Some post-Toy Fair thoughts: what happens now?

So, we've finally seen the product, and had it confirmed that the "mainline" for the next movie is what we previously thought of as the sub-line, while traditional TF toys will continue to be sold under the Generations banner. We've been told that fan interest has managed to drive Generations to a "full" line complete with leader class figures, and we've seen the product designed for that line for the movie. Meanwhile, we've also been shown the new "mainline" and its (extreme) focus on simplicity at the expense of all else. So what happens next?

This is a new direction for Hasbro. It could be described as being equivalent to AEC, where gimmicks ruled the roost: in this case the gimmick is transformation, but in just one step. But AEC never had to compete against a line of toys that didn't have gimmicks, and looked more like traditional Transformers. Nor, at that time, was there the apparent focus on the fans there is today.

At this point, it looks to me like it's all up to the retailers, and it really is anyone's guess what they'll do. Are simple, one-step Transformers really what they are looking for? Hasbro seems to think so, but at the same time, they seem to be hedging their bets. Perhaps retailers might decide what the really want is to continue pushing the toys that they've sold in the past, and they'll focus on Generations despite Hasbro pushing the "mainline". Then, will it be back to the drawing board regarding the mainline toys, or push forward with more "fan-type" toys?

On the other hand - and the pessimist in me says this will happen - while Hasbro have turned the focus on to fans both here and with their Star Wars Black Series and Marvel Legends toys, retailers have never been all that interested in fans. That could drive Generations out of stores completely in favour of the RID, Construct(a)bots, and mashers. Online and specialty retailers generally have a better idea of where their fanbase lies, so we'd still likely see Generations in the likes of BBTS and Robotkingdom. Could Generations eventually end up like Mattel's MOTU and DC lines, and become online exclusive in some way?

For us in Australia, we have the added difficulty of retailers who don't seem to want anything that isn't the mainline. Griffin (at least I think it was Griffin) has pointed out in the past that anything that doesn't have tie-in media is doomed as too much work to sell for retail (even though the Generations line we didn't get here kinda does have tie-in media in the form of IDW's comics, but I guess that doesn't count). Are they just going to go after the (supposedly) kid-friendly mainline, or will they go for what at least looks familiar? Or both? While Hasbro talks about targeting Generations at collectors, the TF line has always had greater appeal to older kids than other action figure lines partly because of its complexity. Perhaps Generations is appealing in this regard? Do Australian retailers believe in older fans enough to go for Generations, or will we just see them at the Reject Shop in two years' time?

I saw someone point out over on TFW that there are clear signs that the kid market for action figures in general is declining. While Mattel appear to have decided to roll over and die and accept this by making everything online exclusive (and therefore a PITA to obtain outside of the USA), Hasbro are definitely less willing to accept it. Their strategy, to an extent, appears to be to try to capture those kids who are going to grow up to be fans with products designed to appeal to the older collectors who are guaranteed sales anyway. In a way, this is a good thing, and anyway, as I posted elsewhere, these things tend to move in cycles; in three or four years we might see a completely different kind of focus in the toy market generally from where we are now.

One thing that Toy Fair, the focus on Generations and IDW comics for fan appeal, and the ignoble end of the Beast Hunters line, does seem to have shown is that Prime and the "aligned" continuity failed. In Ben Yee's interview with the designers, Josh Lamb said that trying to appeal to everyone failed in terms of the toyline, and that's part of the reason we have the divide we do today. It seems to me like the aligned continuity as a symptom of that. It was always impossible to get all the ducks in all the media to line up, hence why the WFC and FOC games ended up being based on G1 while we were told they were in continuity with the Prime cartoon, which had some success trying to incorporate elements of every past continuity but was hit and miss with fans. Meanwhile, the novels couldn't even manage to be in continuity with themselves, and IDW might as well have shrugged their shoulders. Never has the name "aligned" seemed more ironic as when the Generations 2014 line-up was revealed, and shown to include elements from every previous franchise... elements that then appeared in IDW's G1 comic! The success of Generations really looks to me like the failure of Prime, a ironic demonstration that there already exists a franchine which is adaptable and capable of incorporating many elements, and it's Generation One. The new video game which combines the apparent "aligned" FOC world with AOE serves only to confirm this - we'll just keep on taking the best elements and leaving the rest.

In a lot of ways, it's certainly an exciting time to be a fan. I thought earlier this year that the golden age of toy collecting was done, but looking around, Hasbro at least actually seem to have renewed their focus on collectors, whilst also making it more clear which products are actually focused on collectors; Star Wars Black Series, Marvel Legends, Generations. The line is certainly going through a transformation. Only time will tell into what.