Why Dolls?

[BowtieG1]

I saw these in Asda living the other day and I'm still not convinced. The hair looks nasty quality to me, and I would never buy a non-jointed doll.

[LadySiha]

My best friend (who accepts my pony obsession very well, and collects other toys) and I were actually talking about the Equestria Girl Dolls yesterday.  I don't care for them and he thinks they're slightly horrifying.

He likened it to the Transformers, back when we were kiddo-s.  Transformers were doing great, but Hasboro wanted more out of the deal.  So they made a movie (which was admittedly awesome and I will STILL watch today) where they killed off most of the old characters and introduced a bunch of new ones!  Now they had an excuse to makes all of these new different toys because "kids are just stupid" (I don't actually think that).  And it didn't work.  Kids still wanted Optimus Prime! 

I think he has a valid point... They might change it, but kids (as well as collectors) are still going to love that original look, line, and the characters.  I won't lie, it seems those Equestria Girl dolls made it into some of the close-out stores pretty fast (I was just at Gordman's the other day and they have A TON of them) which makes me wonder how well they're actually doing.

To the point - I completely agree with those who say the bottom line is all about the money, and I honestly hope this idea is just a flash in the pan....

[Malicieuse]

Honestly, why not?
It's not the first time we saw dolls in MLP or that we saw "MLP spin-off creatures". Even the High School setting is nothing really new. I think "MLP Tales" was at least as cliché as "Equestria Girls" is. Add in the fact that Hasbro wants to sell some dolls and this whole thing really isn't surprising.

I mostly don't get why it bothers people this much. Equestria Girls is pretty easy to avoid and it's not like they have replaced the MLP toyline. I mean, MLP didn't turn into Equestria Girls. It's just a spin-off.

[Sapphire-Light]

Honestly, why not?
It's not the first time we saw dolls in MLP or that we saw "MLP spin-off creatures". Even the High School setting is nothing really new. I think "MLP Tales" was at least as cliché as "Equestria Girls" is. Add in the fact that Hasbro wants to sell some dolls and this whole thing really isn't surprising.

I mostly don't get why it bothers people this much. Equestria Girls is pretty easy to avoid and it's not like they have replaced the MLP toyline. I mean, MLP didn't turn into Equestria Girls. It's just a spin-off.

Well people have different tastes, even if is a spin off, when a new stuff comes from a line theres ALWAYS going to be people who agree and others disagree

 I personally dislike a lot EQG, just how the movie and the dolls demolished the personality of characters like the main 6, it really made me angry how FlutterSHY in the songs was swirling , eye winking boys and hopping over tables in front of everyone.

I agree wit the comments in you tube that the movie is High School Musical wit rainbow colored people, I don't have anything agaist HSM but it's annoying that hasbro did all this just to try to smash Monster High

Is like they change Transformers being robots and turn them into humans superheroes only because The Advengers are selling a lot of stuff

[Sukeile]

Of course it is silly to get upset about dolls, I know that and yet I am very guilty of this.

As a child, playing with my ponies was entering an imaginary world, a sanctuary where reality could not get to me.
I did not connect well with other children and played mostly by myself, but when I had my pastel colored friends with me I never felt alone.

And in the Pony world, I was one of the ponies, there were no humans with their confusing human rules.

When discovering the movie and the animations I had an extremely hard time accepting Megan and her siblings as part of the show, they were from the real world and had no right intruding into "My" fantasy.

It is hard to explain in words why I felt that way, and even though I can understand now that what Hasbro does with their toylines or animations does not have to affect my own head canon, I do still get a tinge of those old feelings sometimes.

The ponies were unique and gave the kids who could not identify with dolls something that they could relate to easier, it hurts to see them being changed or the reality we have imagined them in being " changed" (parallel universe with identical copies of everyone you know but in different bodies? Creepy! )

I will easily get annoyed thinking about it, especially since I think they should have rebooted Jem as a doll instead of using the ponies, who were already so lovely.

Not sure if anyone else can understand what I am talking about, but this is my personal explanation to why the dolls bothered me.

But, I try really hard to be level headed about it and actually be happy for the people who do enjoy them.

I will still play with my horses, just the same as I always did

[Spectrum]

I'm going to be straight up honest and say my RD doll is 10x better quality than any of my G4 ponies, the hair is nice and soft and there isn't any stray dirt marks or paint rubs. (Well heck, for 25 dollars it BETTER be good quality) Generally, the movie was nice and the dolls are cute, the dolls only take up a small corner in the MLP section of my store that was empty anyways. I would say they should rather put more effort into the ponies, but putting effort into 5 dollar horses seems to be an idea that is long gone with Hasbroken anyways.

[prancingstag]

I'm not 100% sure and I don't have any links, but I thought somebody asked this question once and got a reply? Which was along the lines of "Hasbro looked at a lot of the fanart drawn for FiM to get ideas on what concepts are popular, and noticed that tons of fans drew humanised versions of the ponies." So they thought a humanised spinoff would be popular among the G4/brony fans, probably in addition to hooking little girls with the fashion doll line.

Unfortunately, a humanised spinoff probably WOULD have been very popular, if they didn't make them half-animal-colored-skin-with-ears-and-tail "humans", and didn't strip the characters of their personality and everything that made them unique. Equestria Girls is acceptable as it is, but it could have been something really great if they put a smidgen more common sense and effort into the adaptation.

[Majesty]

I don't like EQ girls too much.  I read something about the possibility of Hasbro turning this into a TV series but don't know if that's true.  If Hasbro is so desperate for money they need to read what their fans actually want.  They had stated a while back they do lurk on forums like these to see how people react to their products, etc. but obviously they aren't paying attention. 

[scarletjul]

I'm certain Hasbro is trying to compete with Mattel. . .  And possibly Disney (Fairies) and Winx and other dolls of that nature.  I'm curious to see how well the EQ dolls are selling in comparison, though.  There seems to be a lot of mixed reviews.

As for the dolls, themselves, they don't particularly bother me.  I certainly wish Hasbro had gone another direction.  But the movie was cute enough for what it was (I didn't expect all that much honestly.). And I don't mind the lack of articulation - Barbie doesn't have it either a d that doesn't seem to bother her.  . I think the dolls are relatively cute but I wish they weren't' so expensive.  And at the end of the day I'd still rather have a pony.

[Malicieuse]

Honestly, why not?
It's not the first time we saw dolls in MLP or that we saw "MLP spin-off creatures". Even the High School setting is nothing really new. I think "MLP Tales" was at least as cliché as "Equestria Girls" is. Add in the fact that Hasbro wants to sell some dolls and this whole thing really isn't surprising.

I mostly don't get why it bothers people this much. Equestria Girls is pretty easy to avoid and it's not like they have replaced the MLP toyline. I mean, MLP didn't turn into Equestria Girls. It's just a spin-off.

Well people have different tastes, even if is a spin off, when a new stuff comes from a line theres ALWAYS going to be people who agree and others disagree

Sure, i understand that. I just think it's silly to act as if these dolls suddenly ruined everything we already got.

[RavenWolf]

I understand the reasoning behind the thought that they did it to try and compete with Mattel's doll lines, but the reasoning is backwards, why try to compete with a bunch of doll toy lines that are a dime a dozen when you already have a unique niche in the toy department!?! there is virtually no competition in the fantasy horse/pony area. If they want to be more competitive in the toy market they need to go back to their roots and start releasing more ponies in different styles and characters. G1's and early G3 where insanely popular because of the variety they offered, a variety that encouraged collecting.

I'm not anti doll and I do think they are an interesting idea I just think there is so much more they could have done instead. The fact that once again its the same couple of characters just as dolls, its just one more step away from what MLP was originally supposed to be. It would be different if the Equestria dolls where in addition to a great line up of MLPs, but that just doesn't seem to be happening at least not by me every time I go to the toy isle its the same couple of MLPs on the self getting less and less space all the time and what little space that is left for MLP is now dominated by these dolls. A trend that I'm afraid will continue and get worse. That's where my problem with the dolls come in. As a neat side toy to the MLPs I could of loved them and appreciate them for their uniqueness like Dream Beauties or sea ponies, but they look to be trying to bump MLPs out of the picture.

[Wardah]

Because they were going for the girls who felt they were "too old to play with ponies" yet find dolls to be "acceptable" rather than have them go to MGA or Mattel or Jakks or any other toy company that makes dolls. I do like the EG dolls and I think they are super cute, but I still would have rather had a Jem remake. I can only hope Hasbro's experiment in fashion dolls will be successful enough that Hasbro will do a Jem remake.

[Sapphire-Light]

Honestly, why not?
It's not the first time we saw dolls in MLP or that we saw "MLP spin-off creatures". Even the High School setting is nothing really new. I think "MLP Tales" was at least as cliché as "Equestria Girls" is. Add in the fact that Hasbro wants to sell some dolls and this whole thing really isn't surprising.

I mostly don't get why it bothers people this much. Equestria Girls is pretty easy to avoid and it's not like they have replaced the MLP toyline. I mean, MLP didn't turn into Equestria Girls. It's just a spin-off.

Well people have different tastes, even if is a spin off, when a new stuff comes from a line theres ALWAYS going to be people who agree and others disagree

Sure, i understand that. I just think it's silly to act as if these dolls suddenly ruined everything we already got.

Well like people have mentioned here, part of the issue is that you get the filling  the pony toys and the more animal type stuff have beeing pushed aside to get all the attention in the human hybrids.

Just the movie itself is an example, it was shown at theaters witout a doubt by Hasbro, after nearly 30 years when  the 80s one was shown , in those years they didn't have interest at all in showing a movie again, even when they found out that G4 became so popular.

An also knowing how the market for ponies have grown, they keep making only the main 6 for the common stores and making a few characters exclusive for US only selected stores.

And not only collectors suffer for this, I have heard several times little girls saying that they already have all of the mane 6, and that they want new ponies, I don't get why Hasbro don't want that money.

[hathorcat]

I'm not 100% sure and I don't have any links, but I thought somebody asked this question once and got a reply? Which was along the lines of "Hasbro looked at a lot of the fanart drawn for FiM to get ideas on what concepts are popular, and noticed that tons of fans drew humanised versions of the ponies." So they thought a humanised spinoff would be popular among the G4/brony fans, probably in addition to hooking little girls with the fashion doll line.

Unfortunately, a humanised spinoff probably WOULD have been very popular, if they didn't make them half-animal-colored-skin-with-ears-and-tail "humans", and didn't strip the characters of their personality and everything that made them unique. Equestria Girls is acceptable as it is, but it could have been something really great if they put a smidgen more common sense and effort into the adaptation.

That was a claim made at Comic Con by one of the official comic artists on a panel.

Its an odd thing to claim. EQG are not aimed at bronies - thats not the main market for them so I personally took the statement as a bit of a nonsense attempt to claim ownership of something.

[Starly]

Bronies generally humanize ponies for the 'sexy'. And that's all I'm gonna say.