LOEB Assignment - Pet Peeves

Pet Peeves – where do I start? Just kidding, I just don’t get riled up about a lot of things, but there are one or two things that drive me nuts as a toy collector.

1.       Enemy combatants – or the lack thereof. I get it. I get it. It is politically incorrect. It took Marx toys, years to make German and Japanese toy soldiers to go with their combat sets. Maybe time will tell, but in this modern age of terror, we are just not going to see enemy combatants for many lines, especially modern toy soldier lines.

 Green vs Tan

So here goes.

a.       McFarlane Military had seven great series of modern military figures. Obviously, they weren’t going to make insurgents and Republican Guard figures. I could imagine the protests at Toys R Us if that happened. I was excited to see the World War II figures announced, then re-marketed with Call of Duty. I could definitely see enemy combatants in that lineup, but once again, that wouldn’t be modern day.

b.      Plastic toy soldiers are doing great as a niche market: Barzso - www.Barzso.com , Conte Collectibles (www.conteco.com), Toy Soldiers of San Diego (www.sdsoldiers.com)  but no one wants to do modern toy solders. Only Armies in Plastic www.armiesinplastic.com did it, yet there aren’t any enemy combatants. Do we really need one more Civil War set? 21^st Century Toys took a gamble and made the Eastern Warrior for their 1:18 scale modern sets. I never saw them at Toys R Us, had to pick them up on Ebay. 21^st Century also created Vietnam enemy combatants for their 1:18 scale Vietnam line. So once again, time will tell.

c.       Even some fantasy lines never come out with the bad guys anymore. As much as I love NECA, some of their products just release one character (Clash of the Titans). Really, what am I going to do with a single Perseus figure?

2.       The amount of complaining on Toy Collector forums. I do it too, so I am not exempt. I am just amazed on how granular some of these complaints get. Luke should have brown hair, not blonde hair, like the Empire Strikes Back Bespin figure. Really? And I get we shell out our hard earned money to buy these things and want quality, but do we really need to get so spun up on minor details. Of course, I am one to talk – the abomination that was World War Z by Jazwares was atrocious.

World War Z Figures

3.       The “I know if they made figure X, it would sell out” wisdom. Unless you actually have experience in running a profit and loss operation, and the time/money it takes to license, design, produce, distribute a toy, this one drives me nuts. There are tons of figures I wish were made and haven’t been/will never be made, but simple business models and principles prevent this from happening. I for one am pissed that Prometheus figures are now warming the pegs and future series (with great characters) are canceled, but the fact is, the collector market is a lot smaller than the mom with kids market. And mom is going to buy/know Spiderman and Ironman, versus Dr. Elizabeth Shaw.

More two cents on this topic.

The End of Action Figures?

Other League Members

I agree with Brian's pet peeve with TV

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