I used to be able to find more variety of MLP at Walmart, for whatever reason; the last time I went hunting before Christmas, it looked like they'd gotten rid of it entirely. Target has only had a mini 20-pack and the extra-long hair set for six months, it feels like, occasionally interspersed with the RV set, which is another mini set. My next closest Target got rid of the pony section entirely.
It really sucks! I know I can't expect an 'everything store' like Walmart or Target to have a massive toy selection, but this feels significantly worse than G4 distribution by miles. Is Hasbro falling down, are the retailers drawing back? I don't want to get all my ponies from Amazon! :yikes:
Who is opening up Toys 'R' Us in their stores? Is that Target? Maybe they will have more ponies when that's fully implemented.
I think the problem is more to do with the state of Hasbro than anything else, though they did not make good decisions about MLP’s G5 from day one. I personally thought they should have taken a break from MLP for a few years after G4 ended, and then brought the brand back with a lot of fanfare to build excitement.
Anyway, bear with me. I apologize for this getting long.
Hasbro has been in freefall for a while now, and I’m betting this is a symptom of that. Hasbro is not doing well at all, and their leadership has been actively destroying the company with very, very bad decisions for a while now. I keep a toe into Magic the Gathering, and about a year or so ago Hasbro tanked that entire brand. I didn’t know this, but Magic the Gathering cards were basically so profitable for Hasbro, that they were propping up the entire company. It was basically a money printing machine for them. Unfortunately Hasbro took this as a justification to try to squeeze as much money as possible from players, so they have been making decisions designed to not only gouge players, but to keep as much money for themselves as possible(cutting out the local stores which were vital to the health if the brand).
They’ve been churning out sets at an unsustainable pace for years, cutting costs on production leading to warped cards and low quality products even from their “premium” sets, and overall just abusing their cash cow. This came to a head with the 30th anniversary set which was $1000 for 4 packs of random reprints that were only available direct from Hasbro(bypassing the game stores that basically keeps the tournament community alive and vitally bring in a steady stream of new players), and weren’t even tournament legal. The cards were reprints of cards that were on the “never to be reprinted” list, basically destroying the entire second hand market for cards as well. A lot of people buy Magic cards for investment purposes, and Hasbro violating their “will not reprint ever” list ruined the investor/collector market for cards as well.
This did two things: it pissed off the player base so badly that the *entire* community revolted as a whole to reject the set and Hasbro as a company, and it caused hundreds of local mom & pop stores to close. Apparently, profit margins for local game stores are razor thin, and Hasbro’s polices made it impossible for many stores to survive with the repeated bad sets and keeping the most profitable stuff to be sold exclusively through Hasbro directly. That’s a big one since it was those mom and pop stores that ran the local tournaments and “Friday night Magic” events, and that was a huge factor in keeping the demand for cards high and bringing in new players. Hundreds of game stores went out of business due to this, and players were *pissed*.
This all came to a head a little while ago, and the community backlash was so bad that it actually tanked Hasbro’s stock price. It was so bad, Wall Street downgraded them.
https://www.thegamer.com/magic-the-gathering-release-fatigue-leads-to-plummeting-hasbro-stock/
Magic the Gathering was basically propping the entire company up, and kept Hasbro alive though the pandemic. Unfortunately the same idiots that ran MLP into the ground got greedy and destroyed the brand keeping the company in the black. Everything that Hasbro touches is affected by this. I can’t overstate how important those cards were to Hasbro’s overall health as a company. They’ve been trying to claw back from this, but they broke the community trust and destroyed the entire local game store system that drove the game’s success for 30 years, and even destroyed the collector’s market to boot. Those stores that closed are never coming back, and the new place to get cards(Amazon) is filled with scammers repacking boxes. The 30th anniversary reprints of cards that were never supposed to be reprinted also blew a nasty hole in the secondhand/collector market, and several of the biggest online stores stopped selling loose cards.
So basically, Hasbro is run by greedy stupid people who slaughtered their cash cow for a quick buck. This is affecting all the Hasbro brands, and they’re in panic mode. They’re looking for quick cash, and they’re not going to be supporting anything that isn’t going to line their pockets asap. The G4 brony fad is over, so unless G5 unexpectedly suddenly takes off, I think we can expect Hasbro to cut back on releases, and for stores to cut back on orders. Odds are, what’s coming out now is stuff that’s been in the pipeline since before this all happened. Nobody fired the greedy stupid people that did this, so they’re still in charge and as greedy and stupid as ever. Also, selling directly on Amazon is Hasbro’s new thing, so we can expect a lot more of that. They like keeping all the profits to themselves.
The leadership at Hasbro screwed up so badly, and they didn’t learn from it. It’s not “maybe G6 will be better”, it’s “will Hasbro still be in business to make a G6?”
I wonder if Basic Fun can buy the My Little Pony brand from Hasbro, seeing as they've just relaunched Littlest Pet Shop and are doing very well with their properties? I think that's the only way we will get ponies from now on. I don't see G5 at all except for on clearance or at clearance outlets like Ross, Marshalls, TJ Maxx and Burlington, much less the thrift stores.
I had no idea Hasbro wrecked their Magic line. Another brand that lasted for decades, ruined. And I heard they laid off a lot of people and I think closed down their Rhode Island office? Correct me if I am wrong, please.
My heart has always been with G1 ponies and it saddens me that ponies and other animal lines just don't do well (see the struggles of Cave Club, Monster High, Enchantimals, Magic Mixies, even the release of Jurassic Park, etc). I think the key to resurgence here will either be us fans joining together to save this brand from extinction or another company like Basic Fun stepping in. :(
I knew (from The Toys That Made Us special) that Hasbro was/is almost exclusively a 'boys toy' company, and TBH I feel like MLP in the 80s succeeded somehow despite that delusional mindset.
I personally thought Hasbro should have killed MLP at the end of G4, and then brought it back in a few years with a lot of fanfare. Ponies had technically been on shelves somewhere since 1997(in some places G2 and G3 had overlapped). Everyone was exhausted.
The G4 line had some serious baggage, and giving it a few years would probably clear out the most toxic elements of the whole brony thing as they found something else to befoul. The end of a line is almost always preceded by wave after wave of crap releases, and by the time Hasbro finally pulls the plug, there is no excitement from any segment of their customer base. Everyone is bored, and rebooting into that just makes the next generation feel like a crappy extension of the previous dying line. It would also give Hasbro time to work on the next line so it’s actually…good, and it would give time to build some hype and excitement for the new line.
But stupid and greedy won the day, and I’m betting that the thought process was along the lines of “the bronies aren’t buying as much, let’s push out something new ASAP so we can pump more money out of them”.
The G5 line came out too close to G4, and it inherited the apathy that came with years of disappointing releases, and the toxic fanbase issues of the G4s. It was probably rushed, so it wasn’t really well thought out. It kept the bad quality toys, boring repetitive characters, and overall issues from the G4s. It started out poorly, and with the other issues the company as whole are dealing with, it really never had a chance. The pandemic and the closure of TRU didn’t do it any favors either. But a well run company would be able to turn it around.
Hasbro was doing crazy well for a while. They were the number one toy maker in the world. It wasn’t even close. They had their own cable network (The HUB). They had a huge movie franchise(Transformers). They had several high value toy lines. MTG was a money printing machine. They had it all, and flushed it down the toilet.
It always boggles my mind that the people who make these decisions get millions and millions of dollars to do this. They even go to school for it! These people have degrees in business! They still seem to lack even the most basic understanding of their customers or the product. Or they just ignore them in favor of squeaking a few extra dollars for the quarter’s bottom line. No thought for tomorrow or next year, just squeeze a few extra bucks for the shareholders and to get that sweet, sweet executive bonus for the year.
So yeah, back to local stores. It's not very hopeful. Even looking at your pics, Carrehz, there's not a massive amount of variety.
I'm not mad about the obsession with segregating species and then bringing them together, either, it's cliche and hackneyed.Indeed.
I never bought into G1's fixation with de-magicking earth ponies in US media releases, since in the UK ponies had magic regardless of their species and I liked that better. The factfile states Magic Star is the most magical pony of all of them, so yeah.In fairness, "My Little Pony and Friends" toned down everybody's magical capabilities compared to the backcard stories. Individual unicorns don't have much variety to what they can do with their magic in that, and the only special thing pegasi can do is fly (although that did make them the cartoon's favorite since the cartoon loved to travel to various locations).
Maybe because I grew up with it, but I feel like it's not very progressive, having a world in which x type of pony can only do x. It's not quite as strangling as 'your cutie mark destiny', but it isn't great.How do you feel about G4 giving pegasi weather magic to go with them flying?
Reality isn't like that. I will never understand why Earth ponies should not have magic as an option by default.I think a lot of people tend to see them as the "normals" of the setting because they're the closest to IRL horses and don't have obvious supernatural features like wings or horns. Hasbro themselves seem to have felt that way in G3 (and it obviously took arm-twisting to get pegasi and unicorns added to the line at all).
Unpopular opinion, too, but I am ok with MLP ending with G5. I feel like we already had 2 generations too many, given the chaos of G4 and then this. MLP doesn't need to be constantly trampled down by repetitive overselling of the same characters. If MLP disappeared completely, well, so what? Those of us who grew up with G1 survived that and we're still surviving it. Will it really make a huge difference if ponies stop being sold? The ones most of us grew up with (G1 or G3 included) haven't been on shelves for years but we're still here for them...I mean, it will make it harder to share MLP with future generations if it ends, and probably kill throwback stuff like Basic Fun reissues that make getting G1 stuff more accessible for those who didn't grow up with it.
Also, does it matter if future generations don't get to share MLP? Looking at where it is now, is that really something we want to share with the future? Is it really okay for it just to be there for the sake of keeping the brand alive, even when the soul has long since been sucked out of it? Personally, I'm okay with it fading into the past. I've never loved the hype G4 brought into the pony collecting world.1. There's always the chance for the soul to return
I don't think a "knowing your place" idea was really intended...Also, does it matter if future generations don't get to share MLP? Looking at where it is now, is that really something we want to share with the future? Is it really okay for it just to be there for the sake of keeping the brand alive, even when the soul has long since been sucked out of it? Personally, I'm okay with it fading into the past. I've never loved the hype G4 brought into the pony collecting world.1. There's always the chance for the soul to return
2. It was the hype from G4 that finally nudged me into actually checking out MLP. And that in turn led to me checking out and falling in love with G1, and meeting the wonderful communities here and on the Trading Post.
I feel kinda unwelcome now...
:sad:
That same explosion is what drew me in back in 2011, via a friend who got into it. If it wasn't for that, I might never have met y'all - nor some of my other very close friends. I'm not happy about all the toxicity that hype ultimately brought, but it kinda felt like you were writing off everyone who came on board because of the excitement.I don't think a "knowing your place" idea was really intended...Also, does it matter if future generations don't get to share MLP? Looking at where it is now, is that really something we want to share with the future? Is it really okay for it just to be there for the sake of keeping the brand alive, even when the soul has long since been sucked out of it? Personally, I'm okay with it fading into the past. I've never loved the hype G4 brought into the pony collecting world.1. There's always the chance for the soul to return
2. It was the hype from G4 that finally nudged me into actually checking out MLP. And that in turn led to me checking out and falling in love with G1, and meeting the wonderful communities here and on the Trading Post.
I feel kinda unwelcome now...
:sad:
Don't be silly.
It's pretty obvious that the hype train I'm talking about was the media chaos, the brony explosion, the meme culture and the influx of people whose behaviour damaged the reputation of pony collectors for a long time to come.
Whether you like it or not, G4's fandom became infested with people whose sole purpose in life is to make other people miserable on social media - and Hasbro marketed towards those people, at the expense of their real audience, which was the kids. The moment MLP stopped being about kids first and foremost, it diedI saw and experienced the bad side of the G4 fandom as well. I tried to get them to be better about how they acted towards people and how they viewed previous generations, but I doubt I achieved much. There are reasons I abandoned any brony spaces aside from Tumblr, and even that's gone inactive for me for various reasons.
Having seen and experienced the bad side of the G4 fandom, I think I'm entitled to say that I disliked what that hype brought. You would have to be completely oblivious to that impact in order to think my comments were targeting any actual fans, whether they be old or new.
Please don't twist my words into something I didn't say. Nobody is making anyone unwelcome.The thing is, together with something else you said...
Unpopular opinion, too, but I am ok with MLP ending with G5. I feel like we already had 2 generations too many, given the chaos of G4 and then this. MLP doesn't need to be constantly trampled down by repetitive overselling of the same characters. If MLP disappeared completely, well, so what? Those of us who grew up with G1 survived that and we're still surviving it. Will it really make a huge difference if ponies stop being sold? The ones most of us grew up with (G1 or G3 included) haven't been on shelves for years but we're still here for them......It kinda feels like you're writing off people who grew up with G4 or didn't come on board til G4. And almost like you're wishing people who grew up with G1 through G3 had gotten to keep MLP all to themselves.
With regards to the other point, does it matter if that was or wasn't the intention when it is the final outcome? Earth ponies do earth pony things. Pegasus ponies do flying things. Unicorn ponies do magicky things. Is that not being categorised into x y and z?1. I was responding in passing because I was sad and tired and mainly concentrating on the other thing.
It's unfair to quote that one line without the context I gave it, of how the comic and characters were rendered in the UK and why I feel that jolt. The reality is that when you grow up with a 'ponyland' where the pony species had no impact whatsoever on what they could do, it makes it much more noticeable when ponies are pigeonholed into 'species' in other representations.
Going back to that, I think it is interesting that the backcards the US had often informed the UK stories, and that the US often had more detailed backcard stories than the UK (at least early on), but didn't really use them at all. The thing I mentioned about Magic Star being the most magical pony in ponyland comes from the fact file. But I think it's based loosely on Magic Star's card story in the US.As far as the UK media using the backcard stories goes... the UK backcard stories were all cut down (probably to prepare a shortened version that could be translated multiple times over for the continental release), but Hasbro would have still had the original full-length versions on file to provide to people producing fiction. And of course, comics and the like have much shorter turnaround.
Magic Star doesn't have a backcard story in the UK, because the Movie Star ponies only have a brief one sentence on the backs of their cards for each of them. It's a lovely card but useless for really learning about the ponies. In fact, the one lines there are more in keeping with the actual movie representation.That probably has to do with Hasbro UK trying to give the movie a little extra promotion since it was a big expensive project, the UK releases coming later, and those characters not being part of special sets like they were in the US.
So there's this beautiful irony whereby ponies like Shady and Magic Star have proper backcard stories in the US (albeit they're SS ponies), that story is then disregarded by the US and used in the UK comics. But Hasbro UK, when promoting our versions of those ponies, connects them to the movie, and thus removes those characterisations that the original backcards (and comics) laid out.
All of that probably ought to be on the Hasbro's Baffling Decisions thread, because it is nuts, but it's also pretty interesting that it happened like that. It does give the feeling of multiple different narratives around G1 (backcards, comics, animation) and that they didn't necessarily mesh with what else was going on in the same location.Transformers G1 had a similar disconnect, although to a lesser degree.
In the comic and annual stories, Magic Star could grant wishes. Later on, so could Rainbow Magic, a pegasus pony. But even some of the boy ponies had magic skills. I remember Ice Crystal making ice slides in the 1988 annual. I also am pretty sure Lightning could wink in and out like a lightning flash.1. Mind you, a lot of those never even got a chance to appear in the cartoon (and some - like the second set of stallions - were UK-only), so we never got to see what it would or wouldn't have done with them.
And Baby Lucky had a lot of happy-go-lucky magic going on, which included the random ability to bring drawings of the newborn twins to life.
Compared to that, the "Unicorns do magic, pegasus ponies fly, earth ponies are just ponies" rhetoric just jars with me. It genuinely feels like 'everyone in their place', because it is decided by a pony's species. In the case of pegasi and weather magic, it also feel generic, not individual. And G4 made that even firmer with the cutie marks and their destined meaning. G5 have also not moved away from the idea...although Sunny does break the mould a bit, it's not the same thing.1. Regarding cutie marks, they never felt to me like a prescriptive "destiny" so much as representing something a pony truly resonates with and feels a calling toward or has a special talent in doing. And they were an effort to try and make the symbols more special.
I don't think a "knowing your place" idea was really intended...Also, does it matter if future generations don't get to share MLP? Looking at where it is now, is that really something we want to share with the future? Is it really okay for it just to be there for the sake of keeping the brand alive, even when the soul has long since been sucked out of it? Personally, I'm okay with it fading into the past. I've never loved the hype G4 brought into the pony collecting world.1. There's always the chance for the soul to return
2. It was the hype from G4 that finally nudged me into actually checking out MLP. And that in turn led to me checking out and falling in love with G1, and meeting the wonderful communities here and on the Trading Post.
I feel kinda unwelcome now...
:sad:
The toy fair is normally around the end of February, I think..? Will be interesting to see what, if anything emerges.
Whether you like it or not, G4's fandom became infested with people whose sole purpose in life is to make other people miserable on social media - and Hasbro marketed towards those people, at the expense of their real audience, which was the kids. The moment MLP stopped being about kids first and foremost, it died
I think this is a wonderful explanation. Whenever people refer to me as a "brony" theres this visceral disgust in my gut. People need to stop lumping awful, vile people on some other site to collectors who truly love MLP and are not in it just for the laughs. I like when the brand caters to collectors as well as children, but they never should have been catering to bronies.Whether you like it or not, G4's fandom became infested with people whose sole purpose in life is to make other people miserable on social media - and Hasbro marketed towards those people, at the expense of their real audience, which was the kids. The moment MLP stopped being about kids first and foremost, it died
God, this stopped me in my tracks, and I had to just pluck this little line out of the full response, because it bowls me over with how true it is, and I haven't really seen it summed up so neatly before. But it's true, it was like - the memeification of glorifying cruelty to other people, of bonding over nasty and hateful behavior because it was fun. Like cult behavior, attacking the 'other' when the 'other' was women and children who dared to enjoy MLP 'incorrectly'. I know that's not what everyone in the Brony fandom took from it or enjoyed, but that type seemed to slowly edge more and more people out of public fandom spaces, until it seemed like those were the only people left. I cannot wait until that particular scourge finds a new interest.
I found it very depressing how quickly Hasbro decided to cater to the bronies after watching this community beg them for literal decades to listen to us. Collectors have gotten meager scraps from Hasbro for years. To have Hasbro give the bronies whatever they wanted was like Hasbro spitting in our faces. And they were catering to a community that had a significant problem with some of the worst people imaginable. Fortunately, the collector community went through its own issues several years ago, and moderation was already in place to mitigate the worst of it here and a few other places. Still, the bronies certainly befouled the My Little Pony name to the general public. I still have nothing to do with most facebook groups since they lack a lot of the moderation that keeps things civil here.
This was a big reason I felt Hasbro should have taken a break after G4. It would give the toxic subset of “fans” a chance to really clear out and give the MLP brand a chance to recover. You know, give the general public a chance to forget about pony love pillows and plushes with…holes. Maybe get the “alt right” people a chance to find some other more fertile ground to use to spread their hateful messages. We’ll see how it goes. G5 is already limping. Maybe Hasbro will take a break at the end of it, and being it back in a few years.
I found it very depressing how quickly Hasbro decided to cater to the bronies after watching this community beg them for literal decades to listen to us. Collectors have gotten meager scraps from Hasbro for years. To have Hasbro give the bronies whatever they wanted was like Hasbro spitting in our faces. And they were catering to a community that had a significant problem with some of the worst people imaginable. Fortunately, the collector community went through its own issues several years ago, and moderation was already in place to mitigate the worst of it here and a few other places. Still, the bronies certainly befouled the My Little Pony name to the general public. I still have nothing to do with most facebook groups since they lack a lot of the moderation that keeps things civil here.
This was a big reason I felt Hasbro should have taken a break after G4. It would give the toxic subset of “fans” a chance to really clear out and give the MLP brand a chance to recover. You know, give the general public a chance to forget about pony love pillows and plushes with…holes. Maybe get the “alt right” people a chance to find some other more fertile ground to use to spread their hateful messages. We’ll see how it goes. G5 is already limping. Maybe Hasbro will take a break at the end of it, and being it back in a few years.
I think the “Core 7”/“Mane 6” was the original beginning of the end for MLP, and most of the issues that came after stemmed from that. MLP was about variety and always something new to buy. As a kid, I never wanted doubles. I always wanted to see something new. G1, G2, and the prime G3 years were all about new ponies constantly coming out. Having access to repeated characters does give kids a chance to get their favorites if they missed them originally, but having nothing but the same group of characters over and over makes everything stale. And no parent is going to cough up for a 10th Pinkie Pie at current market prices. The first few years of G4 was a decent balance of Mane 6 and new ponies, but they managed to screw it up in later years by putting out nothing but the Mane 6. Churning out G5 on the heels of G4 led to the new toys sharing shelf space with the unsold crap that was sitting on shelves for over a year, killing the new stuff before it had a chance to even get rolling.
Hasbro went for cheap and lazy(endless boring iterations of the same characters) and catering to the fad group(all the stuff marketed to bronies). Mattel knows how to make a great toy for kids, and how to cater to collectors at the same time. I often envy Mattel collectors. They get respect from Mattel. MLP only got noticed once the bronies took over, and even then Hasbro wasn’t great.
What ticks me off about the whole "core character" concept isn't the idea itself, it's the fact that Hasbro think having a set of main characters means you can ONLY make toys of THEM and no one else! Look at other toylines that do this, most of them handle it way better. Like, Monster High has always had the core characters like Frankie, Draculaura, Clawdeen, etc but they're not all in EVERY line. There'd usually be a good mix of characters. Or like, Jakks Pacific's Sonic the Hedgehog line, they're doing really well at keeping the major characters on the shelves while also releasing at least one new character in each wave.
And then there's Hasbro who are all "Here's Sunny Starscout with a new hat!". x___x
Hasbro taking over the Pony Fair was SUCH A MASSIVE AND COLOSSAL MISTAKE!!!
I've said this from the very beginning! and for what, access to some voice actors and an exclusive pony that we had zero input over???!
*rages , throws fakies*
I hope someday we'll get a tell-all from the organizers, I bet they have some big tea to spill!
I think that Hasbro ought to listen to fans in general, especially with the rise in adults collecting toys in recent years. I don't think that there is anything wrong with them listening to Bronies any more than there is with them listening to the collecting community or children. Honestly, it seems that they missed all demographics with G5, although I suspect that they tried catering to Bronies as well as younger fans that enjoyed G4. It is important to keep in mind that G4 was very popular with children as well, albeit seemingly primarily due to the show.
I do hope that we see a change in G5. I genuinely think that there is potential there. I think that it's been mishandled, and if they moved to a different approach, such as going back to collectability—I know that that is still popular with children—it may become more successful.
I think that Hasbro ought to listen to fans in general, especially with the rise in adults collecting toys in recent years. I don't think that there is anything wrong with them listening to Bronies any more than there is with them listening to the collecting community or children. Honestly, it seems that they missed all demographics with G5, although I suspect that they tried catering to Bronies as well as younger fans that enjoyed G4. It is important to keep in mind that G4 was very popular with children as well, albeit seemingly primarily due to the show.
I do hope that we see a change in G5. I genuinely think that there is potential there. I think that it's been mishandled, and if they moved to a different approach, such as going back to collectability—I know that that is still popular with children—it may become more successful.
Strongly disagree. When a portion of the fan base is being toxic and causing serious issues, and making highly inappropriate suggestions in a Children' Franchise then No Company should ever listen to them, or implement them. Fans like that ruin it for everybody, ESPECIALLY the target audience.
I think that Hasbro ought to listen to fans in general, especially with the rise in adults collecting toys in recent years. I don't think that there is anything wrong with them listening to Bronies any more than there is with them listening to the collecting community or children. Honestly, it seems that they missed all demographics with G5, although I suspect that they tried catering to Bronies as well as younger fans that enjoyed G4. It is important to keep in mind that G4 was very popular with children as well, albeit seemingly primarily due to the show.
I do hope that we see a change in G5. I genuinely think that there is potential there. I think that it's been mishandled, and if they moved to a different approach, such as going back to collectability—I know that that is still popular with children—it may become more successful.
Strongly disagree. When a portion of the fan base is being toxic and causing serious issues, and making highly inappropriate suggestions in a Children' Franchise then No Company should ever listen to them, or implement them. Fans like that ruin it for everybody, ESPECIALLY the target audience.
I do not want them to listen to the toxic side of the Brony fandom, but I do want them to listen to the more reasonable side, as they are fans just as much as we are and inevitably contribute to its success. Being a large fandom, and especially one with its roots, it's a bit of an inevitability that there's going to be toxicity, but I don't think that they should be altogether dismissed because some people are toxic.
I think that Hasbro ought to listen to fans in general, especially with the rise in adults collecting toys in recent years. I don't think that there is anything wrong with them listening to Bronies any more than there is with them listening to the collecting community or children. Honestly, it seems that they missed all demographics with G5, although I suspect that they tried catering to Bronies as well as younger fans that enjoyed G4. It is important to keep in mind that G4 was very popular with children as well, albeit seemingly primarily due to the show.
I do hope that we see a change in G5. I genuinely think that there is potential there. I think that it's been mishandled, and if they moved to a different approach, such as going back to collectability—I know that that is still popular with children—it may become more successful.
Strongly disagree. When a portion of the fan base is being toxic and causing serious issues, and making highly inappropriate suggestions in a Children' Franchise then No Company should ever listen to them, or implement them. Fans like that ruin it for everybody, ESPECIALLY the target audience.
I do not want them to listen to the toxic side of the Brony fandom, but I do want them to listen to the more reasonable side, as they are fans just as much as we are and inevitably contribute to its success. Being a large fandom, and especially one with its roots, it's a bit of an inevitability that there's going to be toxicity, but I don't think that they should be altogether dismissed because some people are toxic.
The bronies should not have been listened to at all. Because they issued death threats, suggested inappropriate material, and acted horribly. Their toxicity was the rule, not the exception.
Hasbro and in particular CEO Chris P. Cocks' stupidity has also lead to sales-killing price-gouging on brands like Transformers that's hurting those brands as well. And I bet the idiot has a golden parachute clause in his contract, too; it would explain why the shareholders haven't fired him in order to stop him from continuing to undercut their value with his idiocy.
Regarding G5... I think starting it up so soon after G4 ended could still have worked.
IF it had been the clean break in narrative and design that it actually needed to be. G4 was exhausted on every level, and retailers and customers alike were exhausted of it and its poorly-balanced assortments.
MLP needed a new setting and a substantial change in aesthetic (like, say, reverting to something more horse-like) that would have actually felt like a new start.
But noooooo, the idiots in charge couldn't bring themselves to fully let go of G4, and so the line basically looks and feels like more of the same thing they were already sick of to retailers.
And wasn't there also a long delay between the movie coming out and the show debuting?I'm not mad about the obsession with segregating species and then bringing them together, either, it's cliche and hackneyed.Indeed.Quote from: TaffetaI never bought into G1's fixation with de-magicking earth ponies in US media releases, since in the UK ponies had magic regardless of their species and I liked that better. The factfile states Magic Star is the most magical pony of all of them, so yeah.In fairness, "My Little Pony and Friends" toned down everybody's magical capabilities compared to the backcard stories. Individual unicorns don't have much variety to what they can do with their magic in that, and the only special thing pegasi can do is fly (although that did make them the cartoon's favorite since the cartoon loved to travel to various locations).
The show does at least make clear that Earth Ponies are still inherently magical - otherwise, their hair wouldn't have been much use in repairing Porcina's cloak.Quote from: TaffetaMaybe because I grew up with it, but I feel like it's not very progressive, having a world in which x type of pony can only do x. It's not quite as strangling as 'your cutie mark destiny', but it isn't great.How do you feel about G4 giving pegasi weather magic to go with them flying?Quote from: TaffetaReality isn't like that. I will never understand why Earth ponies should not have magic as an option by default.I think a lot of people tend to see them as the "normals" of the setting because they're the closest to IRL horses and don't have obvious supernatural features like wings or horns. Hasbro themselves seem to have felt that way in G3 (and it obviously took arm-twisting to get pegasi and unicorns added to the line at all).Quote from: TaffetaUnpopular opinion, too, but I am ok with MLP ending with G5. I feel like we already had 2 generations too many, given the chaos of G4 and then this. MLP doesn't need to be constantly trampled down by repetitive overselling of the same characters. If MLP disappeared completely, well, so what? Those of us who grew up with G1 survived that and we're still surviving it. Will it really make a huge difference if ponies stop being sold? The ones most of us grew up with (G1 or G3 included) haven't been on shelves for years but we're still here for them...I mean, it will make it harder to share MLP with future generations if it ends, and probably kill throwback stuff like Basic Fun reissues that make getting G1 stuff more accessible for those who didn't grow up with it.
At this rate, maybe it would be better if Hasbro imploded and Takara-Tomy picked up the pieces.