at all to how things were done in the modern line for the 15 years prior to that. Hasbro has redesigned the package almost every single year since 1995. Vintage was the longest they had kept a single card design.

Retailers like for the product to look "fresh" and they prefer that the packaging gets redesigned every year.

Here's how it's broken down:
1995-96: orange POTF2 cards
1997: green cards with hologram stickers
1998: green cards with slides
1999: red Ep1 cards
2000-2001: green POTJ cards
2002: blue Saga cards
2003: blue and gold Saga cards
2004: VOTC and black/silver OTC cards
2005: red Ep3 cards
2006: black and silver Saga2 cards
2007: white and black TAC cards
2008: white Legacy cards
2009: red and white Legacy cards
2010-2011: TVC and blue/orange SOTDS cards
2012: TVC and "Darth Maul" MH/DTF cards

So, as you can see, with only a couple of exceptions, the package design has changed just about every single year.

[Budspencer]

Hasbro made it very clear that vintage would last for 2 years back in 2010, so we all knew that it would end in 2012. It's no surprise.

I can understand how this might be confusing for those people who jumped on board in 2010 and didn't pay any attention at all to how things were done in the modern line for the 15 years prior to that. Hasbro has redesigned the package almost every single year since 1995. Vintage was the longest they had kept a single card design.

Retailers like for the product to look "fresh" and they prefer that the packaging gets redesigned every year.

Here's how it's broken down:
1995-96: orange POTF2 cards
1997: green cards with hologram stickers
1998: green cards with slides
1999: red Ep1 cards
2000-2001: green POTJ cards
2002: blue Saga cards
2003: blue and gold Saga cards
2004: VOTC and black/silver OTC cards
2005: red Ep3 cards
2006: black and silver Saga2 cards
2007: white and black TAC cards
2008: white Legacy cards
2009: red and white Legacy cards
2010-2011: TVC and blue/orange SOTDS cards
2012: TVC and "Darth Maul" MH/DTF cards

So, as you can see, with only a couple of exceptions, the package design has changed just about every single year.

I get that, its like car sales, you have to change the package each year to sell new ones. But the vintage line has or had a ton of possibilities for more cards while remaining unique, example: the star wars cards, sandtrooper, luke death star escape, a few cantina patron, all new cards that had vintage cardbacks and we not part of the original line and they made a buck on it. Vintage was not about remaking the original cards all over again....( ok i wanted the original star wars all done ) but it was about the spirit of the original kenner design.

Hasbro f ed up big time with the panthom menace wave, ok, done and dealt with, move along...there was a ton of characters left to do.


just in ANH alone there was a ton of figures:

most of the cantina and a lot of the people or droids in the mos eisley's streets have not been done. we have yet to see any cantina band member. Garindan, greedo etc where are they?


right there i can easily come up with 15 to 20 figures alone and that is not even counting the fact that they did not redo all the ANH cardbacks like luke, leia , old ben, chewie ( you get the picture )

so instead of redoing BAD i would have continued the vintage line with tons of character debut which incidently could have appeared down the road on new cardbacks as repacks....not the other way around....

[bigbarada]

Hey, I'm been a huge supporter of vintage since 2004 and I wish they could continue to make figures on vintage cards from now until their license expires in 2018. However, it's simply not going to happen next year. Hasbro has already resolved to end it, so even if they started plans to bring it back today, we would't see the results of that until the end of 2013 or the beginning of 2014.

So, it's going to take a break and I'll be here when it returns. It's taken a break before with no indication of it ever returning, but Hasbro knows how popular it is now. I'm confident they won't leave it alone for long.

I would actually prefer if they just did a single wave of Vintage each year. Limit it to 12 figures per year and focus it solely on the OT. This would allow them to knock out several Kenner updates each year and still leave some room for 2-3 new figures.

But you know what they say, you can want in one hand and crap in the other, then see which one fills up faster.

[Krayt]

Wayne, I am not going to quote your message because it's long...

First off, I never said you can't complain. I have never been against people voicing their displeasure. What I was against was when there were thread popping up day after day saying the exact same complaint. Instead of voicing displeasure in the same thread, people felt a need to create their own for the same argument someone else started a thread for the day before. I know voicing your opinion can lead to change, have seen it done. I have no problem with a complaint thread, I get that. I don't see a need for five threads basically saying the exact same thing.

As for Hasbro backing out of the Q&A. I don't fault them for that one bit. The Q&A was a way Hasbro created to have contact with their customers. Yes, at times there will complaints about something but if you look at the last half dozen or more Q&A there was more just complaints and the same complaints over and over. If I ran a company and people just said the same thing over and over, yes you want to do something about it but I don't want to keep hearing the same thing over and over. We don't know the logistics over at Hasbro, so we don't know what Hasbro had to do to sort out their problems. If they started on the problem and people still mention it time after time while they are trying to deal with then I would get fed up as well.

As for the end of Vintage, when Vintage started anyone that follows the line knew it was only going to go for a couple of years. Hasbro announced it would come back again, which to a lot of people is good news. However, there are still others out there that still complain that vintage ended. None of the lines stays forever and it can't. You made an argument that I made elsewhere. If Vintage stayed then it would have bored people and they would have left simply because Vintage over stayed it's time. Things need to change, it's the way things are. However, without a new movie or show, doesn't mean Hasbro or a Star Wars line in general will be done making figures in 2018 after the license is done. If Hasbro is still doing well as they seem to be, I would assume they would want to continue with the license. However, we can't know for sure until I would say 2017 at the earliest.

TCW line, well we knew that wouldn't last forever. Just seems that the line is dying quicker than expected.
MH, well I would think that line is going to be around. Hasbro likes to have multiple SKU so it means more of their product on the shelves. I don't see any reason to question the lack of a reveal at SDCC as much of anything. Aside from the light up lightsabers they put in MH this year, basically the rest are straight repacks so you don't need to give it too much fanfare in my opinion.

[WayneStarActionF]

Krayt, I knew if I went on long enough, I'd get a debate out of you in the end without the need for you to use insults We have adebate at last

You bring a couple of very interesting points up there, but its late over here... or early.. depending on how you look at it, so I will respond to you tomorrow.

[Budspencer]

its a number game really, imagine going to a complaint rally and having a few thousand people who wantas to complain but only people carrying one sign that says, 'your company sucks". will they be taken seriously? versus the same amount of people each caryin a sign voicing their displeasure, which group is gonna make an impact.

also this is not costing anyone anything but their time. and no one is forcing anyone to read whinning threads and frankly this is space will only be that, you will get 5 whining thread for each i am happy thread.

there would be tons of less whining if hasbro would actually listen to people. People are asking for stuff but hasbro sees fit to go in a different way and then can't stand the heat and gets out of the kitchen. basically a customer is also your boss because they give you money so that your business keeps going on. if people are requesting a slave 1, then you give them a slave 1, if they are requesting a skiff you give them a skiff. you cant completely dictate what the customer wants or you are setting yourself for a fail. people were aksing for a lot fo figures to be redone and what do we get? exclusive for Jocasta Nu? like seriously... is she like more important that chewbacca or luke or even dooku?


all i can see is that hasbro f ed up with the phantom menace wave and it cost them big.... they dont want to pay anymore for new molds and new cardbacks and the artisans that make them....also if they dont have to pay for new molds or sculpts, it will cost them less to produce and they will make more money so in the end who is hasbro serving? the fans or themselves by going out the cheap way. It is always sad to see captilism go in front before the needs that capitlism is actually serving.

also frankly i would like to know the impact on the employees of hasbro on this, i am sure that a lot of people will lose their jobs as a result of this. even if they says people will be re-assigned i dont buy it, some people will still lose their jobs. so as you can see it is a lose-lose situation here.

the only silver lining in this is that they finally decided to make the falcon on the original star wars box which is a dream come thru. it is probably gonna be the equivalent of the price of us buying a few waves of figures within the year so money wise it equalizes itself and id raather have the falcon that some crappy EU toys or clone wars cardbacks....


honestly like many people said, Hasbro could have just slowed down and make less, maybe a wave of 6 figures within a year or something like that to let retailers get rid of them if they peg warm for some reason. also hasbro has not even touched upon playsets yet and they are missing the x-wing and many other things. they could have made a pile of money by slowly letting it trickle and keep the line in the sight of collectors without going that big. i am sure now that some people are secretly wishing that bad fails miserably like MH did so that hasbro will have no choice but to bring vintage back faster than planned.

on another note, just complaining here wont change much...you need to get out of this bubble and take action and let Hasbro know that you are not happy....email them, write them tons of letter, find out their fax number and send them a letter. that is what people should do....

sorry for my spelling and syntax, i am lazy this morning..

[RegJr]

As for the cards on BAD. Complain if you want, but Hasbro made this line with openers in mind, hence the piece of the BAD to build another figure.

And that's why I am so happy to see TVC coming to an end. I really disliked the lack of a J-hook; and the smaller blisters prevented the inclusion of any noteworthy accessories. As an exclusive opener (I throw all packaging in the recycle bin), I am so glad to see the return of more opener-friendly cardbacks. I sympathize with all you guys and gals who collect your toys MOC, but this is a great move for a collector like me. If I were the King of Hasbro, I would resign the TVC cardback to the annals of history (where it belongs - back in the 80s) and never look back!

[Budspencer]

And that's why I am so happy to see TVC coming to an end. I really disliked the lack of a J-hook; and the smaller blisters prevented the inclusion of any noteworthy accessories. As an exclusive opener (I throw all packaging in the recycle bin), I am so glad to see the return of more opener-friendly cardbacks. I sympathize with all you guys and gals who collect your toys MOC, but this is a great move for a collector like me. If I were the King of Hasbro, I would resign the TVC cardback to the annals of history (where it belongs - back in the 80s) and never look back!

while i respect what you said i strongly am against your point of view. TVC has for the most part better figures overall, the sculpts were better, the paint jobs were better, articulations better and you did not have extravagent accessories that looked more like they belong to the gi joe line more than star wars.

If bad is decent i will probaly give it a try but if the quality is the same as what we got from MH then i am not sure i will bother. repeating myself, 2 out of 3 review i saw from flyguy.net and sithlord 229 are sorta more negative than positive on the MH line. And from what i have seen so far the sculpts are nothing to brag about as is the initial wave. But to be honest i am a MOC-MIB collector, so what is inside does not really have a big huge impact on what i am getting. If the card impreses me then i might go for it. I am kinda mad at myself to let my star wars collecting habit slide...i gave up after POTF2 and never looked back, so i did not collect any prequel stuff expect a darth maul original card and i did not start again until TVC....i am sure i am not the only one that did this pattern and now hasbro instead of making twice the money of of me with BAD ( if i get into it ) and TVC, they will only make money once with BAD... my top priority will be the original toys, then it was TVC and then other lines that i can find on the cheap....

the idea of openers is great, hasbro wants that, they want people to open and hopefully buy one to keep on MOC since they know that star wars toys have a tendency to go up in value if you invest in them..( well sort of anyways )... but as strong an opinion a opener can have, those that collect moc have the same opinion. it would be for hasbro to content both sides....but not doing..... yet...

[WayneStarActionF]

Wayne, I am not going to quote your message because it's long...

First off, I never said you can't complain. I have never been against people voicing their displeasure. What I was against was when there were thread popping up day after day saying the exact same complaint. Instead of voicing displeasure in the same thread, people felt a need to create their own for the same argument someone else started a thread for the day before. I know voicing your opinion can lead to change, have seen it done. I have no problem with a complaint thread, I get that. I don't see a need for five threads basically saying the exact same thing.

As for Hasbro backing out of the Q&A. I don't fault them for that one bit. The Q&A was a way Hasbro created to have contact with their customers. Yes, at times there will complaints about something but if you look at the last half dozen or more Q&A there was more just complaints and the same complaints over and over. If I ran a company and people just said the same thing over and over, yes you want to do something about it but I don't want to keep hearing the same thing over and over. We don't know the logistics over at Hasbro, so we don't know what Hasbro had to do to sort out their problems. If they started on the problem and people still mention it time after time while they are trying to deal with then I would get fed up as well.

As for the end of Vintage, when Vintage started anyone that follows the line knew it was only going to go for a couple of years. Hasbro announced it would come back again, which to a lot of people is good news. However, there are still others out there that still complain that vintage ended. None of the lines stays forever and it can't. You made an argument that I made elsewhere. If Vintage stayed then it would have bored people and they would have left simply because Vintage over stayed it's time. Things need to change, it's the way things are. However, without a new movie or show, doesn't mean Hasbro or a Star Wars line in general will be done making figures in 2018 after the license is done. If Hasbro is still doing well as they seem to be, I would assume they would want to continue with the license. However, we can't know for sure until I would say 2017 at the earliest.

TCW line, well we knew that wouldn't last forever. Just seems that the line is dying quicker than expected.
MH, well I would think that line is going to be around. Hasbro likes to have multiple SKU so it means more of their product on the shelves. I don't see any reason to question the lack of a reveal at SDCC as much of anything. Aside from the light up lightsabers they put in MH this year, basically the rest are straight repacks so you don't need to give it too much fanfare in my opinion.

Okay Krayt, as you have finally entered into a debate, I'll answer your points. It's clear on here, although you claim you are not against people making a compliant, you jump on anyone who does from a great height. But what you are doing is, probably without realising it, is stopping Hasbro hearing these compliants. The FEW threads there are on here, thanks to the likes of you and Wishing Well, quickly descend into a farce within a few posts. When Hasbro look at these, they probably read the first thread, and then discard it due to following rabble that normally happens.

You also put other people off from voicing there opinions as most cannot be bothered with the hassle of getting into a slanging match with you. Now you don't like reading the same thing over and over again. Simple answer, don't open them. Stay away from this section of the board. If it bothers you that much, why keep repeating yourself over and over again.

Instead of slagging people off, you should be encourging everyone to start their own thread. After all, this section is called ASK HASBRO! If the threads are all the same, brilliant. Hasbro might get the message. The message at the bottom of the Ask Hasbro page is from April. If this forum got so many complaints that there we 30 or 40 threads a day on it, and the thread at the bottom on the page was dated yesterday, then Hasbro would have to listen. As it is there are a handful of threads, unlike the hundreds you keep claiming, Hasbro open a few, see the pathetic comments that usually follow, and shrug it off. If they come here and there were 30 threads a day with the same compliant, they would be more inclined to take it seriously.

How do I know they would listen, because in the UK after putting up with a crap service for years, I laid siege to their Facebook page. They didn't like it, but as I was only saying the truth, so there wasn't much they could do about it, others joined in and basically took over their online "public forum" and after an exchange of letters, things have improved and they have changed the way they operate on the Star Wars line. I won't go into detail here what they changed, but things are fair better than they were, but if they are "made aware" of true feeling against them, they will act.

So just bear in mind, every time you give one of your "witty" responses to someone who take the time to address the issue with Hasbro, and turn thread after thread into a farce, you are doing far more damage to the line than the people complaining.

BUD sums it up nicely. "its a number game really, imagine going to a complaint rally and having a few thousand people who wants to complain but only people carrying one sign that says, 'your company sucks". will they be taken seriously? versus the same amount of people each caryign a sign voicing their displeasure, which group is gonna make an impact."

Encourge people on here to complain about same thing, and then Hasbro may act.

With regards Q&A, I dont see how you defend Hasbro for pulling out. The reason they got the same compliants over and over again, is because they avoided answering it the first second third time etc. If they were trying to deal with an issue, they should have said so, instead of answering in some vague way. Hasbro only have themselves to blame over the failure of Q&A.

You seem to except now that the Clone Wars might be dying quicker than expected. Time will tell, but IMO opinion the reason it failed was the lack of fresh product. I gave up on Clone Wars long ago. I think I ordered a grand total of 20 cases in 2012 for my store, whereas in the past I would have 60-70 cases a wave. People will not spend $10/£9/£10 on the same old figure over and over again. hasbro stopped making new parts, sales dropped off, they repeated characters in assortments over and over again, and now the line looks all but gone. IMO Wave 4 is a sign of Hasbro clearing the factories of old stock. I can't see any other reason for it, and that's why I think we won't see another Clone Wars wave. Battle Packs are as good as dead. The price is ridiculaous for packs of 3 years and years old figures. I'm only a small fish in a very big pond, but I used to order 30 cases of Battle Packs a wave. Haven't ordered a case for over a year, because they dont sell. At its peak I ordered over 200 cases of vintage (wave 3) . I've had to limited it to 70 now because of all the crap repacks that do not sell. If a small player like me as cut back like that, imagine the big chains cut backs. They dont look at it wave to waves, they are just Star Wars figures to them, and they are not selling, and thats why people can't find them. Its a vicous circle Hasbro has started, and seem to be doing nothing to stop it. I even said to Hasbro, if I was a "spy" from Mattel who was sent over to kill the Star Wars line, I would not have picked such poor assortments in 2012, as I thought it would have been to obvious I was trying to kill them line!! Thing have improved with the last wave, but now they've cancelled it!!!

But where repeated and lack of new items has probably killed the Clone Wars line, IMO is where vintage/BAD is now. The first wave of BAD is unbeliveably poor. 12 figures first waves, do not work. That has been proved in the last two years. This wave has over half of it that could be peg warmers. Together with the fact Hasbro expects people to buy weaker figures to get BAD pieces, this will put even more pressure on the popular quick selling figures, and I think it will be peg warming like we have never seen before. They will reissue popular figures with new BAD parts in future waves, and the droid parts on the peg warmers from previous waves will be even more useless. Its a receipe that CANNOT work and WILL NOT work.

But it also has additional issue of what has all but killed the Clone Wars line. More and more repaints reused parts, unoriginal choices, and with 30 new figures in 2013 more and more chances of overuse of repacks, I can see BAD going the same way as Clone Wars next year.

With regards the MH line, despite Hasbro claiming it sells well, as they did on their facebook page, and as I responded to them, if thats the case, why are Hasbro clearing it at wholesaler at nearly half price within weeks of releasing it. I don't see much of a Movie Heroes line in 2013. IMO they should have used BAD in Movie Heroes (most of wave 1 of BAD is Movie Heroes type fodder anyway) and continued with vintage in the main line.

So is it the end of vintage, hopefully no. But only if the line lasts through 2013 to make it to a new vintage release. You've only got to read comments in various threads about peoples views on 2013. Hardly positive is it.

So instead of slagging off anyone who starts a thread to Hasbro in the Ask Hasbro section, you should be encourging more people in other parts of the forums, to instead off moaning about it in various threads, pop over to the Ask Hasbro section and start a new thread, their own thread to Hasbro giving them their views. Sure some will be cringeworthy, but all the time the likse of you and Wishing Well troll this section of the forum, you are doing far more harm to everyones favourite hobby, then good. Give it up mate. Except you are wrong on this one.

Hasbro is killing the line. Partly greed with their prices, mainly though IMO down to case assortments and distribution. After all if its not in the shops, it aint going to be sold.

And if people are moaning about the same thing over and over again, maybe they have a point!

[Krayt]

while i respect what you said i strongly am against your point of view. TVC has for the most part better figures overall, the sculpts were better, the paint jobs were better, articulations better and you did not have extravagent accessories that looked more like they belong to the gi joe line more than star wars.

If bad is decent i will probaly give it a try but if the quality is the same as what we got from MH then i am not sure i will bother. repeating myself, 2 out of 3 review i saw from flyguy.net and sithlord 229 are sorta more negative than positive on the MH line. And from what i have seen so far the sculpts are nothing to brag about as is the initial wave. But to be honest i am a MOC-MIB collector, so what is inside does not really have a big huge impact on what i am getting. If the card impreses me then i might go for it. I am kinda mad at myself to let my star wars collecting habit slide...i gave up after POTF2 and never looked back, so i did not collect any prequel stuff expect a darth maul original card and i did not start again until TVC....i am sure i am not the only one that did this pattern and now hasbro instead of making twice the money of of me with BAD ( if i get into it ) and TVC, they will only make money once with BAD... my top priority will be the original toys, then it was TVC and then other lines that i can find on the cheap....

the idea of openers is great, hasbro wants that, they want people to open and hopefully buy one to keep on MOC since they know that star wars toys have a tendency to go up in value if you invest in them..( well sort of anyways )... but as strong an opinion a opener can have, those that collect moc have the same opinion. it would be for hasbro to content both sides....but not doing..... yet...

The problem with your argument though is you think Hasbro improved the figures simply for Vintage. So does that mean now with Vintage done the quality of the figures is going to go down as well? It seems as things go along the figures get better and better. So the new Legacy collection figures in a couple years could be way better than the Vintage figures. When Vintage comes back again those figures could be better than the Legacy figures. It has nothing to do with what cardback it's on, it's about Hasbro's ability to improve the product. So that argument is null.

As for the cardback itself. You do realize that MIC collectors are the minority in the industry right? You do know that kids are Hasbro's primary focus? Yes, Hasbro gave a huge bone to collectors with the Vintage packaging. However, most collectors still do open up a lot of their figures. I for one open all my figures, so just like RegJr I am glad to see Vintage go because the packaging is terrible. It's the worst because it truly does limit what you can get. No oversized figures, no extra accessories.

As for your reference to MH, I still don't know where you going with that when you trying to make an argument about Vintage