>>10450921I think that applies more to girls than boys. Granted, there is a degree to which it matters to boys. Like, with GI Joe I felt like I absolutely had to have one of every main character. Roadblock, Stalker, and Doc were all essential must-haves to me. Did I need more than one of each though? No. With other characters I did end up with more than one though because there'd be some new variant that I thought was really cool, but I didn't feel like I needed to get a lot of variants.
A better example might be Star Wars. Think about all the costume variants the characters had in the movie. Every kid is going to want Luke and Han from all three movies + Luke's pilot suit + Luke and Han in storm trooper disguises and maybe their camo gear from Return of the Jedi. Most kids wanted at least one Princess Leia and one Lando. If kids are going to get just one Lando they're going to choose his Empire Strikes Back look, because that's the movie where he was a really important character. So what happens to all the General Landos from Return of the Jedi? They end up being peg warmers.
So yes, I do think kids and even many adults might have some biases about which figures they are attracted to, but that's not the customer's fault. I think toy companies need more elasticity in how many waves of figures they can order from the manufacturer, but that's all very complicated and above my pay grade to think about.
The thing about Lightyear is that it doesn't even matter, because the movie was a massive flop and that first shipment of toys never sold out. There was probably too much emphasis on the black girl character, but what was Mattel supposed to do? She was practically the main character of the movie and it's not like Disney was going to let Mattel ship her one-per-case.
