Did G5 flop?

[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

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

[CowboyRaccoons]

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.

[Saiko]

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.

I think this is a really good point. There are so many brushable pony toys available now and G5 focused more on the small action figure toys with plastic hair. If this was an attempt to appeal to boys as well as girls so the toys will sell better it has sadly backfired.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

IMHO it now has a negative association and connotation with the public these days.  most people roll their eyes and have an opinion about "bronies"   it's terrible for the actual male collectors who had nothing to do with that behaviour.

also, any preschool brand has to be oversaturated and in your face with way too many toys to choose from.  Cocomelon, Gabby's Dollhouse, Paw Patrol... Baby Shark (do do do do doooo)

If you don't force it to go viral, then it doesn't sell.  If you "see how it goes", it will fail.  and right now there are a LOT of fantasy animal toys to pick from.   

[CowboyRaccoons]

I have ended up with at least 11 3-inch Sunnies.
But they all have slight differences, so I can't get rid of any.

[Leave a Whisper]

The Loyal Subjects is doing Rainbowbrite, unless BF just announced a new line.

There have been other pastel horses for as long as MLP has been around. So that's not what's killing them.

The answer to this is yes. It's failing. Hasbro can't continue to pump out lazy, uninspired,  cheap crap with very little variety and expect the brand to do well. Core casts have always killed the toylines, but they're too stupid to learn that lesson.

I barely even see MLP on shelves anymore.

[Beth3346]

i did read a while back that Hasbro was doing a lot of layoffs. seems in line with other companies. i don't keep up with the newer ponies so this isn't based on any concrete research but it seems like companies now days aren't keeping any product lines going unless it essential prints money for the shareholders. they end up just saturating the market with the same franchises over and over again. IE star wars and marvel being everywhere all the time.

i checked out the Hasbro website and MLP is featured prominently. the prices for the pony sets seem high to me. but i'm out of touch with toy prices. i don't have kids so i don't know what toys go for these days. but if the quality is poor and the toys are pricy that seems bad. i guess that's the MSRP so who knows

I personally wasn't even that into the G4 sets with the core cast. the toys are cute but i agree it feels lazy. i'm not going to buy the same thing over and over again just because it's a new release. there just isn't a lot of variety in the characters or gimmicks that i would think appeal to kids. i still remember with the G1s i was so into the glitter and sparkles. the 80s was full of gimmicky toys that irritated by parents but kids liked them. i guess i still like the fun gimmicks as much as i hate admitting it 

[Zapper]

It's terrible for the actual male collectors who had nothing to do with that behaviour.

And yet male collectors weren't the ones deeply hurt by this phenomenon.

Girls couldn't look up MLP on the internet without coming across viral art and videos made by male fans, all of which was strong on "adult themes". The generation that got scarred is now old enough to tell their side of the story. There's many vids on youtube about that subject. Just look up "Bronies ruined my childhood" and other similar titles.

If I was a kid I wouldn't want to share my fandom with grown adults 30+ regardless of gender. But especially not with adults who create so much p*** that "safe search on" still shows it.

I'm sad that G5 couldn't be for girls again without being cheaped out. MLP is predominantly a girl targeted franchise and that's ok. Boys have lots of choices in the toy aisle, most of them don't naturally gravitade towards doll-like toys anymore.
Hasbro thought they'd attract more boys with the boy pony character but most people who liked him were grown-ups. Now compare to Paw Patrol and their token girl characters... one of my nephews wanted to name his little sister after that dog. That's how much he loved that pink spaniel thing in her little plane.
But he scoffed at the male pony. It wasn't about the characters, it was about the franchise they belonged to.

MLP needs to retain their girl focus. Hairplay, imagination, bigger size, stop the hard plastic. Is it too much to ask?
Schleich is doing more hairplay now than MLP, it's a bit absurd.

[Carrehz]

I'm upset if it's true the EQG dolls got canned, I was really looking forward to them Not surprised though - it's been forever since the leak, I'd kinda guessed already they weren't gonna come out.

I think it's flopped, yeah. I don't even think G5 will end up doing the "disappears from US shelves, runs for longer in other countries" bit like G2 did because... is it doing well ANYwhere??

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This is a pic I took in Smyths Toys in December 2021. That's it, that was the entire MLP section. From what I remember last time I was in a Smyths, it's pretty much the same three years later It's hard to get invested in G5 because it's barely over here to begin with. When I was in New York last year it was pretty much the same story:
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(TRU in Macy's Times Square)
Sure they at least had a section to themselves, but it was mostly just multiples of the exact same set. There's no variety! Even for the parts of G4 where you could just get several different main 6 sets and maybe one new char, at least it wasn't ALL the SAME character, you know?? G4 repeated itself soooo much but it still feels at least a little less same-y than G5 does.

I think the cartoon is affecting things too. Bluey and Paw Patrol are everywhere, heck even my Dad commented on the abundance of Bluey toys the other day (and he's not generally observant about anything toy-related!). And they've both got popular cartoons to go along with the toylines, right? What's MLP got? Everything for G5 has been just quietly put out on streaming right? I'll admit I don't keep up with the cartoons (I just read the threads about them on here X3) but still... like I know streaming is more of a thing these days, I'm sure a lot of kids are watching Bluey/Paw Patrol/etc on streaming services, but they're still being advertised, right?? Is the G5 cartoon being advertised in the same way? Genuine question, I don't keep up with the cartoons and don't watch streaming services so idk if I've just got a skewed perspective on it But I do know I've seen barely ANYTHING for the G5 cartoon. If it's true that they're not advertising it then that's probably not helping... the toys by themselves are lame and repetitive. I dunno if that makes sense.

[Leave a Whisper]

It's terrible for the actual male collectors who had nothing to do with that behaviour.

And yet male collectors weren't the ones deeply hurt by this phenomenon.

Girls couldn't look up MLP on the internet without coming across viral art and videos made by male fans, all of which was strong on "adult themes". The generation that got scarred is now old enough to tell their side of the story. There's many vids on youtube about that subject. Just look up "Bronies ruined my childhood" and other similar titles.

If I was a kid I wouldn't want to share my fandom with grown adults 30+ regardless of gender. But especially not with adults who create so much p*** that "safe search on" still shows it.

I'm sad that G5 couldn't be for girls again without being cheaped out. MLP is predominantly a girl targeted franchise and that's ok. Boys have lots of choices in the toy aisle, most of them don't naturally gravitade towards doll-like toys anymore.
Hasbro thought they'd attract more boys with the boy pony character but most people who liked him were grown-ups. Now compare to Paw Patrol and their token girl characters... one of my nephews wanted to name his little sister after that dog. That's how much he loved that pink spaniel thing in her little plane.
But he scoffed at the male pony. It wasn't about the characters, it was about the franchise they belonged to.

MLP needs to retain their girl focus. Hairplay, imagination, bigger size, stop the hard plastic. Is it too much to ask?
Schleich is doing more hairplay now than MLP, it's a bit absurd.

I agree with most of this, except the schleich part. They look kinda odd. But from what you're saying it seems the quality is good. So that's good.

[Zapper]

I agree with most of this, except the schleich part. They look kinda odd. But from what you're saying it seems the quality is good. So that's good.

I can't comment on the quality but the new Schleich lines with brushable manes and tails are advertised and take up most space that used to be MLP in toy stores. I live in Schleich country, there is no Breyer in physical stores except for one single family owned shop. So I noticed the abudance of brushable Schleichs compared to any other brand with small horse toys.

[Leave a Whisper]

I agree with most of this, except the schleich part. They look kinda odd. But from what you're saying it seems the quality is good. So that's good.

I can't comment on the quality but the new Schleich lines with brushable manes and tails are advertised and take up most space that used to be MLP in toy stores. I live in Schleich country, there is no Breyer in physical stores except for one single family owned shop. So I noticed the abudance of brushable Schleichs compared to any other brand with small horse toys.

Ah my bad for misunderstanding you.