Why, Hasbro!?

[Al-1701]

I've already said brushable ponies aren't the be all and end all of the brand.  Never has been, never will be.  I like the Pokemon comparison because it has had several iterations and a why range of spinoff games and merchandise while what has been at the core of the brand (the RPG's for handhelds) remains the core.  Could you imagine Pokemon creating a species and having merchandise made of it and including it in their spinoff games and not having it in their next handheld RPG?  That's what these characters not coming out as brushables feels like.

Another thing that disappoints me about brushables is they're not that well designed.  The proportions seem off which is not a problem with the blindbag ponies.  They should design the molds better (like take the better designed fashion-style molds and proportionally scale them down for the standard size).  My friend said that is why he is turned off by them.

[ladygodiva]

True, the other day I went up to "snowcatcher" that wanted a custom and they were just the same as ever.
use google translator, the translation might not be correct

[BlushingBlue]

What makes MLP MLP are cute, colorful small horses marketed towards children. I feel like collectors have forgotten that. [And, on preview, so on and so forth]

Ehhh... I get what you're saying, but from a technical perspective of the toy industry, this is slightly inaccurate. "My Little Pony" as a brand can (and does!) encompass many iterations on the "colorful horses" theme, from miniature figurines (Petites/Ponyville/BBs) to category-jumping "big girl" fare (Dream Beauties/EQG). But for My-Little-Ponies-as-product, "hair play" is one of the key features that drives its play pattern. The characteristic of being horses provided a welcome respite for kids who didn't care for humanoid fashion dolls and allowed MLP to explode in its niche, but from a broad toy perspective, this is somewhat secondary. If you distilled Barbie down into "blonde woman" you wouldn't be wrong, but you would be off the mark as to why she's a successful toy. This seems to be a conflict of perspective between people who merely consume toys and those who are also interested in what goes on "under the hood" which isn't going to be resolved by a bunch of back-and-forth NO U'ing so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I will say My Little Pony traditionally had two other main factors that drove its success, besides the non-human hair play aspect. One was a pony's adaptability: it could be played with a certain way one day and another way the next, and provided a lot of room for imaginative, story-building play. The other was collectibility: each pony was distinguished from the next, and the prospect of constantly adding to your collection is inherently marketable. What MLP is is only one leg of the toy success tripod, with what you can have and what you can do them being the others.

Hasbro has been frankly slacking on collectibility since G2, recycling colors schemes, names, and symbols, with a return to form in early G3 but a rapid drop-off circa 2008 which choked out the line. Unless you were a fiend for cheap accessories, "catching them all" was laughably easy to accomplish. Adaptability was also sacrificed in late G3-G4 with Hasbro's steadfast and inexplicable desire to hang the MLP franchise on characters instead of character. There's little room for creative, open-ended play when the only ponies you can buy are "pre-loaded" with personalities, and little engagement with the new products once you buy all the characters. To be clear, these are both issues that predate FiM, but it's a lot easier to notice that the tail is now wagging the dog when the tail is frankly the dog's most distinctive feature by design.

The sticking point for curmudgeon collectors is that, with the diminishing investment in "brushable" production, MLP is now falling on all three of these of its traditional features. The Venn diagram overlap between collectibility, adaptability, and "colorful hair to style" in a pony-shaped package has effectively shrunk to nil, and the brand identity has gone with it. So what is Hasbro's vision for the My Little Pony brand now? Fashion dolls? Mini figures? Art & craft kits? (Not including the plush, collectible cards, and designer vinyl toys from outside licenses.) If Hasbro has no direction other than "a cute, colorful small horse" (or apparently human-horse hybrid!) being all a toy needs to be a My Little Pony, then that's not brand diversification, that's brand dilution. My Little Pony got to where it is because it was different from other girls' toys and spawned copycats; to see the brand become the copycats instead of innovating on their core theme is kind of sad.

Yes, brands need to change and incorporate trends to stay fresh and current, but changing into whatever is popular is a recipe for no one to like you because there's no you to like. Basically, the plot of every kids' show: Be confident and true to yourself, and you'll make your real friends who respect you for being you. Blindly mold yourself to fit every fashion, and you'll eventually alienate everyone for being fake and hate yourself in the morning.

I think the issue is the mentality of collectors that have been doing this since the beginning: A pony is only a toy with brushable hair and everything else is invalid.

I feel badly for collectors who have come on the scene with FiM; sometimes you seem take long-time collectors' opinions very personally. (Not meaning YOU you here, but general-you.) I realize it can't be very fun to show off your Funko collection and have someone respond with "so you don't have any actual ponies?". It sucks to feel like you're being put down, but it's not a judgement on you, just that G1-3 collectors have become so accustomed to specifying that they have n ponies plus or minus x petites, y plush, z fakies, etc., that its sometimes counter-instinctual to imagine collections consist solely of minifigs or non-Hasbro products or fashion dolls. It doesn't mean your love for MLP is invalid, just that it's in a different form than what collectors have become used to over the decades, and they sometimes don't cushion their words enough to soften the fact that they can't immediately relate to your perspective.

On the other hand, please keep in mind that its also not fun for something that you've enjoyed for 20+ years to get edged out so much that you have to specify "brushables" for what was once the entire line. It also hurts to have a new crop of pony fans come on the scene and say "you've had your time with MLP; it's ours now" and claim that long-time collectors, of all people, have forgotten what ponies are. When a new MLP fan says "the brand has to change", a stubborn previous-gen collector hears "the brand has to change to suit me", and having Hasbro tacitly agreeing just rubs salt in the wound. At least the majority of long-time fans learned from the G2 wars that it's not worth attacking other collectors over, so their community is relatively free of "what you like sucks, ergo, you suck." (Hasbro and their decisions are still free game though!)

Just something to think about if you feel like you're being unfairly persecuted. I hate to see people flame out.

[Silver Glade]

Right on, BlushingBlue!  Very well-written insights, and I wholeheartedly agree with it all. 

Al-1701, how do the Fashion Style toys differ from the small brushables in design?  Better proportions overall?  I was looking between the two and the most I noticed was that the small dolls seemed to have larger heads and smaller eyes.

[rosierjay]

It's not that kids want 30 Pinkie Pies. They want Pinkie Pie, and 6 months later they've "grown out" of MLP and are onto something else, and Hasbro knows this. I often get the feeling that collectors see themselves as a larger group than they actually are. Lifelong supporters of the brand don't have that much influence because they are a small part of the market and the brand is meant to cater to little girls so hasbro produce what their market research suggests little girls would like. All the gimmick-y ponies I'm sure are based on this. Adult/teen fim collectors have gotten more attention in recent years, yes, and there has been licensed merch. geared towards them but I think that has more to do with pop culture trends.
More often than not it seems kids are only into something for a few years at best before moving onto another thing they like. I was the same way when I was a kid. This is why we see so much repeat. I think the stagnancy on store shelves is more of a mix of economy and other things competing for kid's attention than the lack of new characters. I do think hasbro has made some dumb decisions and missed opportunities as far as mlp goes but the model they are following seems to work for them or else the would change. They have made several strives to stretch the appeal of MLP to older and younger kids (playskool, EqG, expanded licence merch. etc.) but I think while maybe I, as an adult G4 collector like more, different characters, that may not be what would keep most of the current generation of kids interested.
It does seem to be becoming more "socially acceptable" for adults to like cartoons and collect figures and merchandise but MLP focus is more to be relevant to kids of a certain age group than to attract a group and foster lifelong collecting of the same thing. I hope I somewhat make sense I'm tired
 

nicely said.

[Rainbowrific Renia]

Seriously, thank you for that post, BlushingBlue.

[Wardah]

I can't help but think if they had focused on brushables as the main tentpole of the brand they would have ended up doing like they did with G2 and folded up MLP (in the US at least). But they put so much effort into the show that they can't accept that fate and instead are trying to adapt MLP to today's trends.

[otocolobus_manul]

Ahh, I get it now, BlushingBlue. Thank you for posting that.

Also, g2 wars? :o

[Pop!Star]

Hasbro has already going on like this like for some years. I'm not surprised anymore and I still ask why this arguments keeps popping up. I personally think Hasbro is going a good ways with a lot of variety for everyone. Don't like Brushables? Have some Blind Bags etc. I mean G1 also had the Petittes which weren't brushables. Besides we have advanced a lot in terms of technology which makes it able to make different kind of toys.

I'm just going to be honest. I don't post much new releases anymore because I'm kinda tired having these arguments popping up. Like I mentioned, Hasbro is already going this way with the line since... 2009-2010. At least they're trying and I respect that.

The petite had brush able tails tho :/

Bling bags would be so much better if their tales were brush able!

Post Merge: October 09, 2015, 04:13:24 PM

O_o the brand has nothing to do with being brushable. And... Things change.

Uhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnmmmmm...

Post Merge: October 09, 2015, 04:15:48 PM

I think the weird thing to be is that despite the fact most bronies aren't particularly into the merchandise, they still have a level of influence over it.  I don't think it is necessarily their fault per se, but more of Hasbro's for actually listening to them complain about merch they don't buy.  I think Hasbro has a bad tendency to overestimate the sales they can get out of bronies or something.

I think this is where a lot of frustration comes from. To a lot of collectors brushables are the most important part of the toyline.  So it sucks to see that part of the toyline decline while bronies get a lot that caters to them.
You can't say "you can't complain cause this is just a toyline aimed at kids" while other adult fans get what they want.  Personally i'm dissapointed that the brushable toyline is boring beyond belief but there is still enough that keeps me amused. (Though these days i enjoy collecting Pokemon more) If G4 stops entertaining me i will just collect older gens or wait for G5.

Thank you

Post Merge: October 09, 2015, 04:23:18 PM

What makes MLP MLP are cute, colorful small horses marketed towards children. I feel like collectors have forgotten that. [And, on preview, so on and so forth]

Ehhh... I get what you're saying, but from a technical perspective of the toy industry, this is slightly inaccurate. "My Little Pony" as a brand can (and does!) encompass many iterations on the "colorful horses" theme, from miniature figurines (Petites/Ponyville/BBs) to category-jumping "big girl" fare (Dream Beauties/EQG). But for My-Little-Ponies-as-product, "hair play" is one of the key features that drives its play pattern. The characteristic of being horses provided a welcome respite for kids who didn't care for humanoid fashion dolls and allowed MLP to explode in its niche, but from a broad toy perspective, this is somewhat secondary. If you distilled Barbie down into "blonde woman" you wouldn't be wrong, but you would be off the mark as to why she's a successful toy. This seems to be a conflict of perspective between people who merely consume toys and those who are also interested in what goes on "under the hood" which isn't going to be resolved by a bunch of back-and-forth NO U'ing so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I will say My Little Pony traditionally had two other main factors that drove its success, besides the non-human hair play aspect. One was a pony's adaptability: it could be played with a certain way one day and another way the next, and provided a lot of room for imaginative, story-building play. The other was collectibility: each pony was distinguished from the next, and the prospect of constantly adding to your collection is inherently marketable. What MLP is is only one leg of the toy success tripod, with what you can have and what you can do them being the others.

Hasbro has been frankly slacking on collectibility since G2, recycling colors schemes, names, and symbols, with a return to form in early G3 but a rapid drop-off circa 2008 which choked out the line. Unless you were a fiend for cheap accessories, "catching them all" was laughably easy to accomplish. Adaptability was also sacrificed in late G3-G4 with Hasbro's steadfast and inexplicable desire to hang the MLP franchise on characters instead of character. There's little room for creative, open-ended play when the only ponies you can buy are "pre-loaded" with personalities, and little engagement with the new products once you buy all the characters. To be clear, these are both issues that predate FiM, but it's a lot easier to notice that the tail is now wagging the dog when the tail is frankly the dog's most distinctive feature by design.

The sticking point for curmudgeon collectors is that, with the diminishing investment in "brushable" production, MLP is now falling on all three of these of its traditional features. The Venn diagram overlap between collectibility, adaptability, and "colorful hair to style" in a pony-shaped package has effectively shrunk to nil, and the brand identity has gone with it. So what is Hasbro's vision for the My Little Pony brand now? Fashion dolls? Mini figures? Art & craft kits? (Not including the plush, collectible cards, and designer vinyl toys from outside licenses.) If Hasbro has no direction other than "a cute, colorful small horse" (or apparently human-horse hybrid!) being all a toy needs to be a My Little Pony, then that's not brand diversification, that's brand dilution. My Little Pony got to where it is because it was different from other girls' toys and spawned copycats; to see the brand become the copycats instead of innovating on their core theme is kind of sad.

Yes, brands need to change and incorporate trends to stay fresh and current, but changing into whatever is popular is a recipe for no one to like you because there's no you to like. Basically, the plot of every kids' show: Be confident and true to yourself, and you'll make your real friends who respect you for being you. Blindly mold yourself to fit every fashion, and you'll eventually alienate everyone for being fake and hate yourself in the morning.

I think the issue is the mentality of collectors that have been doing this since the beginning: A pony is only a toy with brushable hair and everything else is invalid.

I feel badly for collectors who have come on the scene with FiM; sometimes you seem take long-time collectors' opinions very personally. (Not meaning YOU you here, but general-you.) I realize it can't be very fun to show off your Funko collection and have someone respond with "so you don't have any actual ponies?". It sucks to feel like you're being put down, but it's not a judgement on you, just that G1-3 collectors have become so accustomed to specifying that they have n ponies plus or minus x petites, y plush, z fakies, etc., that its sometimes counter-instinctual to imagine collections consist solely of minifigs or non-Hasbro products or fashion dolls. It doesn't mean your love for MLP is invalid, just that it's in a different form than what collectors have become used to over the decades, and they sometimes don't cushion their words enough to soften the fact that they can't immediately relate to your perspective.

On the other hand, please keep in mind that its also not fun for something that you've enjoyed for 20+ years to get edged out so much that you have to specify "brushables" for what was once the entire line. It also hurts to have a new crop of pony fans come on the scene and say "you've had your time with MLP; it's ours now" and claim that long-time collectors, of all people, have forgotten what ponies are. When a new MLP fan says "the brand has to change", a stubborn previous-gen collector hears "the brand has to change to suit me", and having Hasbro tacitly agreeing just rubs salt in the wound. At least the majority of long-time fans learned from the G2 wars that it's not worth attacking other collectors over, so their community is relatively free of "what you like sucks, ergo, you suck." (Hasbro and their decisions are still free game though!)

Just something to think about if you feel like you're being unfairly persecuted. I hate to see people flame out.

Someone said the mic was dropped earlier??

Well the mic just detonated the stadium after this reply!!

[banditpony]

Uhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnmmmmm...

But it's true. It was something that the brand did focus on in the 80s... but it's different now. I mean, some of the very first G4 toys didn't have brushable hair. The brand now is so much more than "brushable hair ponies". In fact, as an example, I can include my family in this generation. My husband has something he likes-- my baby has retro G1 clothes and playskool toys. :/ It's so cool how this generation is so branched out into different age ranges with something for everyone.

It was writing on the wall at the end of G3 that we were going to have something that was different for this generation.

I *GET* it. I get not liking what's out there on the shelves. I didn't like ponies since G1 ended. But things change. 5-10 years now, it'll be different.

[Sunset]

BlushingBlue, that was one of the best posts I have ever read.  I see myself quoting it every time this topic comes up from now on.

[BlushingBlue]

Thanks for the kind words. I have a bad habit of getting super rambly, so I'm glad I managed to make my points coherent.

Ahh, I get it now, BlushingBlue. Thank you for posting that.

Also, g2 wars? :o

Oh man... If you weren't around for the G2 wars, consider yourself lucky. G2 was the first time that the pony collecting community was forced to face the sea-change of a new generation, so there was an almost biblical level of garments rent and teeth gnashed. It didn't help that pony people were literally less mature back then (early 20s at max, I'd say) and G2s were radically different from G1s. There was a lot of "This is an insulting abomination that no real pony fan would want!!!" knife-sharpening from one camp, and "Real pony fans would love ALL ponies, so you MUST love this (or it will end MLP foreverrrrrr)" wailing from another camp, plus a bunch of people caught in between who just wanted to like what they liked without a lot of hard feelings and hateful words. Basically whatever you can imagine with G1-3 vs G4 turned up to 11. Some fine folks dropped out of the community, either silently or spectacularly, because of the constant drama.

They were dark days -- even Hasbro themselves sometimes elide G2 when speaking of MLP history -- but it tempered both the brand and the community into greater resiliency. The price was steep, but that's what made the lessons learned so valuable.

[Sunset]

Thanks for the kind words. I have a bad habit of getting super rambly, so I'm glad I managed to make my points coherent.

Ahh, I get it now, BlushingBlue. Thank you for posting that.

Also, g2 wars? :o

Oh man... If you weren't around for the G2 wars, consider yourself lucky. G2 was the first time that the pony collecting community was forced to face the sea-change of a new generation, so there was an almost biblical level of garments rent and teeth gnashed. It didn't help that pony people were literally less mature back then (early 20s at max, I'd say) and G2s were radically different from G1s. There was a lot of "This is an insulting abomination that no real pony fan would want!!!" knife-sharpening from one camp, and "Real pony fans would love ALL ponies, so you MUST love this (or it will end MLP foreverrrrrr)" wailing from another camp, plus a bunch of people caught in between who just wanted to like what they liked without a lot of hard feelings and hateful words. Basically whatever you can imagine with G1-3 vs G4 turned up to 11. Some fine folks dropped out of the community, either silently or spectacularly, because of the constant drama.

They were dark days -- even Hasbro themselves sometimes elide G2 when speaking of MLP history -- but it tempered both the brand and the community into greater resiliency. The price was steep, but that's what made the lessons learned so valuable.

Again, I love the way you put things.

And just to add my own two cents by restating what you said in a slightly different way.  Most of us "old-time" collectors (yes us old decrepit 30 somethings) come from a time before generations.  There wasn't even a g1 term.  There was simply My Little Pony.  The generation designations came much later. So for most of us mlp is seen through that lense.  Ponies had brushable hair just like they were brightly colored and had symbols on their rumps.  (Yes, there were the petites but they were such a minor part of the line and most people didn't "count" them when stating how many ponies they had).

  We have learned to deal with changes to the design of the ponies through previous gens but G4 is the first time we have had to deal with such truly major changes such as not focusing on the "brushables" or marketing that has changed from focusing on the toys to toys that are focused around the marketing.

Here is a little example.

I've heard several people in this thread and elsewhere say that MLP is defined as "brightly colored ponies." 

Just imagine the outcry all pony fans (including G4 and bronies) would have if when G5 finally rolls around ponies where no longer brightly colored.  And not just a few but almost all of them. Browns and blacks and greys only.

But previous gens had ponies those colors, one side says.  Not being candy colored doesn't mean it's not still My Little Pony!

While technically true, it would still be the kind of seismic shift in the brand as a whole that would make a lot of people wonder why they are collecting MLP and not some other line of fantasy horses/animals.

Don't get me wrong, I like G4.  I collect G4.  I even have a bunch of the blind bags (it's the playsets with the possibilities of expansive dioramas that really won me over.)

But also I totally get the frustration with the "sea change" as BlushingBlue calls it.

[Sparkle Pony]

Man, I want to be articulate as some of the posts on this thread.  @_@

All I can really say at this point though is that when G4 is all said and done, I hope it makes the collecting community a lot stronger, just as G2 ultimately did.  Maybe when the wounds aren't as fresh, we will be capable of looking back more objectively.  For now though, I doubt we can come to a proper conclusion, give it a few years...

[Lore-Lei]

Oh man... If you weren't around for the G2 wars, consider yourself lucky. G2 was the first time that the pony collecting community was forced to face the sea-change of a new generation, so there was an almost biblical level of garments rent and teeth gnashed. It didn't help that pony people were literally less mature back then (early 20s at max, I'd say) and G2s were radically different from G1s. There was a lot of "This is an insulting abomination that no real pony fan would want!!!" knife-sharpening from one camp, and "Real pony fans would love ALL ponies, so you MUST love this (or it will end MLP foreverrrrrr)" wailing from another camp, plus a bunch of people caught in between who just wanted to like what they liked without a lot of hard feelings and hateful words. Basically whatever you can imagine with G1-3 vs G4 turned up to 11. Some fine folks dropped out of the community, either silently or spectacularly, because of the constant drama.

They were dark days -- even Hasbro themselves sometimes elide G2 when speaking of MLP history -- but it tempered both the brand and the community into greater resiliency. The price was steep, but that's what made the lessons learned so valuable.

Doesn't sound worse than any other brony drama I've been into, really. Oh man, are we gonna have this again when G5 comes out? I am so ready.