Is Hot Toys Past Their Prime?

[Rotfish]

Those of us wanting Hot Toys to finish the Matrix line or tackle classics like Colonial Marines, Conan, etc. are in the minority.

 

[Johnny Utah]

Yeah there's only 3 of us.

 

[Bo Shrek]

If collectors are salivating and paying big dollars for Shore troopers, Armor Troopers, Heavy Big Boy Mandalorian, Solo Darth Maul then HT is exactly where they want to be. You have to congratulate them for that. They should continue that business structure. Make them while their HOT!!! They know that they already have the sales of ALIEN, ROCKY, BATMAN RETURNS PENGUIN and other minority figures in the bag should they dry up of ?figures of the day? products. And we know we will be sitting here waiting.

I have mentioned many times that I have not purchased a HT in 2020 my last two were in 2019 DX Maul and Dooku! I have been tempted by many in 2020 but in the end I did not pull the trigger. I am proud of myself for that. No need to buy something just because I haven?t bought anything in awhile. Yes HT is getting boring for me as their releases IMO are boring. I have nothing preordered and have no excitement for anything on their schedule. Buts that?s only me. I can?t speak on anyone else.

The only figure I am interested in is DAMTOYS 1/6 Godfather. I don?t know anything about the quality of this company as I have never purchase or seen one. BUT if it does come out as good as the proto?..well then as somebody had mentioned earlier, I would consider it a ?art piece?.

 

[xipotec]

Again, HT is the fad 1/6 producer.

If it?s popular even for a second in real time they will produce it.

Capitalize on the moment. Problem is, it?s actually a very short sighted business strategy as the people who buy the hot in the moment products are easy distracted and will give up on 1/6 sooner rather than later.

The fans whom want classics AND newer items should be catered to more.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[BACON!]

Would love to see a ratio of 4:1 in terms of what the the Iron Man fans get vs what the nerds/hardcore fans are asking for (would help with their overall credibility and potentially be a loss leader), but I gotta say Hot Toys more often than not keeps on upping their game in terms of quality of their figures, detail and just plain manufacturing ingenuity in the last 5-7 years. Very few other companies even include electronics/lighting, which is important to me and I use a lot in my displays

 

[Masao]

Yes.

 

[lordnastrond]

Creatively - yes, HT are past their prime but not yet in their decrepitude - they are still capable of fantastic releases and surprising collectors with interesting announcements and exciting risks or innovations - but that has become the exception and not the norm like it once was.

Its not a terminal decline and they can recover - but they need to both recognize that there is a problem, which they show no sign of doing, and want to address it, and be capable of fixing it.
And so long as the money flows they won't even notice, until it all suddenly stops or one day they realize that most of their sales are coming from ridiculous cobabies and the like and that they are no longer the quality name they brand themselves as.

In this regard I think Inart could either kill or save HT - if HT see competition and raise the bar to match it, then honestly this could be the saving grace of the company and its creative spirit.
If they fail to rise to the challenge then Inart will simply devour HT's 1/6 high-end market. Leaving HT in a weird middle ground between below Inart's high-end of the market and being too expensive compared to the 3rd party offering which are improving all the time and producing more exciting figures.

 

[goatchumby]

The coolest 1/6 that I have seen in quite some time is Mars Toys' 66 Joker. HT had a proto once, but it has long since been abandoned. I can imagine that pleasing the different markets out there must be tough. But third parties outside of the controlling (and legal) reach of licensors, have reflected more and more lately of what collectors really love in a figure.

 

[Space Jockey]

I still get Hot Toys occasionally, though often I've ended up reselling them. I got many early figures but my interest tapered off when Sideshow became the main distributor then suddenly prices increased dramatically and kept going up. Aside from pleather issues, I do wish they would let some older licenses go instead of holding onto them and not doing anything. Third party nowadays do much more of what I am interested in.

 

[Jroug]

The answer to this question is most likely a solid yes, but I'm curious to see if they FINALLY pull off an Indiana Jones with a decent likeness. That'd make them slightly more relevant to me. Mostly the recent stuff has left me cold, or more accurately, bored. I used to have 5/6 HT on order at any time. Now I have one (Mantis, to complete my GOTG set). They've shown more interesting stuff at cons - that never came out - than most of what they release. 3rd party is where the action is these days.

 

[histrionics]

I thought Hot Toys hit their peak just over 10 years ago (around 2012), while settling into complacency when they got deep into the Marvel licensing with the first Avengers film and shortly later with Disney and Star Wars. They were good enough at what they did that they could cut back on everything like accessories, additional sculpts and even the quality of art boxes once they hit the big time and sold in greater numbers to a wider and more casual collector base. They surely weren't in the market any longer to innovate and push the boundaries of what could be done in the 1:6 market.

I noticed their products went from being diverse, exciting and adventurous to simply license-seeking and catering to major blockbusters. That's not to say they didn't produce some great figures and occasional interesting gems over the years, but the Hot Toys focus seemed to become less daring (daring being something they took pride prior to that time). Hot Toys went from being a niche FUBU kind of company of "collectors making figures for collectors" to a big license pursuer that merely flooded their own market with blockbuster toys.

Prior to all of this I remember when Hot Toys was quite aggressive about stealing innovation from companies like Enterbay - who first developed highly detailed and realistic sculpts, the moving eyeball system and even the Bruce Lee license. In the latter instance, they swiped the Bruce Lee license along with Enterbay's master sculptor, made 3 figures, then merely abandoned the whole thing within a couple of years. It's like Hot Toys was so aggressive that they stole and took over and pushed the industry to such a peak that a time came when they didn't have to try... or couldn't afford to try to be a real collector-focussed concept company any longer. They just became too big in a tiny market to care.

Clearly we can now see when new companies push the envelope that Hot Toys has to jump on the moment and try shamelessly to catch up within their own dominated market. Who knows, maybe they'll use their power and advantage again to step on toes and try to drive some of these companies out of the market by aggressively playing hardball.

 

[potato]

most big companies arent as flexible as smaller ones especially when licensing is involved it drives cost up and puts lots of limits. they have to listen to the shareholders and license holders instead of customers.

this is why out of so many 1/6 companies only less than a handful have received generally positive feedbacks like Limtoys, CCtoys and maybe masterteam. coz these people working with backend teams that actually listen to the real customers and have no licensing issues to deal with. they have built a reputation for being good and they dont want to lose that rep. so they are always taking their time tweaking.

 

[POshy]

Short answer: NO

Hot Toys hasn't had any serious competition in the 1/6 figure market befor InArt appeared on the scene. Without InArt we probably wouldn't have seen the various tweaks HT did to some head sculpts recently because they simply didn't have to, there was no pressure on them. I have no doubt that HT would be able to up their game to InArt level of realism if they wanted to. I'm pretty confident in saying they have enough resources and talented artists to make rooted hair just as good as InArt. But they (probably) won't do it (just yet?) because that would raise their prices and then there wouldn't be much difference between the two companies.