Sodan-1 wrote:I have to admit that I don't see a valid reason to blame Hasbro. The one thing that sticks in my mind from the last podcast is mention of how much it costs to develop a mold in the first place. Hasbro has obviously developed the mold and produced it in numbers, so it makes no sense that they would be the ones to prevent them hitting U.S. retail.
Hasbro can't force a retailer to sell their figures, and from a retailers perspective I can see why the First Editions might not be too attractive. An entire line that offers only 8 figures for a limited time until they are replaced in short order by the main RiD line which everyone knew was coming and would contain a good variety of figures. Hasbro only need to distribute their goods to a handful of the retailer's distribution centres. It's then their job to distribute them to the hundreds, if not thousands of stores across the nation, where they would most likely sit taking up peg/shelf space. The First Edition deluxe wave 1 figures were the smallest, cheapest and contained the most well-known characters. I'd say you were lucky to get them as it is.
The only way I think Hasbro can be held accountable is for putting these figures in a line of their own. Sticking to the original plan and integrating them with the Generations line would've avoided this problem.
If it was solely the retailers fault for not wanting to run a lot of them, could Hasbro not just sell them on Hasbro Toyshop? They aren't, and so they get my rage and not my money.