Why do so many fans think it's okay to buy knock off MLP merch?

[Noxxbunny]

Something tells me it was that kind of toxicity that made someone go all out on OnlyFactory and report everything. I'd probably feel that way too if I'd spent too much longer reading the comments there. ;

As far as I can tell, a lot of people are doing everything they can to get Hasbro's attention on this. So I'm sure they're plenty aware of it by now. And yeah, as a plush maker myself, some of those comments are just absolutely infuriating. I've stopped reading them for my own good.

[Niksilp]

I dont fully fault people for buying the knock-off plushies, considering they are making plushies of characters that people want, but Hasbro themselves just aren't releasing/making them. What are the chances of Hasbro releasing a plush of [insert character who isnt Mane 6/ Princess/ extremely popular fan favorite here]?

....I still want a Gilda plush, Hasbro!!!

So, in my opinion, if Hasbro didn't want people buying knockoff plush, they should step up their own game. If I want a Big Mac plush, what are my options? Spend $200 to get a custom one, or go to Onlyfactory for $30. The day Hasbro makes a Big Mac is the day I buy one from them!

Basically, I'm not necessarily pro-knockoffs; but in the case of a multimillion dollar company which is putting out less-than-stellar options, I'm willing to look elsewhere, whether it be custom or knockoff.

If there is at least one  (possibly?) good thing about people buying the knock-offs, it's at least hopefully getting Hasbro to notice what the fans want when it comes to plush merchandise. There are more options now than when the only plushies were the Funrise ones (which not everyone liked), but fans want other characters to buy. Fans/People can only wait or be patient for so long before they/some go look for other options.  Considering how long it took for an official Luna plush to be made, cutie mark issue aside, I wouldn't be surprised if some fans feel or felt it would take too long to see if ________ will get an official plush, so they get a knock-off one (or commission one from someone).

this is pretty much how i feel about it. There quite a few officially licensed G4 plush lines available but nearly all of them just consist of the mane 6 or even just part of the mane 6 and that's it.

Lyra is one of my favorite ponies (I love her colors) and there is no official plush of her, but only factory made one, so I bought it. She isn't perfect, but she's cute and I like her. If Hasbro ever decides to make an officially licensed one I will buy that one too. I'd rather buy the officially licensed ones. I haven't bought any of the bootleg plush that have been shown being made by other plush makers (Big Mac, Luna, any of the mane 6/etc)

it doesn't mean its *right* that I'm still buying them, because yes, they are bootlegs, yes they're not supporting Hasbro in any way, but it is what it is. I think some people like them and some people don't. I don't think its worth getting mad at each other and throwing fits or anything. (not saying anyone here is, but there's an article on EQD atm that is filled with super angry people over these bootleg plush).

Seconding all of this. I have some of the OF plush, and backed a few more. But they're all characters who don't currently have official plush releases, and if they did have one, I'd be buying them in a heartbeat. I already have most of the upcoming 4DE plush preordered through my local comic shop, and if they start releasing characters who don't have official plush (Lyra, for instance), I'll definitely be buying them as well. Having an OF plush isn't ever going to stop me from supporting the official plush too.

[MiRaja]

Because Hasbro isn't affected by it in the least bit, and Hasbro isn't the type of company that makes me go "I'm so happy I'm supporting this high standard company!" when I buy their products. 


(Of course, we're talking about ones that are just Hasbro knockoffs. Knockoffs of custom work are completely unacceptable.)

Let me ask you, why do you think Hasbro isn't a 'high standard company'?

The quality of their G4 line. (Or lack thereof.)

Hasbro has never been a high standard company.  Ever.  It isn't now, it wasn't in the 1980's, nor was it when the company was first created. 

Hasbro has been around since the 1940's.  They have always sold cheap toys, with poor quality, though what we call poor quality then is much higher quality than now.  Basically, where other companies were making fully jointed dolls, with beautiful clothes, accessories and what not, Hasbro made miniature mannequin dolls that, if you were lucky, were jointed on a spindle, so both arms moved at once, and she did not come with any clothes.  Instead, she came with some cheap cloth that you were supposed to sew clothes for her.  I have a suitcase for one of these dolls, and is very clearly marked, "Hasbro." 

For Boys, they made a lot of toy figures, crude plastics or composition, and a lot of knockoffs.

To be perfectly honest, Hasbro started off as a knock off company.  Making lower-quality versions of existing toys is what Hasbro did, and it filled toys for lower income families.  It wasn't until the 80's that Hasbro actually took off, at the same time many of the old companies were going out of business with the economic crunches.  Toys, in terms of inflation, used to be a lot more expensive.  While what Hasbro charges for its currently mass-produced shoddy injection molded messes is entirely too much, $4.50 for a single toy would not have sounded TOO far off in the 1950's.  Or even the 1940's.  I have a doll, that when sold in a shop, was sold for $19.99 as printed on her shoe, and another, I have was sold for $25.00, though she is from the late 50's instead. 

Which makes it ironic that brand that made all the cheap toys and knock offs is now the one having knock offs made of it, though of course that has been going on since the 1980's. 

Hasbro will always be a toy company that makes products as cheap as possible, with little regard to labor or quality.  It has, unfortunately, worked well in their favor.  People value quality very little anymore.  They want the cheapest things they can have, so they can have more.  Quantity over quality.  The difference now is I think they are getting too big for their britches in the prices they charge for the poor quality toys they're currently producing.  And that includes Transformers as well.  I do not expect any increase of quality ever. 

[moonsugar]

I'm a fan who thinks it's okay to buy bootleg pony plushies. I do support the official channels as well, but at the end of the day, I just like cute ponies and one Lyra or Nightmare Moon plushie on the end of my bed that came from a Chinese website is little different in my eyes than one that came from America, by a custom plushie maker from Deviantart. I admire the people who do such a good job of drawing up show-accurate patterns for these ponies and making sure they're affordable and accessible for us, I really do. A pony's a pony, no matter where it comes from.

[Wardah]

No mass produced toy is going to be "high quality". Hasbro's quality might not have been the best but their ideas were always different than what anyone else was doing. Nobody was doing toy ponies with brushable hair until My Little Pony came along.  Action figures wouldn't even exist if Hasbro hadn't made GI Joe. Nobody was making anything like Mr Potato Head before Hasbro did either. The problem was that they had some good ideas but since they were/are a smaller company they didn't have the kind of resources to make them perfect. I have been to their headquarters. They are not very big.

[Spectrum]

I don't expect the ponies to be perfect, I just want something decent-ish. With G3, you may get the occasional  paint smudge and what not, but you usually didn't get that + factory dirt and a rat nest tangle tail.

I know any toy company's quality isn't going to be high. But it really isn't an excuse for G4s to be made like they are now.

[MiRaja]

No mass produced toy is going to be "high quality". Hasbro's quality might not have been the best but their ideas were always different than what anyone else was doing. Nobody was doing toy ponies with brushable hair until My Little Pony came along.  Action figures wouldn't even exist if Hasbro hadn't made GI Joe. Nobody was making anything like Mr Potato Head before Hasbro did either. The problem was that they had some good ideas but since they were/are a smaller company they didn't have the kind of resources to make them perfect. I have been to their headquarters. They are not very big.

Madame Alexander is not very big.  Madame Alexander herself started off with literally nothing to start her toy company.  And the company still continues to produce very high quality toys and stands as the pinnacle of producing beautiful toys past and present.  A lot of their lines, past and present, were still mass produced.  Made in factories, and yet quality control is and was very high.  And yet they managed to create some of the, arguably, most beautiful and high quality toys that seemed more like art than toys.  Almost all of the 'big' toy companies of yesteryear were every bit as small, or smaller.  I guarantee you that Hasbro's toys come from many multiple factories.  Most doll/toy companies produced all of their toys out of a single factory. 

To me, it's not excuse for a toy company to skimp on quality because they're supposedly not very big but have 'big ideas.'.  They've only help finance several multi-million dollar toy adverts, after all.  I mean, the latest iteration of Michael Bay's travesty to Transformers just came out, and another Michael Bay-Hasbro marriage-movie will soon be hitting theaters with TMNT. . .   

I love my G1 MLP as much as the next person here, because they're still much higher quality than any toys produced now ( you could say the 80's was the golden period for Hasbro in that they likely produced their best quality toys then ) and are quite beautiful for injection-molded play things, but their current lines are awful, and they could easily produce a much better quality toy for what they're currently charging.   

[RainbowAlicorn999]

Probably because it doesn't affect them, they don't give us anything better (You think I want their crappy noodle maned plushies when there are other better ones?) and I'm a fakie fan. They don't even listen to me or to anybody else about the products we want so to be honest I couldn't care less if they were bothered by it. Why should I care so much about a company that doesn't care about the customers? The G4 toys and plushies have so much potential but it is not being used because of laziness and cheapness. They just want to pump out a bunch of stupid rainbowfied, gothified, crappy eye tattoo ponies that nobody wants, not even little kids and I'm tired of that and of them. I think that a lot of the knock off toys, plushies and other merch is actually very good and I'm not going to miss out on it for them or for anything.

[brightberry]

I don't really have a problem with "fan made" stuff.  They're limited, hand-crafted, have more of the creator's aesthetic and are obviously done for the love of pony.   But mass producing them in factories somewhere leaves a bad taste in my mouth. 

Hasbro did a tremendous job in creating the brand.  It cost them millions.  We wouldn't care about MLP at all if it weren't for them and the money they invested.  Even if we don't all like all of it, the brand still sells merch.  Piggy-backing off of that is stealing.   But it's up to Hasbro to decide what they're going to do about it.  Those companies aren't going to be able to get their merch in the same stores Hasbro makes most of it's money from.  And I don't see fan favorites as actually being the favorites of their biggest market.  Unless they're frequenting brony forums, most kids only want the main characters.  Mass producing the others risks shelf sitters.  So it may be Hasbro doesn't see these other companies as a threat.  Not yet.  What Hasbro seems most concerned about is anything actually hurting their brand's image. Turning people sour on MLP because of something done in bad taste followed by a lot of publicity, could cost them dearly.

[Wardah]

Actually Hasbro doesn't own the rights to TMNT, that's Playmates.

I was more comparing them to other play toy companies like Mattel. Madame Alexander dolls are more collectors items than toys you would give children and have the price tag to match. If they improved the quality of the toy they would have to increase the prices since $5 isn't all that much anymore.

[Sprinklecupcake]

Im a fan of fakies! The designs are totally different than Hasbros ridiculous noodle hair plush. I much perfer these fakies and fanmade plush because they have much better quality and toy variety than Hasbro has ever shown us with G4 mlp. Hasbros been letting me down with all the Pinkie Pies and Princesses they keep rereleasing, nothing creative when they can make new characters easily! Hey if Hasbro makes some great quality plush of new characters like Big Mac or Discord heck I'll buy em'! I own some unlicensed plush myself and they are so great to have in a collection! I will buy whatever looks good to me whether its licensed or not. If Hasbro feels like the fakie companies are any competition or if they dont like it messing with their profit then they can step up their game! I feel like they really dont care much about what the fans want. Still no more boy ponies after two years of demand?

[Doedeardarling]

I don't mean to offend anyone, but I really don't know where you guys get the idea that Hasbro makes toys more ethically than the bootleg companies. The toys are mass produced in China for crying out loud. The factories in there aren't exactly santa's workshops. The workers are most definitely underpaid and overworked, that's why the ponies are still relatively cheap for us.

What comes to Hasbro's intellectual property, I'm not overly interested in that either. As a collector, I simply spend my money on toys that are the best quality. If Hasbro cannot offer me that, then somebody else can.

[hathorcat]

No mass produced toy is going to be "high quality". Hasbro's quality might not have been the best but their ideas were always different than what anyone else was doing. Nobody was doing toy ponies with brushable hair until My Little Pony came along.  Action figures wouldn't even exist if Hasbro hadn't made GI Joe. Nobody was making anything like Mr Potato Head before Hasbro did either. The problem was that they had some good ideas but since they were/are a smaller company they didn't have the kind of resources to make them perfect. I have been to their headquarters. They are not very big.

Madame Alexander is not very big.  Madame Alexander herself started off with literally nothing to start her toy company.  And the company still continues to produce very high quality toys and stands as the pinnacle of producing beautiful toys past and present.  A lot of their lines, past and present, were still mass produced.  Made in factories, and yet quality control is and was very high.  And yet they managed to create some of the, arguably, most beautiful and high quality toys that seemed more like art than toys.  Almost all of the 'big' toy companies of yesteryear were every bit as small, or smaller.  I guarantee you that Hasbro's toys come from many multiple factories.  Most doll/toy companies produced all of their toys out of a single factory. 

To me, it's not excuse for a toy company to skimp on quality because they're supposedly not very big but have 'big ideas.'.  They've only help finance several multi-million dollar toy adverts, after all.  I mean, the latest iteration of Michael Bay's travesty to Transformers just came out, and another Michael Bay-Hasbro marriage-movie will soon be hitting theaters with TMNT. . .   

I love my G1 MLP as much as the next person here, because they're still much higher quality than any toys produced now ( you could say the 80's was the golden period for Hasbro in that they likely produced their best quality toys then ) and are quite beautiful for injection-molded play things, but their current lines are awful, and they could easily produce a much better quality toy for what they're currently charging.   

You cant exactly directly compare Madame Alexander and similar with Hasbro. Of course manufacturers like Madame Alexander can produce mass market, high quality toys - because they charge anything from $60-200 per doll! If your sales price is high, your production price can also be higher and you also have a higher expectation of quality in the end product which means you have to ensure better quality control. Hasbro are aiming to produce pocket money toys - toys which most parents can afford (thats what they have always been geared to do).

In addition its worth pointing out here that its not Hasbro who are failing to make plush, its their licensees. So money is not being "taken" from Hasbro but from smaller companies like Funrise and 4DE.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but I really don't know where you guys get the idea that Hasbro makes toys more ethically than the bootleg companies. The toys are mass produced in China for crying out loud. The factories in there aren't exactly santa's workshops. The workers are most definitely underpaid and overworked, that's why the ponies are still relatively cheap for us.

What comes to Hasbro's intellectual property, I'm not overly interested in that either. As a collector, I simply spend my money on toys that are the best quality. If Hasbro cannot offer me that, then somebody else can.

I dont understand why people always jump to the assumption that just because its made in China its a sweatshop. Thats far from the case all the time. And if a company is manufacturing for a western business it is more likely to be subjected to spot checks and maintaining certain standards. Its in the western company's interests to ensure their goods are being made in an acceptable situation. Look what happens to the brands when its discovered their products are being made in terrible circumstances - it does happen unfortunately but as the years pass more and more attempts are being made to stop it. And as Chinese culture moves forward, many workers are realising they hold more power and that in itself is changing things.

I used to work for a sportswear brand and we manufactured out of 12 locations in China; you have no idea how rigorous checking was that the goods were being made humanely. If a factory was found to be manufacturing below a certain level it was just a matter of a few weeks before we could pull out and move somewhere else. There are endless factories in China offering to make your products for you; its a buyers market and turn around is very fast.

I am not saying its somewhere I would like to work and it is a very, very hard life no matter where you work, but its not correct to assume its all poor conditions everywhere. And when you are buying products which are being made like these counterfeit ones, there is no western interests, companies or buyers who are going to even care or check the workers circumstances out. So while, yes anything is possible, if you buy counterfeit its more likely you are supporting the very work situations you dont like then when you buy Hasbro made items. Not to mention the connection between counterfeit and criminal organisations.

[Dreamer]

Because Hasbro isn't affected by it in the least bit, and Hasbro isn't the type of company that makes me go "I'm so happy I'm supporting this high standard company!" when I buy their products. 


(Of course, we're talking about ones that are just Hasbro knockoffs. Knockoffs of custom work are completely unacceptable.)

Let me ask you, why do you think Hasbro isn't a 'high standard company'?

The quality of their G4 line. (Or lack thereof.)

Oh! Hmmm I was judging the company by their ethical/environmental procedures ^^U By the way, them seem pretty good at that... according to this http://csr.hasbro.com/downloads/CSR_2011_Report.pdf

And by the way, while I don't collect plushies, I appreciate the fakies... even if I end up not buying them... 

[hathorcat]

Ok...I missed this one...

Why are knock offs of customs unacceptable but knock offs of original items are acceptable?

Now I hands down agree knock offs of customs are unacceptable because its stealing creativity and someones hard work. But thats what knock offs of original items are as well - theft of someones creativity and hard work. I was just curious as to the arguments in this one