WotC Hasbro CFO Sharpens Focus on Cost Savings As Toy Shoppers Pull Back

[Zardnaar]

I wonder how population growth factors into it all as well as conditions.

I will not get too political here, but I think we have to acknowledge that - at-last in the West - there's been a huge housing crisis for at-least a decade in so many places; and this has lead to birthrate decline. While some of this is because people aren't choosing to have children because they don't want them. Which is fine, to be clear - people should have that choice, and it's a choice I'm making for personal reasons.

However many aren't simply because it's not economically viable for them to do so, because they can't house any child they would have, or because they're afraid of the consequences of global warming which humanity hasn't been great at dealing with. And those are much less fine reasons.

In addition, for those who do have children, economically and personally there's a few reasons to say, get some form of cheaper entertainment than what a lot of us grew up with. I grew up in such a way that i could very, very regularly get Lego sets; mobile phones were just for texting and calling besides feckin' snake; and my time playing video games or using a computer were limited (not television, but I generally grew bored of that fairly fast.) Economically that's more difficult to do these days, with less purchasing power available.

Now, with that in mind, if Hasbro expects continued growth but the market has not only shrunk because of competition from other places, but because economically it's more difficult to purchase physical goods, and there's declining birth rates... then they better adjust expectations.

Kids toys even inflation adjusted are a lot more expensive than what I got in 80s.

Might be a factor but what they want is different.

BMX bike cycle to the beach several kilometers away or next town over.

Housing was cheap though, toys not so much.

 

[MNblockhead]

As a parent, I quickly become put off of continuing to buy plastic toys that were played with for a short time and then just became more clutter. While I was not not anti-electronic devices (our household has a lot and they get a lot of use), I tried, fairly successfully, to find fun analog activities, especially once we could play with together. That means lots of board games, lots of crafts, and outdoor activities. Anecdotally, I see many parents doing the same thing. This has been good for TTRPGs. I was happy to see many parents, including many who have never played a TTRPG in their life, to be thrilled to have their kids get into D&D. Parents are going out of their way to host games at their home, arrange car pools, and have e-mail distribution groups to help organize games.

I think there is still a place for physical toys, but both kids and parent have gotten much more sophisticated in terms of what they buy.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The age where the popular character was the most popular toy in Christmas asked to santa Klaus by children ended. Toys based in a movie or serie released in the same year is a serious challengue. Children loved baby Yoda, but this needed some time to appear in the toy shops. Other times the toys aren't sold because that movie was a bomb in the box-office.

I guess parents would rather toys not too-linked to franchises from TV or cinemas.

For a time the board games stopped by fault of the rise of videogames, but now the market of board games enjoys a relative good health.

Some times even when the product is good and wanted by the consumer the failure is the arrival in the wrong year by fault of the economy and then the consumer has to save money and this can't afford certain whims related to your favorite hobby.

Even the giant Toys'R'us fell and was acquired by other company.

Other point about the action figures is if a consumer wants certain character, this doesn't appear in his nearest toy shop, nor even in the rest of toy shops of that town.

 

[Jahydin]

Is it just me or did toys (at least action figures) use to be way cooler than they have been? I have a daughter and she liked getting a doll here and there but she never really latched on to them like my cousins did when we were little. I mean we had Ninja Turtles, Terminator, Aliens, Predator, Jurassic Park, G.I.Joe, Power Rangers the list goes on.

Toys were definitely cooler back in the day. I miss the crazy, creative toys I grew up with in the 90's:

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

That means lots of board games, lots of crafts, and outdoor activities.

On the subject of crafts - or at least craft-adjacent - activities, one thing I see very little of these days is building model kits. That hobby probably peaked in the 50s and 60s, but as a child of the 70s and 80s they were still easy enough to find in stores and the variety and quality of kits continued to grow over time. By the 90s they were starting to disappear from store shelves, and at this point you only see good variety in a few specialist shops like Hobbytown and token selections in big box arts and crafts chains like Hobby Lobby and Michaels. Even the local train supply stores have really tailed back on what they carry.

While the whole model industry is as anti-green as Games Workshop (so much plastic waste, so little recycling) it's still kind of a shame to see it become more of an adult hobby than something many/most kids at least dabbled in. Good for motor skills, patience, and creativity. Sometimes instilled a real lasting interest in everything from history to engineering too. And for miniatures games, learning to kitbash your own creations from cheap and/or secondhand model kits is a lot more practical than starting on gaming models. Even Reaper Bones stuff isn't all that cheap anymore.

Old Man Raving over.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I was thinking the opposite actually. Airfix and the like pretty much died out in the 90s, but have started to make a comeback in the last couple of years. Art and crafts, and STEM toys seem popular at the moment. Note: UK, Surrey. Other domains may differ.

I do anticipate a growing anti-plastic movement in the next few years. I hear Lego are trying to develop bio-degradable bricks.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Art and crafts, and STEM toys seem popular at the moment.

Granted. I note that some of them are using wood or metal rather than plastic, which is good.

 

[Stormonu]

The problem for Hasbro is that young families have moved away from the type of games they sell. All the young couples I know buy modern euro games. They won't even consider the traditional Hasbro games like Risk and Monopoly.

I can very much see couples and other childless households reaching for the more complex euro games. Those with kids? Yeah, they're buying Monopoly, Life, Battleship and other games they can either play together or send the kids off to their room to play and give them some peace and quiet.

 

[Incenjucar]

Toys are also the kind of thing you can pass on. My sibling's kids adore my old toys. By the time they're old enough to care about how old they are they'll be into video games.

 

[MNblockhead]

On the subject of crafts - or at least craft-adjacent - activities, one thing I see very little of these days is building model kits. That hobby probably peaked in the 50s and 60s, but as a child of the 70s and 80s they were still easy enough to find in stores and the variety and quality of kits continued to grow over time. By the 90s they were starting to disappear from store shelves, and at this point you only see good variety in a few specialist shops like Hobbytown and token selections in big box arts and crafts chains like Hobby Lobby and Michaels. Even the local train supply stores have really tailed back on what they carry.

While the whole model industry is as anti-green as Games Workshop (so much plastic waste, so little recycling) it's still kind of a shame to see it become more of an adult hobby than something many/most kids at least dabbled in. Good for motor skills, patience, and creativity. Sometimes instilled a real lasting interest in everything from history to engineering too. And for miniatures games, learning to kitbash your own creations from cheap and/or secondhand model kits is a lot more practical than starting on gaming models. Even Reaper Bones stuff isn't all that cheap anymore.

Old Man Raving over.

Yeah, to an extent, but there are some cool new kits I would have killed for as a kid. I got my kids the Nintendo switch lab years ago. You would but together cards, VR glasses, mini pianos, etc. in cardboard that would interact with the switch. It was incredibly cool. Snap circuit kits are pretty cool as well. And legos have never gone out of style. But the model airplane, car, etc. kits I grew up with, yeah, don't see many kids into that. Or model trains. But I think there is a lot of variety of cool crafts and kits available.