Spotted Online – Negative Batman Total Heroes Opinions at The Fwoosh
I personally am quite happy with Mattel’s new DC Total Heroes Batman* action figure — as I feel I clearly demonstrated in my review of the toy — but for reasons I cannot understand completely there are some who feel the toy is a slap in the face. In snowman’s review at The Fwoosh — in which he is generally positive and says nice things about the toy — there are some comments that startle me a little.
I suggest reading the review and comments, but there was one comment, by Shirlanka, that really jumped out at me:
“Now to be honest this was new line is to vomited in the face to all collectors for Warner / DC and Mattel, regardless of their reasons and end of DCUC these figures are terribly bad, too childish, innovative 0%, and a decline in the way mattel sees his former clients, or perhaps the line itself is a way in which Mattel reaffirms its intention to disregard the opinions of old collectors to look only at childrens and youngers that they lack the Adult opinion and pockets full of dollars.”
In my opinion, Mattel likely gave “adult collectors” almost no thought at all when they created this series. I strongly suspect that they looked more at costs, performance of their Batman Unlimited and Power Attack Batman lines, and then consulted with buyers at the mass market level before settling on the entire DC Total Heroes (Amazon.com search*) line design.
At $10 these toys look like a fantastic bargain to many when compared to similarly-sized toys in the boys toys aisle at the store. And the only way these can be $10 is for the articulation designs to be simplified. As to the sculpt of the toys, I think they look great. We have a lot of “realistic” Batman action figures and I — as someone who truly loves art and creativity — am personally happy to see Mattel taking a shot on something more stylized and G.I. Joe Sigma Six-like in style.
We all get to have out opinions, yes, but I don’t think this was a bad move by Mattel and anytime a toy is called “too childish” by someone I’m going to have to stop and point out:
Toys are playthings designed for children. A toy cannot be “too” childish, especially when it is one clearly aimed at capturing more children (and the money of the parents).
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That’s pretty shortsighted of the naysayers to think that a $10 figure clearly marketed towards the younger set should be compared to the adult collector figs. The term “boneheaded” comes to mind. 😉
That said, I think they look great and until the tail end of 2012 and most of last year it was YEARS before you could get just a standard Batman, Superman, etc. in their regular uniforms for kids.
Making the most-well known superheroes available at an atainable base price means more kids (of all age ranges) have access to their favorite heroes.*
That’s much more important than filling the over-stuffed shelves of adult collectors (who likely have plenty renditions of the same characters anyway). I’ve been an adult collector for about 20 years, so I feel like I can say that with some authority!
*Hopefully, this trend will start to extend into female superheroes sometime in the near future!
Boneheaded is one word…
“Adult opinion and pockets full of dollars” — I think someone has an overinflated sense of importance. I can’t say this for certain, but I would be willing to wager a small bet that all of the “pockets full of dollars” from adult collectors (and their opinions) do not equal the pockets full of dollars of parents, and how is it that adult collectors are qualified to know exactly what children want? You know they’ve done market research, focus groups, and all that jazz up the wazoo before bringing new product to the market.
Also — why is everything so personal “vomited in the face to all collectors for Warner / DC and Mattel” — it’s like people have this image of CEO’s and corporate big wigs sitting at their big mahogany tables trying to think of ways to screw people over. Toy companies are in the business of making money and they honestly do not care who it comes from.
@prfkttear – “Toy companies are in the business of making money and they honestly do not care who it comes from.”
Some companies do seem to put efforts into specific audiences, but I think that for the most part you’re right. These companies are businesses, and ones the size of Mattel must be run as businesses and take actions that’s best for the company, employees, investors, and business partners.
Of course some companies do. NECA for instance. Just look at all the amazing product they have put out just in the last year! I think NECA has to cater more to specific audiences. Not to say Mattel can’t, but they’re just working off an entirely differernt business model.