You know, I've chimed in on this thread and I've had a pretty heated discussion on this topic on another site as well and this still is a topic that seems to be on my mind a lot lately. Having bought enough figures in the Legacy line to have double (and in some cases triple) built every one of the Build-A-Droids, plus having a complete set of all Blue/White and Red/White figures in my MOC collection - I seem to take it personally everytime that they blame collectors for a lack of sales in their Q&A answers.
When Hasbro talks about the declining sales numbers from the collector market, they're not talking about you Pete. They're talking about the people who dropped out because of whatever circumstances.
Financial, personal and family reasons have driven plenty of people out of the hobby in the past 2 years or so. People who have experienced economic hardships or lost their jobs and need to be able to pay the bills. So what goes when people need to make some hard economic decisions? Items that are bought with disposable income. When it comes to adult collectors that can translate to toys.
Those of us who are still here have fortunately been able to hang in during the tough times. But are most of us still spending at the levels that we might have been in 2005 or 2006? I know that I'm not.
Also, movie year pricing isn't an option for Hasbro or the retailers. The volume sales aren't there. Entertainment support means a great deal to the Star Wars line or any other toy line. That is precisely why Clone Wars is selling better than Legacy. And given the fact that Clone Wars has been selling in it's animated form since the summer of 2008 I can't see Hasbro or Lucasfilm licensing deciding to make the Clone Wars line look photo realistic.
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