Toy Companies Once Again Proven to be Cancer

Jesus fucking christ.

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>toy companies

That clearly says Marvel Corporate

Driven by toy sales though

How is that the toy companies' fault?

Marvel Corporate is run by Ike Perlmutter, who ran Toy Biz before taking over Marvel.

Really don't understand why this is worth freaking out about. It's not like they turned a female character male.

Toys have a habit of fucking with co stuff, especially when it comes to girls,

I really don't give a shit if Killian had a dick or a vag. The real victim is Mandarin, who had all this build-up in 2 movies, and then turned out to be a fucking drunk retard. Even BvS Luthor was better handled than him.

>and then turned out to be a fucking drunk retard.

Killian. The Mandarin was Killian.

He has a line of dialog you might find illuminating, "I am the Mandarin!"

>"I am the Mandarin!"
I fell asleep by then.

don't diss trevor you shitcunt

Trevor Slattery isn't the Mandarin, he just plays him on TV.

Also, the real Mandarin probably had him killed, as per "All Hail the King".

Hasbro makes tons of female Marvel toys. It's not their fault. It's Marvel.

That's not really a new thing
Reminder that mutants legally and officially aren't people because they wanted cheaper taxes

Source?

This is some dumb logic, even for a grubber like Ike.

Imagine being a kid in a toy store; you're walking down the aisle with all the Iron Man 3 toys. Your mom tells you that you can only get one toy, so you give a look at all the figures dangling there on the hooks. The movie features a shit ton of armor - there's your traditional red and gold Iron Man, stealth Iron Man, green Iron Man, Iron Patriot, battle-damaged Iron Man, a Trevor-Mandarin figure thrown in for good measure.

And then there's Killian.

Who in the fuck would buy a generic looking dude over a shiny new Iron Man variant? Why would that have any significant bearing on toy sales in any way?

The kids are going to buy IRON MAN toys and, if they did want a villain toy, they'd go for the cool looking dude in a robe who has ten rings - not the yuppie looking white guy/girl with a dragon tattoo. The sales for that character would have been lackluster whether it was a girl or not.

It would've been slightly more interesting if the Big Bad had been the defenseless woman instead of the Generic White Businessman #156 they were trying to mislead with.

Didnt disney edit Black Widow out of scenes she was in for the toys because there ideal buisness model had no girls buying marvel stuff because they were supposed do Disney princess stuff?

But Trevor was a nice guy. It's not his fault there was a dumb twist in the movie.

Yeah, but Killian is already dead, and the Mandarin needed someone to punish for trying to tie their dumbass scheme to his terrorist organization. Why not kill the guy who pretended to be him?

What the fuck are you talking about?

>Marvel shown to be douchebags
>MUH TOY COMPANIES!!

Wait, there was a Killian toy?

For the playsets of AoU, Disney actually replaced Widow with Cap in scenes she had because they didnt want girls buying Marvel toys.

and they never even put out the damn male villain they demanded except for an unproduced prototype

The tie-in movie toys are getting shitter each year. The last "good" ones were the Iron Man 2 ones.

Do you have evidence to back up that claim?

Dark Knight Rises did it first a year earlier.

I'll never forgive Marvel Studios for cutting the flamethrower zamboni scene.

I'm going to be honest I don't really care what flavor my Not!Mandarin comes in so much as not getting Mandarin in general.
No, getting him after the fact doesn't change that.

that's the punch line. no there wasn't

They even replaced her with iron man.
Who can fly.

Wasn't there some bullshit dvd extra that implied he actually was the real Mandarin?

And of course cutting Gamora out of gotg merch

Its not even a secret look up Market Segementation.

Its why you have a boys aisle and a girls aisle for toys.

They really could have done a better job with him. Just because he started as a racist stereotype doesn't mean he has to be a racist stereotype just because he's Asian. Mandarin taking advantage of alien tech to make his rings would have made more sense in a story about Tony's PTSD than Killian and extremis bullshit.

Sure, but a lot for us had been waiting since '08 for Favreau's take on Mandarin. That's what upsets me, Favreau seemed really pumped to actually do Iron Man's rogues gallery, both updating them while actually tackling them despite how hard it may seem to do so. One of the earliest additions to the MCU was meant to be the (ill-fared) Viva Las Vegas, where we here going to get the then-seemingly impossible task of bringing Fin Fang Foom into that universe. It felt like a crazy time, full of promise. so while I don't outright hate IM3's twist, it just felt like a let down from that early build-up.

>OH NO THE PATRIARCHY AT MARVEL IS STOPPING WOMEN FROM BEING IN MOVIES BECAUSE THEY ONLY WANT TOYS TO BE PRODUCED FOR BOYS NO GIRLS ALLOWED HEIL PATRIARCHY
>THIS CLEARLY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOY BUYING CONSUMERS
Stupid fucks.

Market segmentation is literally how marketing products works. You sell to the biggest groups who buy your products, not the niche that doesn't. How do you figure that out? Demographics. Spoilers: young boys love Marvel.

And here it is in the words of am actual employee

>[Editor’s Note:The author of this piece is a former Marvel employee and wishes to remain anonymous.]

>Disney does not care about Marvel’s female market, which makes us virtually invisible. I could probably populate Pluto with the amount of Princess items Disney makes. But where areGamora and Black Widow? This exclusion of women from Marvel movie merchandise is completely purposeful. I know; I was there.

>Prior to the Disney acquisition, Marvel did care about its female market; though, tactically, they were shooting in the dark. The Creative Services Department made style guides (design themes) for Elektra and The Women of X-Men, but most licensees didn’t want to put “sexy” images on children’s products. Even the juniors clothing line,Marvel HERoes, flopped. With slogans like “My Boyfriend is a Superhero,” how could it not?

> While working at Marvel post-acquisition, I saw a deck circulated by Disney’s Brand Marketing team. I’m prohibited from sharing the slides, but the takeaway is that, unlike theactualdemos, thedesireddemographics had no females in it whatsoever. I asked my supervisor why that was. Ever the pragmatist, he said, “That’s not why Disney bought us. They already have the girls’ market on lockdown.”

>I’d entered the comics industry because I was a comics fan. It hurt to see so plainly that to Disney, people like me didn’t matter. My demographic was already giving them money anyway, with Disney Princess purchases. Even now, there’s no incentive to make more Marvel merch for women, because we already buyBraveandFrozenproducts.

Marvel Legends had a Gamora figure.

Not bothered by this stupidity at all.

Artistic integrity and company-owned properties don't mix. If you need $200 million of other people's money to make a film, then expect trade-offs and making concessions to people with ulterior motives.

Now I'm wondering how the fuck Joss Whedon got Scarlet Witch and (temporarily) Quicksilver in, when they are shared-rights characters who aren't marketed very much.

He must have used up all his clout getting them in because there's no way the merchandising people wanted Scarlet Witch in the Avengers. A girl *and* a shared-rights character with Fox?

Boys play with action figures and have their parents buy them, rarely do female action figures sell if ever. It's just the simple truth.

>This does not come as a surprise, really. Anyone who knows about branding and marketing can tell you how most gender-skewed business models work (and most businessesaregender-skewed). It starts when we’re babies. Blue for boys, pink for girls. Separate, but equal.Sound familiar?

Disney bought Marvel and Lucasfilm because they wanted to access the male market. To achieve this goal, they allocate less to Marvel’s female demo, and even less to a unisex one. They won’t be interested in changing how they work until consumers understand what’s going on.

So let’s delve deeper into how licensing works. To obtain a Marvel license, you typically have to be a successful company with access to big distribution channels, like Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Target, Tesco, etc. Marvel sometimes licenses to smaller companies, but the contracts work the same. There’s a minimum guarantee, royalty rates, and a payment schedule.

Most contracts never fall below $100K for a minimum guarantee, and large companies like Hasbro will pay millions over the course of a few years. Royalty rates vary by style guide and distribution channel. Movie style guides tend to have a higher rate due to actor likeness fees, and the standard royalty rate is about 12%. To pay Marvel $25K, a licensee has to make over $208K. Moreover, they need to pay their employees and manufacturers and make a profit. For Marvel movie properties, licensees need to make as much money as possible in a short amount of time. Movie characters are hot only for a few months, so both Disney and the licensees will resort to what they know best: the “separate, but equal” strategy.

Well then, I blame females for falling for the Frozen meme.

No. There was a dvd extra that outright stated there IS a real Mandarin, and Trevor wasn't him.

Nope, the extra you're thinking of does end with him being hauled off to meet the real mandarin though.

Now that my short intro into licensing is over, how do we change things? When complaining about the lack of Black Widow, don’t just tweet at Marvel and Disney.Contact the licensees.They need to know there is a high demand. They need those numbers. Look into companies like Mad Engine, Hasbro, Jay Franco, etc. Look at the tags and find those companies. DemandingFrozenproducts for boys would be a balanced, conjunctive step.

Another route is to create your own company and get a licensing contract.3D printers for clothingwill soon be available. Save enough capital to buy one and you could flood the market with apparel that feature the Avengers, Justice League, and Guardians of the Galaxy as they were meant to be: co-ed teams.

Personally, I don’t think we need Marvel, DC, or Lucasfilm to pave the way for us. Giants will only move when there are other giants around. For example, when an indie film becomes successful it makes waves and influences the rest of Hollywood.HerUniverseandWeLoveFineare already successfully paving the way for women’s licensed clothing lines. We needmoreindependent content that spotlights women heroes, super or otherwise.Hellboy,Wanted, andThe Green Hornetdidn’t break into the billions, but they are good examples of putting another horse in the race.

Content is queen. The most lasting way to change what’s around you is to create something new. So, comics creators—especially women—more spectacular women superheroes who headline their own books from Image, Dark Horse, Oni, Top Cow, you name it, would also be incredibly helpful. And indie pubs, make those comics and pitch them to Focus Features, Lionsgate, New Line and so on.

It’s time to start getting creative about our strategy. Let’s all brainstorm and share tactics. In the immortal words ofAudre Lorde: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” It’s time to make ourowntools.

So what, it would have been Madame Mask instead of Mandarin?

Greg Weisman:

youtube.com/watch?v=kNQMsD2uBXs&feature=youtu.be&t=3m57s

Paul Dini:

youtube.com/watch?v=nmCrHS0x9LA

Giancarlo Volpe (With special guest star Bruce Timm):

giancarlovolpe.tumblr.com/post/82641459722/a-little-behind-the-scenes-look-of-the-early

Genndy Tartakovsky:

wired.com/2012/10/hotel-transylvania-genndy-tartakovsky/2/
Regular Show:
youtube.com/watch?v=tzFRIQhOXcQ(and this entire episode in particular)


Tl;dr

Toy markers are the devil

The twist was p clever.

>lame terrorist stereotype bad guy ends up being fictional, merely a tool for real bad guys plans.

Maya Hansen should have been the villain tho.

Thank god, that movie would have been fucking garbage with a female villain. Same applies for any movie really.

There's a real Mandarin out there. The 5 rings are still being hinted at. Killian was actually Fing Fang Foom, hence the dragon tattoo and the fire breathing.

>Killian was actually Fing Fang Foom, hence the dragon tattoo and the fire breathing.

That's not a flamethrower zamboni, that's one of these street cleaning vehicles with a dog shit vacuum.

Its Marvel, everyone loves that shit.

Hell my seven year old brothers fav character on USM is White Tiger. There is no USM White Tiger toy. Hes not even the only littke kid I have heard complain about this.

Hell, he gave a list of his favorite disney princesses unprompted.


Most market Segementation isnt.actually designed to serve the consumer wants, they are just industrializing steortypes to make it easier to shill product.

A fucking 8 year old playing with a toy is just gonna enjoy the toys and characters they like and think are cool without any of that corporate demo bullshit.

Remember how Mattel dint make toys for any of the girls in Avatar? Including major charactera Katara, Azula and Toph? Its fucking bullshit and its not even "true."

Its all a forced meme made to take the lazy way out for products. Same shit that gave us cringy "urban" shit to sell to blacks.

Kek

Yes. This is my favorite.

What a dumb opinion.

White Tiger too which means despite being in mass market media productions oriented to kids, they only show up in the niche figure line orinted towards the hardcore fans with obscure guys like Scarlet Spider and Misty Knight.

>Toy markers are the devil

Toy makers may be wrong, stupid, and behind the times. But they're not the devil, and not the problem. The real problem is that the Western cartoon/comic content industry itself needs toy makers to survive. Toy makers are under no obligation to cartoons or comics.

The fact that both the content and toy industries in the West are heavily consolidated is what's killing diversity. A handful of immoral companies driven by stocks decide which cartoons or movies get made and how.

Oh you mean, just like Ra's in Batman Begins.
Or Bane and Talia in TDKR
How original and new.

Of you honestly think little kids give a shit about that and just dont want to play with their favs, you are full of it.

I've had little niggas pointing out errors in the Marvel Universe bio for America Chavez.

My little sister read the New Frontier cover to cover.

Entire shows have been cancelled because reality doesnt match up to toy company bullshit.

Ulteror motives arent the issue, its that those motives are batshit retarded.

>Too many girls are watching our superhero show!
>Cancel it, everyone knows girls dont like superheroes

This has happened more than once

>toy company logic

They often are. But it's still their money.

the real reason why Killian was made to be the mandarin was because Marvel wanted to sell the movie in CHina and get a huge market share. The Chinese government would have banned the release if the movie had featured a chinese villain that cast a bad light on China, so they pulled a bait and switch and we had to be soothed by All Hail The King. People forget about the business part of "show business".

Ras and Bane actually did have oriental terrorist orgs on their side. Trevor was entirely a hollywood production, and Bane wasnt a stereotype of anything.

Toys are awesonme, a conpany that works with the cartoon guys to make cool shit that looks good on screen and to play with is an ideal.

Whats wrong is they are pants on head retarded,

Either telling the Ben 10 guys that they had to many aliens or canceing shows because they wrre not shilling to there bs demo marketing model.

Companies are supposed to give people what they want
Not tell them what to want

People on Sup Forums would have been fucking pissed if they changed a male villain into a female one. It would have been just another diversity shitstorm subject.

But yeah, segmented marketing is often retarded. It's an attempt to funnel customers instead of putting things out and letting the customers decide what they want to buy. To be honest the best way to succeed is to do some of both, but all they're doing by ignoring the market for female hero toys is losing customers.

>Companies are supposed to give people what they want
>Not tell them what to want
You cannot possibly be this naive.

It was gonna be Maya Hansen not an actual gender changed Killian. She would just have had Killian's villainous traits.

It would make sense since she had a bigger part in Extremis than Killian did no? All he did was kill himself in the comic.

You know the first thing you get taught going into advertising?
Stereotypes exist for a reason, use them to sell. Marketers are not smart people typically, they follow this like their bible. Yeah it sucks and doesnt represent everyone, but it's proven to work and that adds value to the marketers themselves who are otherwise useless people.

No, Sup Forums would have loved a new evil waifu. You don't know what you're talking about.

The villain being a man was hardly noteworthy compared to the terrible tripe that was IM3.

>Companies are supposed to give people what they want

This is again related to the fact the market is consolidated, and because of their size. The bigger companies are, the less maneuverable they are. If they have many different business interests, those interests may collide in ways the laymen does not understand.

For example, toy companies might not want to take on an unknown, when they have a set production capacity limit, or they expect the cost of raw materials to rise, or if retail stores would not fully back the product line.

By comparison, a large portion of Japan's toy, comic, and movie industry, from producer to retailer, are small family-owned businesses. They may not be able to compete globally, but many specialize and are able to produce high quality stuff and be reasonably profitable. For Western that throw away $200 million to make a single movie, they can't be that flexible.

>mfw white tiger marvel legends is a pegwarmer

I love toys, but I'd be more inclined to defend them in this case if the MCU's toy makers were better at their jobs. Have you seen that one Quinjet toy that comes with an Iron Man riding a motorcycle? Why would Iron Man be riding a motorcycle? It makes no sense.

>they only show up in the niche figure line

The 6" Marvel legends is probably the most lucrative domestic Marvel toyline, though. There's nothing "niche" about it.

An entire industry were predjudice isnt just tolerated but encouraged is a moral filth.

And even asisde from that it isnt actually over all profitable, you do a crapy best fit lump which is the quick lazy version but its actually a lot less value over all.

Niche in the chatacters used. mL focuses more on comic characters and not guys in mass media.its not for "casuals" as the venacular puts it. Its where guys like Piledriver and Dani Moonstar wind up.

The fact White Tiger and Gamora are put in that toyline and not the ones for the overwhelmingly sucessful and popular movie and tv shows they are in is telling.

This is fucking hilarious. Its like they got Stalin'd

Because in the movie its Black Widow but she is under a toy embargo by disney

What are you even talking about? ML covers pretty much everything. They have wave after wave of MCU figures usually, and then every once in a while they throw collectors a bone, and put out background characters and B-listers.

It doesn't focus mostly on Comic characters, that'd be something like Marvel Select. That's the real niche-line, oriented more at collectors. ML is like the exact opposite of that. They throw literally everything in that line.

You definitely arent getting everyone but by targeting the stereotypical demographic you do have less risk. You brand yourself with a certain customer, a 'type' of person, and get consistent sales from that group. This DOES work.

And yeah, it sucks. And yeah, they are missing some customers. But trying to target customers outside of these neat little stereotypes we have is more risky than just going for what is reliable. With how companies and shares and all that shit operates, risk is almost never worth it. One big failure can ruin you and one significant failure can cripple your company for years because nobody wants to buy shares. This would also lead to you probably losing your job if you're the one who made this call, or agreed to taking the risk and let it happen. Considering there are multiple people any idea has to go through before being approved, and those people don't want to lose their jobs when just doing 'okay' let's them keep their big ass salary, it's no surprise this is the way things are.

It's a very systemic problem.

>TFW there was no MANDARIN figure from hasbro
Fuck you hasbro, fuck you shane black you uncultured hack.

The last good ones were back in the 90 with batman & robin

YOU COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS
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>People ITT defending Mandarin because muh toys

How retarded do some of you have to be to admit that MAYBE Marvel is capable of making X-Men: Last Stand and Amazing Spider-Man quality garbage?

Well, the "Mandarin" from the trailers was literally perfect. It's what they made him into that was fucking retarded. Which is why they had to backpedal to say "well guys there's totally an actual mandarin out there just you wait he'll be more awesome than the Pretend Mandarin!"

They can't accept it.

#ourowntools

Marvel can do no wrong.

There was a Marvel Legends movie Gamora and a 2.5" mini figure Gamora released when the movie came out. That 3-pack was released years before the GotG movie in the Marvel Universe toy line. Same toy line that is releasing Gamora in her Bendis armor look this year after being voted one of the two most requested figures to see in 4" scale. Captain Marvel (Danvers) was the other.

>Killian was actually Fing Fang Foom, hence the dragon tattoo and the fire breathing.
Or, you know, that one guy from Extremis that could break fire...

Currently, but only because the guy at Hasbro in charge of the Marvel line only wants 6" stuff. He practically killed the super successful 4" line in order to increase 6" output. The problem is, the sales still aren't there to support the 6" figures. A box or two of a wave goes to a store and then they're already getting the next wave in. It has created a 3 year glut on the pegs of mixed BAF sets with little way to complete them at retail. And guess what, casual buyers aren't popping online to pay double for what they're missing. That's why Amazon routinely has Star War 6" and Marvel Legends on discount except for the "rare" ones in-demand.

But it isnt even that much of a risk because these steortypes were bullshit,hell half of them were made BY the companies just to make it easier to sell.

Like the whole pink blue thing for boys and girls, totally arbitrary and made up in the 70s

Reminder that the interview LITERALLY confirmed that it was specifically Kevin Feige who was responsible for the trainwreck of IM3

That just prooves the point doesnt it?

Well no shit. Did you think the lack of DOFP merchandise was a gag? Disney is giving FOX rabbit punches.

Earlier than the 70's,.waaaaaaaay earlier.
It was, originally turn of the century in England reversef colours. 30's america swapped them and that's what we have today.

...