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Did G5 flop?

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Saiko:
Has G5 failed? I heard on Instagram that the leaked G5 Equestria Girls dolls have been cancelled due to low interest in the Netflix series. Whenever I go to a toy store I only see a couple of G5 toys. There haven't been any new toys released for months. Months go by between updates on MLPMerch.com

What do you think? Has this generation flopped?

Zapper:
Can't say much about cancellations because I don't keep up with new pony stuff anymore but just by looking at the animation budget and toy quality it wouldn't surprise me if G5 would wrap up soon.
They made the mistake of starting out with a celebrity voiced movie that could have been in theaters, then tone all of that down by going for a lower budget show they releases not in episode format but mini movie format. The time period between each of these brackets was too long for kids so they had the webisodes on youtube as inbetween entertainment and those looked really low budget and quite frankly: ugly.

Their marketing plan must have read: "Cheaper, cheaper, cheaper until interest is gone". Something that baffles me because G4 must have made so much money for them, all they had to do was use some of that money and create something that looks appealing to kids and will hold their interest.
Paw Patrol is still churning out product and movies, they obviously designed the ponies to look like that and yet they failed to understand why Paw Patrol stiĺl works. It's because it's adventure and they present that to kids in more exciting ways. Their movies go to theaters, they are everywhere. Hasbro tends to give up on girl franchises if they can't pull the big numbers but they really don't try hard enough. They lost the Princess liscense and Descendants is over, so now is the time they should start investing in their own girl lines again.

Basic Fun is really coming for them, imo. They are releasing more nostalgic toy repros than ever before and TLS Toy is creating their own lines based on the nostalgic IPs they have. Look at the Rainbow Brite line of mini poseable dolls they are doing now. Hasbro is so much bigger than them and yet they are cheap and treat the big names they have like stepchildren, there is little innovation and that results in little customer engagement.

All my opinions, I have no insight into their marketing plans or anything. I wish I had :lol:

EDIT: I corrected my wrong assumption that Basic Fun is doing the new Rainbow Brite line. It's TLS Toy.

cowboyopossum:
Short answer- yes.

Long answer- Hasbro did not want to let g4 go, of course because it made them so much money, but at the same time wanted to purge the fandom of bronies. So, they made the writing a lot more shallow and "girly".
With the toys, they were stuck in the mindset that fewer characters = less money on toys = fans will buy anything with the MLP logo. They were too scared to reach out into more characters (which, IMO would have saved the line) and instead focused on exhausting the main 5/sometimes misty. This paired with the state of Hasbro's stock, they are not going to be reaching out any time soon.
The show is a topic for another day, though.

I hope at least they are working on a new generation.

DreamvalleyMLP:
I think it is safe to say that it did.

Two ways to tell:
1.   Just look at the poor presence on store shelves.
2.   All the brands that were successful (i.e. made Hasbro a lot of money or at least met their expectations) get mentioned in their financial reports. MLP was among those brands during the G4 reign, but not one peep of the brand since G5 (minus the first report following the release of the G5 movie, I believe. Not sure though).

TheClassCalico:
It appears that it has been doing poorly for the aforementioned reasons, yes. I do hope that they instead move to their old model of releasing more original characters instead of being too quick to cancel it. It would be a shame if it had such a short lifespan or if it pulled a G2 and was exclusive to a smaller selection of countries.

I think a big contributor to G4's success was its main show, making the repetition work; from what I've gathered, characters that never significantly appeared in the Friendship is Magic show didn't do quite as well, whereas presumably, the main characters and popular secondary characters did well. It seems that G5's show hasn't been doing so well, so they can't really rely on show appeal. However, I may very well be wrong. It is purely a guess based on observations made by others and myself.

Another thing is that pastel horse toys are commonplace outside of My Little Pony now. There is simply more choice, which has likely affected its popularity somewhat.

If it is true that the Equestria Girls dolls were cancelled, that is a shame. I actually liked the look of them. They looked to be a big improvement of the Equestria Girls line.

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