The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Pony Corral => Topic started by: StarberryTart on February 09, 2013, 02:02:51 PM
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Is this true? How extensive is this?
Because they were able to make that collection of retro anniversary ponies in 2007 (?) and they can still make Minty, so they haven't lost ALL of them, have they? Would the retro ponies show that they still own some of the rights to some of the ponies?
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I don't know everything about it, but I think they lost a lot of the molds for the G1 ponies. And even if they did have them, I don't think the company has much interest in re-releasing them again : /
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If you mean the Trademarks, then as far as I know, what they lost is the trademark of the name associated with a specific character. As I understand it, this doesn't mean they CAN'T use them at all, but they'd have to spend time and money trademarking them again or just using the names without trademarking them, which I would assume they'd rather not do (since that would mean others can use it?). Or make sure others haven't already trademarked those names.
As for the molds, I'm sure they don't have those anymore. The retro ponies were remade molds.
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Yeah I was talking about the trademarks. Sorry that I didn't make that a bit clearer.
I was interested in it because some of the retro ponies are my favorites from G1. If they made the retro ones, wouldn't they still own the trademark? I'm interested in the possibility of these G1 ponies being able to made into G4 or future generations. If they've lost the trademark, then it's unlikely. :(
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My understanding is it's mostly a name issue. It's not that big of a deal. Hasbro has made Transformers called "Autobot Bumblebee" or "Autobot Ratchet" to get around TF issues, they've used "Spike the Dragon" (instead of just "Spike") and "Rarity the Unicorn" (instead of just "Rarity") in the current line.
This leaves me to believe they could release "Firefly the Pegasus" and so on.
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Ok, this is my understanding on the whole thing, though I admit I may be wrong on this...
Hasbro lost a lot of the trademark names for the toys because they didn't keep the trdemarks up after the 1980's. However, they did re-aquire the rights to the characters with the purchase of the sunbow animated library a few years back, meaning G1 characters can be used, or g1 could technically be remade. A way around the toy name trademark issue would be what they did with the transformers line- such as calling Jazz 'autobot Jazz' and Ratchet 'autobot Ratchet' to get around trademark issues. Hence we might get 'pony Firefly' or 'Pony Surprise'
(edit: Aaaand Moondancer beat me to it! :lol: )
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As far as I know, all of this is rumor and none of it is true.
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Thanks for asking this because I'm confused on the whole issue and haven't really been able to find any information.
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Well, the Sunbow aquistion by hasbro part is totally true, they bought back all the right to thier 80's toons based on thier toys. The name loss hoever, might be rumor.
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We have seen Firefly in the comic and Moondancer was talked about in the first episode
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Hasbro likes to give us conflicting information because none of us are lawyers. :)
Here's the down-low: The molds for all but the re-releases have been destroyed for decades. Hasbro already admitted they had to sacrifice ponies to make the molds again, at great expense, since they had to make hundreds for the factories. Plus all the artwork would have to be re-printed again on the boxes/cards= more costs...
Although they COULD invest millions of dollars into a "revival" and push themselves back into having the trademark for certain G1 characters... they likely never will, because it was such a traumatic failure the last time they tried.
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Although they COULD invest millions of dollars into a "revival" and push themselves back into having the trademark for certain G1 characters... they likely never will, because it was such a traumatic failure the last time they tried.
Oh wow, the re-release of the collectors ponies etc... was a failure? I didn't know. That really stinks :cry: I bought a few sets when they came out but I guess I never noticed if they stayed on the shelves a long time.
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Although they COULD invest millions of dollars into a "revival" and push themselves back into having the trademark for certain G1 characters... they likely never will, because it was such a traumatic failure the last time they tried.
Oh wow, the re-release of the collectors ponies etc... was a failure? I didn't know. That really stinks :cry: I bought a few sets when they came out but I guess I never noticed if they stayed on the shelves a long time.
I guess we will never see anymore retro releases then :cry:
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As everyone has said this story of "loosing the rights to their own ponies" is a fiction which was either offered by Hasbro and/or Faust at the start of FiM in order to quieten fans and questions over why we have Rainbow Dash and not Firefly or Pinkie Pie and not Surprise. They way it was stated was as though it was the reason they didnt use Posey and Surprise - instead a more honest answer would be that they had invested time and energy into market research and into the most recent G3 line and therefore Pinkie and Dash were going to be renamed. After all they had to trademark "Twilight Sparkle" why couldnt they just have trademarked "Surprise Dash" and have her white with yellow hair?
As others have said they dont hold the trademark any more - because they havent used them therefore the rights are lost after a period of inactivity. There is absolutely nothing stopping Hasbro calling a pony Firefly and releasing a pink pegasus with blue hair. However, they probably would not be able to trademark just Firefly.
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Although they COULD invest millions of dollars into a "revival" and push themselves back into having the trademark for certain G1 characters... they likely never will, because it was such a traumatic failure the last time they tried.
Oh wow, the re-release of the collectors ponies etc... was a failure? I didn't know. That really stinks :cry: I bought a few sets when they came out but I guess I never noticed if they stayed on the shelves a long time.
Yep, they were poorly received by a lot of fans in the pony community at that time. I remember the G3 days on the Arena were full of just as many complaints as G4s are now. Just not ALL about QC. ;)
I must sadly admit that I myself have a part in this failure because I saw them multiple times, complained about I didn't like the brighter and more reflective plastics used instead of the muted pastels in the originals, then didn't buy them. If I had realized that my actions would become a nail in the coffin for Hasbro's plans to cater to collectors, I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT THEM. *cry cry cry*
Ah well... hindsight and almost 5 years life experience later... ;)
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We cant completely blame Hasbro for the retro ponies not being adored however...they asked us how much we were willing to spend and when we came back with a $5 per pony answer well they didnt have tonnes of ways they could both fulfil the quality and price aspect of the product.
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We cant completely blame Hasbro for the retro ponies not being adored however...they asked us how much we were willing to spend and when we came back with a $5 per pony answer well they didnt have tonnes of ways they could both fulfil the quality and price aspect of the product.
Very very true Hathorcat! It wasn't the $15 price that put me off though... it was the materials. I just didn't think they were that aesthetic for MLP. And clearly Hasbro couldn't make prototypes with different materials and ask which we liked best. ;)
Like I said, at the time I didn't realize how powerful the consumer's purchasing power really is. I would have bought a whole case of $5 quality re-releases if it meant we got G1 re-issues for the conventions and special releases now.
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We cant completely blame Hasbro for the retro ponies not being adored however...they asked us how much we were willing to spend and when we came back with a $5 per pony answer well they didnt have tonnes of ways they could both fulfil the quality and price aspect of the product.
I'm not sure if we'll get any more quality than before even if we're willing to shell out more for each pony. Hasbro will just churn more cheap crap and charge us more because to them we're just annoying freaks who have nothing to do but to bug them about coloured plastic horses allll daaayyyy long. I mean you go to the pony fairs and most people can tell you the Hasbro staff are mostly quite clueless about what is happening in the toyline like they didn't even know Pinkie Pie has a pet alligator in the cartoon. I was at the fair in 2008 and to Hasbro it was "OMG, the retros and the originals look EXACTLY the same!!! Our techniques are amazing!" ...while we were like "er.....NNNNN-OOOOOO!!!!"
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I also blame Hasbro's distribution. I never did find the retro rainbow ponies and I wanted to buy both sets of those and might have bought extras for customizing.
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I never saw the retro Rainbow ponies either.
I would've paid more for the retro ponies if they'd been better quality. I did buy a set of the Collector retros even so, but man . . . thinnest, cheapest hair ever! It was especially bad because that pose tends to fall forward in a nosedive without a really weighty tail to counterbalance it.
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For me, I would have bought more of the retro ponies if they had been made in alternate poses. I mean most of us already have the originals of all of those ponies, why would we buy duplicates that are exactly the same only more cheaply made? But I think that a lot of the quality concerns would have been over looked if there was a Cotton Candy in Bowtie's pose for example.
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Yep, they were poorly received by a lot of fans in the pony community at that time. I remember the G3 days on the Arena were full of just as many complaints as G4s are now. Just not ALL about QC. ;)
I must sadly admit that I myself have a part in this failure because I saw them multiple times, complained about I didn't like the brighter and more reflective plastics used instead of the muted pastels in the originals, then didn't buy them. If I had realized that my actions would become a nail in the coffin for Hasbro's plans to cater to collectors, I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT THEM. *cry cry cry*
Ah well... hindsight and almost 5 years life experience later... ;)
Awww that's so sad! I remember the complaints about the G3 quality- and the tinsel hate LOL but I don't think I was as active on the forums when the collectors re-releases came out so I had not idea they were poorly received. That's so sad! I wish I had bought a dozen too :yikes:
ETA: I saw the collectors pose ones frequently after they came out but I only ever found the rainbow ponies once. I did find both at a discount store some time later in South Bend called "Dealz" (yeah with a Z!) for about 10$ each if I recall. I guess that should have been a tip off that they didn't do to well.
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I think it depends...I think if we had said "oh wow you want to do us special collectors ponies...fantastic...we will pay $60 for a set of 6] then I think we would have got better quality and a better finish and an all round better product. But as you say the cheap purchase price meant a cheap finish and cheap materials - so they were largely unappealing to the eye of a collector.
I guess the tester on what Hasbro can do with a bigger buy in price may be for this years Fair - the price of the "pony" [and its in quotes as I have a weird feeling its going to be more John De Lancie and less pony but thats speculation] is $50 - lets see what they can deliver!
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I just want to say that if this years exlusive is a nonpony figure I will not be buying it no matter how nicely it is done. I collect My Little Pony! It would be fine for a general release, but as an exclusive? That's even more of a disservice to long time fans than what they did last year by making us share an exclusive with sdcc (and I'm sure it will be the same this year.)
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I would have purchased the retro ponies recently but the facial/head molds don't look the same. It looks like the faces are narrower and longer than the original ponies, not to mention the eyes appearing to be smaller. The vintage ones looked so cute. I don't know how they produced the retro ponies, but it wasn't affective. :huh:
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I always thought Hasbro would have some luck with releasing G1 characters in new moulds, so G4 moulds at the moment.
I wasn't collecting ponies when the retro ponies were released. It's a real shame they didn't do well. :(
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I think it depends...I think if we had said "oh wow you want to do us special collectors ponies...fantastic...we will pay $60 for a set of 6] then I think we would have got better quality and a better finish and an all round better product. But as you say the cheap purchase price meant a cheap finish and cheap materials - so they were largely unappealing to the eye of a collector.
I agree with this. I remember a lot of people posting things like "I said $5 each, because that is how much current ponies are"--ignoring the fact that they would have to make special molds, do special packaging, and would be selling to a niche collectors market.
It was a massive facepalm. I've seen some glorious retro toys for the Transformers, He-Man, and others, but you have to be willing to pay more for them.
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I think it depends...I think if we had said "oh wow you want to do us special collectors ponies...fantastic...we will pay $60 for a set of 6] then I think we would have got better quality and a better finish and an all round better product. But as you say the cheap purchase price meant a cheap finish and cheap materials - so they were largely unappealing to the eye of a collector.
I agree with this. I remember a lot of people posting things like "I said $5 each, because that is how much current ponies are"--ignoring the fact that they would have to make special molds, do special packaging, and would be selling to a niche collectors market.
It was a massive facepalm. I've seen some glorious retro toys for the Transformers, He-Man, and others, but you have to be willing to pay more for them.
I don't think I was around yet on the forums when they were asking prices - I would have gladly paid $50+ for a nice, collector's edition pony. I readily spend that on collector edition Barbies and Disney dolls.
My issue with the g1 trademarks is not, so much, that they couldn't use them. It is that it seemed much more likely that they just wanted to continue their investment from the g3 days (Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash) rather than try to bring back the g1s. That is fine. What I never understood why, if that was the case, why Hasbro couldn't just stay so. For me, that always bothered me more.
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I never saw the retro Rainbow ponies either.
I would've paid more for the retro ponies if they'd been better quality. I did buy a set of the Collector retros even so, but man . . . thinnest, cheapest hair ever! It was especially bad because that pose tends to fall forward in a nosedive without a really weighty tail to counterbalance it.
My Cotton Candy is ALWAYS pitching forwards. She's like kamikaze MLP, she's always falling off the table or pitching into something. It drives me crazy! :lol:
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They could have released different sets of the retros instead of the worlds most common ponies. The rainbow ponies aren't so bad but the CP ponies are useless at standing. Did they not test this out? They do now have a couple molds based on G1's because of the retros. One arth, one peg, and one unicorn. They could use the molds they made for them to re-release more G1's, they just won't be in their original poses. And Seaflower's mold is still around and being used by fakie companies.
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I actually think G1s released in G3 molds could have been supercute. And they obviously did already have those molds, so it would've been cheaper.
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I never bought the re-released ponies because they were kind of "off" and more expensive (at the time) than buying the originals in mint condition on ebay.
I would have paid more for an expensive detailed release- but it looks like most people wouldn't, and the ponies must not have sold well enough to continue with another release.
$5 is pretty cheap for a pony - it isn't much more than the original price in the 80s, even though the cost of production/packaging has gone way up. So it is hardly surprising that the quality of ponies has fallen when the toy stores and Hasbro know that most people won't pay much more than $5 for a regular pony.
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I always thought Hasbro would have some luck with releasing G1 characters in new moulds, so G4 moulds at the moment.
This is mostly what I would want. If I want the originals, I'd go for vintage ones because I love the look, weight, etc of the vintage ones. However, if they're new then I would like them to be released as a G4 pony. That's mostly why I was interested in this in the first place because I would LOVE some (and by some I mean ALL) of the original ponies as G4. I'd love the G3 ponies as G4 as well, though that would probably be a bit more likely to happen because of all the G3 upgrades to G4, at least for blindbags anyway.
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I would die of happiness if they released all of the original G1 characters in the G4 mold- seeing AppleJack as a G4 was what made me become interested in G4s at all
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I would die of happiness if they released all of the original G1 characters in the G4 mold- seeing AppleJack as a G4 was what made me become interested in G4s at all
I second this. I would LOVE it. :D
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Lol well I bought enough of then to cover some of your butts! I bought four sets of each! I wish they'd do more! :(
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I think it depends...I think if we had said "oh wow you want to do us special collectors ponies...fantastic...we will pay $60 for a set of 6] then I think we would have got better quality and a better finish and an all round better product. But as you say the cheap purchase price meant a cheap finish and cheap materials - so they were largely unappealing to the eye of a collector.
I agree with this. I remember a lot of people posting things like "I said $5 each, because that is how much current ponies are"--ignoring the fact that they would have to make special molds, do special packaging, and would be selling to a niche collectors market.
It was a massive facepalm. I've seen some glorious retro toys for the Transformers, He-Man, and others, but you have to be willing to pay more for them.
Oh geez... really? No wonder why people fussed about the quality, you can't get as detailed and whatnot with the same price point 25 years later! Arguecat (http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m8ce8lToL41rd6hk2o1_400.png) would likely agree here, 'tis a shame because imagine all the G1 stuff that could have been if they took off. Oh well.
I think G1s in new moulds would be cool though, be they G4 or G3 or even G2.
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If they released the G1 ponies from Rescue at Midnight Castle, Escape From Catrina and MLP Tales in G4 molds, I would be all over that!
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I bought boths sets of repro ponies, and was deeply gutted that they didn't continue to the next set and only released them in US?!? I had to get my rainbow set off Ebay!
On their own without their original counterparts, they look lovely and would have bought every version they released, I know they not as good quality as the originals but as a stand alone set, to me was well worth the price as finding the originals can be so expensive, and really would anyone argue to a repro mimic for a fraction of the price of an original???
I do not like the g4 ponies, so having g1 updated to g4 would not be great for me :(
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I bought boths sets of repro ponies, and was deeply gutted that they didn't continue to the next set and only released them in US?!? I had to get my rainbow set off Ebay!
On their own without their original counterparts, they look lovely and would have bought every version they released, I know they not as good quality as the originals but as a stand alone set, to me was well worth the price as finding the originals can be so expensive, and really would anyone argue to a repro mimic for a fraction of the price of an original???
I do not like the g4 ponies, so having g1 updated to g4 would not be great for me :(
They were available in the UK - turned up in TK Maxx as well as some other retailers :) I got mine in store and I know quite a few collectors who did but as per the TK Maxx norm not every retailer had them and they only ever had limited stock.
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I think i remember seeing them in Canada as well. I bought them early in the States when I went there because I wanted them right away.