Why won't Hasbro release new ponies?

[mimicsno1fan]

I actually think that Hasbro are being lazy constantly releasing the same ponies in different poses and i personally think they are losing business. I currently work for GAME and one of our main sales is through Skylanders and Disney Infinity. Now i can tell you straight that children go nuts for new characters!

Lets take Skylanders for instance. We are currently on the 4th game, 400+ figures and counting, and children and parents go completely nuts when a new set or figure is brought out. There is currently only the games and a handful of TV shows that really promote it and they concentrate on main characters. I often hear parents refusing to buy a figure that's basically been re released in a new pose. So i do think that the collecting side is still very much alive, they just need to make the toys a bit more appealing and possibly give them another function. I mean would it be so hard for Hasbro to have a free to play MLP game online and put in a webcode with each new pony so you could unlock them online?  Children would get more from the product, parents more for their money and Hasbro could release many new characters without as much fear of them not selling.

I don't even bother with the G4 as i'm super annoyed by one thing about them, and that's the size of the pony. I cannot believe that Hasbro think its acceptable to charge £5-£10 for a pony that's not much bigger than some of the baby ponies from the 80's. As i collector i genuinely cannot let myself spend so much for something that looks like no effort ever went into it.

Mimic x x x

[CupidStrikes]

But that doesn't erase the fact they MUST be in the toy aisle or you won't get any of those things either.

Ironically, G1 has come back as a license brand.  They don't make G1 toys, but they have licensed their likeness to just about everybody.  Makes me wish they either put the original G1 cartoon on Discovery Family or make a new show based on them to compliment FiM to take advantage of the nostalgia.  Perhaps even bring those characters into the G4 toyline for some added variety.

There isn't much MLP merch available here, but what I've noticed about G4 and G1 merchandise here (concerning what's in regular high street shops) is that G4 merchandise is aimed at kids (character rubbers, piggy banks, child-size rucksacks, kid's clothes) and that G1 merchandise is aimed at adults (some stationary, adult-sized clothing, mugs). There are also several G1 characters in that new Playskool (?) line that is made for very young children, so maybe they're hoping an original collector will now have kids and be coaxed into buying that for their child out of nostalgia, and assume that most fans of G1 won't be buying toys for themselves but might buy a pyjamas or a MLP keyring for nostalgia's sake?

[Al-1701]

A figurine-based game is probably the way to go.  It would give more of a reason for consumers to collect and stick around longer.  Each pony having her (or his) own abilities and possibly unlockables would have kids and adults coming back to see what's new.  Also, unlike Skylanders, when it's time to unplug, the ponies would also provide their classic hairplay.

G4 is certainly successful, but I think it could really go a lot farther.

[Niksilp]

I mean would it be so hard for Hasbro to have a free to play MLP game online and put in a webcode with each new pony so you could unlock them online?  Children would get more from the product, parents more for their money and Hasbro could release many new characters without as much fear of them not selling.

That's exactly what Hasbro is doing with the next releases for both MLP and EQG. The ponies and dolls are coming with "zap codes" that can be scanned to unlock characters in the new MLP mobile game.

[ladybastilla]

I mean would it be so hard for Hasbro to have a free to play MLP game online and put in a webcode with each new pony so you could unlock them online?  Children would get more from the product, parents more for their money and Hasbro could release many new characters without as much fear of them not selling.

That's exactly what Hasbro is doing with the next releases for both MLP and EQG. The ponies and dolls are coming with "zap codes" that can be scanned to unlock characters in the new MLP mobile game.

Yep, that's what I've heard too. Despite my grumbling, I must confess to being rather excited about the possibilities that could open depending on the character variety and the quality of the game that goes with it.

[Majesty]

I haven't seen many new ponies recently, with the exception of the two princess ponies who are paired with one of the mane 6 I saw at Toys R Us.  I wish when there was a new episode such as the two parter we had recently Hasbro would make new brushables based on the ponies we saw most often.  They could make a Starlight one and Party Time, etc.

I just saw Skywishes and Sweetie Drops at TRU the other day. A brushable Starlight was seen at Toy Fair and TRU is going to be getting a new Pony Mania pack featuring all new ponies and Target will eventually be getting a Mane-iac brushable.

Great, thanks for the info.

Post Merge: April 05, 2015, 05:02:49 PM

I think unfortunately sometimes we forget we are not the market (unless for some of the aforementioned merch)

I know I am guilty as an adult collector of thinking sometimes adult collectors are what Hasbro is making MLP for, collectors and it's easy to forget that their market is children.  But, I remember as a kid during the G1 days I preferred playing with ponies I saw in the episodes and movies.  Back then we didn't have a core 7 or mane 6 but we did see some ponies more often than others but not all the time.  If I were a kid now I would realize that seeing the mane 6 all the time would get really boring and I'd want to see other ponies I see in the episodes.  Maybe children now have focused their interest on Equestrial Girls now.  I mean, when I go to TRU, Walmart and Target 90% of the aisle is filled with Equestria Girls and if there are any brushables left they are mane 6 and lots of the blind bags have been ripped open.  It could be that I've gone to the aisles too late when they had something new but even though TRU is the more expensive place to shop I like going there because they usually have the new ponies and lots more to choose from than Walmart or Target.

[Taffeta]

This thread is getting so interesting now with all these angles and stuff to consider,

These things -bearing in mind I don't work in retail or marketing and am hugely ignorant of the details of how those work...occurred to me when reading.

Kids not collecting G1, no intent for them to.
Against this - Hasbro's slogan drive on all cards etc in 1993/4 was 'collect them all'
                         Hasbro in Europe tagged ponies between 1989 and 1992 with the word 'collection'Adults were Classic Collection, babies were Baby Collection.
                         Hasbro marketed family sets and, at least here, broke those sets into individual ponies before they released complete sets. Sunbright, Meadowsweet, Berrytown families were never sold as sets.
1987, 1988, 1989, 1990 UK inserts were titled Collector's album, Collector's book, with tick boxes to tick off ponies you had. 1992 had a tickbox section which said 'Collect them all and step into the magical world of my little pony'

I realise all of this relates to the UK and Europe, but at least one US insert is also titled Collector's Album.

To me this indicates Hasbro's clear intent to market something kids could collect over the long term. Lets not forget they also went to the trouble of producing stories for several hundred individual ponies. Some of these are quite long! Why do that for all, rather than a core few, if your aimnwasn't to get kids to get as many different ones as possible!

As a kid I couldn't 'collect them all', but I did try to get one from each set if I could, and my sister was the same. I also used to tick them off .

From a UK perspective, the comic was also promotional and under license. It featured what was new but at certain times of year old favourites came out (like Fizzy every November 5th) and they often reran older stories or tookntrips down Memory Lane to re-feature older characters.

There is none of this in place for G4, but then, nor was there in 1997/8 when G2 happened. In a sense, one kind if MLP ended forever in 1994/5. Now Hasbro have a different agenda. No matter how many times they rinse-repeat the brand, it won't ever be G1 again.

I was also under the impression there were copyrighting issues on some of the older names? That's why G4 got stuck with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, instead if Firefly and Surprise, because Hasbro still had the name patent. Ditto Rarity rather than Sparkler and the Sparkle in Twilight's name.

[banditpony]

No matter how many times they rinse-repeat the brand, it won't ever be G1 again.

I believe this is true for so many reasons. Although I was in shock as a kid when G1 came to an end and I saw G2s. I knew at that point it time it was never to be the same. Although for me, G1s were always about the toys and what I made them. I didn't like the show (only saw a few VHS tapes at the rental place, and of course no comic here. Although I would of loved that). 

What do you think of G3s?

I always thought of G3s to be sort of like G1s, but for a new generation. I wanted to like them, but I couldn't... Something just wasn't right to me. I think it was because I was older, and there was no magic to it for me.

Ironically I personally liked G4s because they were so different in so many ways.

[Al-1701]

The copyright thing was a complete misread by Faust.  Trademarks had been to lapse from not being used, but copyrights are practically immortal when you talk about a company.  Also, the people running the brand at the time wanted to use as many of the Core 7 as possible in the new generation.  Cherrilee was supposed to be part of the main cast.

I think kids would collect if they saw something worth collecting.  If the ponies came with something that rewarded them for collecting as many ponies as possible and sticking with the brand.  Again, a Skylanders-like game would be the way to go.  I'm not sure about going the mobile game route, the new zap code game is a start.

[Taffeta]

When G3 first came out I liked them much more than G2, but after the first few waves they lost me a bit. Plus, it was hard to get all of them here, so many US store exclusives and such like. We did have the Seasons but I think that was our only trading material so G3 became expensive and frustrating for me. I did graduate with Rainbow Dash but the remakes killed her for me as a character...

I think G4 is ok but not really MLP to me in a way that inspires my obsession. I get more and more negative about it the more I see idiot behaviour surrounding it and net memes etc though (I hasten to add, NOT Arena members! But I once had to remove explicit sexual pony graphics from a non MLP forum I used to mod, and yeah...not cool). Overall I don't miss G3 and wouldn't miss G4, but I still miss G1.

Pretty sure Hasbro got into trouble over using some names in G3 which  had lapsed and someone else had registered it. I know from other people way smarter than me that trademarks for Jem names lapsed for doll products and were then renewed not long before Integrity started making the new dolls. I imagine similar with My Little Pony. While I expect Hasbro retain copyright if the drawn appearances of old MLP, they sold moulds and they lost name licences. Very little G1 merchandise out now actually names the pony, even if the image is accurate...

FIM, of course, needed names and images. And, Applejack was a  name relicensed successfully for G3, so she survived...

[Al-1701]

There's a difference between copyright and trademark.  Copyright simply means you have exclusive rights to something.  Trademark is your registered use of something including names and terms.  You can trademark a specific use of even a generic term.  However, you have to clearly define your registered use of the term and live within it.

There's nothing stopping Hasbro from registering trademarks for all their old pony names.  However, it would be more involved (and therefore more expensive) than coming up with gobblygook terms and registering them wholesale.  Though, they could slap secondary names on them (it would even solve some of the repeat name issues).

I really think the problem is a lack of brand loyalty in the leadership.  They need people who want to see G1 ponies make a return and articulate its economic benefit running things at Hasbro HQ.

[Aquatic Neon]

I don't think everyone will ever be satisfied no matter what they do there will still be an issue.

Hasbro makes new characters, people complain about the pose, the cutie mark being boring, the design, the quality, the price, the cutie mark on one side etc. If they made boys people would complain about the hair.

I think they are missing out on making boys though. Hopefully this new code system changes things.

[Taffeta]

There's a difference between copyright and trademark.  Copyright simply means you have exclusive rights to something.  Trademark is your registered use of something including names and terms.  You can trademark a specific use of even a generic term.  However, you have to clearly define your registered use of the term and live within it.

Yeah, I realised that ass I as typing, but it was almost 3am by that point, so please forgive my sleepy stupidity.

What I was getting at is that there was some big hullabaloo about the trademark of...I think it was the name Cotton Candy...that they had a legal clash with another company over during G3, and lost. Considering that Firefly and Surprise are quite generic names in some regards, I think they didn't want the hassle over reregistering them or fighting for them when they had existing G3 trademarks to use.

I find it sad that it was that way, but as a businesss, Hasbro's logic made sense.

It's also their fault for dispatching G1 so easily. I think they thought that was the end of it when they closed doors...but clearly it wasn't. The thing is, G4 has not introduced new poses very often, correct? By contrast Hasbro Int'l introduced three? brand new poses in 1994, which was pretty much the end of production, which implies to me they decided to stop MLP suddenly, rather than planning to wind it up in 94. (Netherlands etc had ponies in 95). This would make some sense since at the end of production here, Hasbro UK had surplus of the 1994 line (I got Baby Lollipop direct from them) and sold a bunch of their surplus to a store in London (from which we got almost all the 1994 line)...because NONE of the 1994 line ever reached shelves here in my area.

So its distribution was patchy and must have been cancelled midway for whatever reason. Hathorcat has more insight into the store side of things and may know more about that - but it seems to me that Hasbro did to G1 what it did to Jem, and cut the ties suddenly without any thought to the future...

At our cost...

[Al-1701]

I sometimes joke that Tales killed G1.  Notice the brand began to implode after Tales aired on the Disney channel and spent the better part of a decade in the wilderness except in Europe.

I'm not sure about the case of Cotton Candy.  It might have been their trademark had already lapsed and they had not bothered to renew thinking it was still active.  It would be something to look up.

[Taffeta]

I sometimes joke that Tales killed G1.  Notice the brand began to implode after Tales aired on the Disney channel and spent the better part of a decade in the wilderness except in Europe.

Looking at that from a Uk perspective, there wasn't any sign of decay in the line until that 1994 cut off. I grew up in one of the WORST distribution areas for MLP, by which I mean some sets just never even came here, but the line was still doing pretty well.

We had a lot of ponies shipped over here in 1994 which were surplus from other lines and such like (MANY from Germany ><) and G1 ponies were showing up in bags and MOC at market stalls by 1995/6, but MLP was still quite thriving here in 1992 and 1993. Obviously growing up in the UK at that time I wouldn't know anything about the US line, but it was only 1994 when cracks/discounts/etc began to show up here, and that was a full year after MLP Tales. In fact, maybe more. I have this feeling I got Bright Eyes on holiday in Wales in 1992, but I might be misremembering that.

With MLP Tales, I have this theory that it was not ever made for the North American market. I think it was made for a European marketing pitch, and just happened to be made in North America. (Either that or North America did it, considered selling the ponies, then decided they couldn't be bothered.)

The reason I really think it was designed for Europe, though, even if it was commissioned in America, is the way the ponies are labelled. Aside from the fact you have ponies/sets in that which were sold here (the Sunbrights, etc, Seven Characters, the school...), you also have the Glowing Magical Ponies. Now, in the US, they were Glow n Show Ponies, right? So why suddenly Glowing Magical Ponies? But then when you consider that the UK name for that set was Glowing Magic Ponies, suddenly it makes sense. Plus, the featured key sport is football (soccer), which is a big deal sport in Europe but not so much in North America, particularly in the 1990s (even if it has picked up some attention since the US have done so well in World Cups and such)

Add to that that the MLP Comic in the UK switched in about 1992 to ONLY featuring stories about the 7 Characters (the ponies from the tales cartoon), plus occasional cameos by Princess Sparkle, Birthday Pony, Rockin' Beats etc...and it makes sense. I think America had already pulled the pony plug before Tales even aired. I think they decided 10 years was a good place to stop.

In one way, though, you might be right. I hadn't thought of it till you said that, but the 7 Characters were the original "core 7". They were rereleased 1993, 1994 (first year with combs, second with stickers), and Melody, Starlight and Sweetheart got other releases as a Rollerskater, a Hairdo Pony and a Nurse respectively.

Hasbro WAS already going down this path in 1993. Maybe it did kill the line. Who knows?

But the introduction of brand new poses in 1993/4 makes me wonder whether Europe seriously intended to go it alone before something else hit. There was a big recession here in the 1990s. I wonder if that was part of it, and production cost just didn't make sense any more without the bigger American market to bolster it...?

Totally off the G4 subject now. Sorry people. I just find it interesting, especially since I've never understood why North America pulled the plug in 1992, except for the 10 year anniversary being a nice point, when the line was still popular. Not selling the 7 Characters in the US makes about as much sense as not selling Powder, Medley, Glory etc in the UK when there was SO much publicity for them...

I'm not sure about the case of Cotton Candy.  It might have been their trademark had already lapsed and they had not bothered to renew thinking it was still active.  It would be something to look up.

I think it was something along those lines. I forget all the details, but Cotton Candy was an early G3, so maybe it was around 2003/4??