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Hasbro going plasticless is 100% an overreaction to the Covid-19 bullshit. They were placing their bets that the government-madnated lockdowns were going to be "the new normal" for the next decade, which is when the decision to ditch plastic windows happened. Hasbro literally thought that there was no future for brick and mortar retail and that the vast majority of retail was going to be online only, and if you are buying everything through amazon, 99% of customers are going to ditch the packaging anyway so in Hasbro's mind there was no real downside to saving a few bucks and getting their ESG score up.
I can guarantee you that now that Covid 19 has blown over, there are shouting matches going on at Hasbro right now about plastic-free packaging. Hasbro is heading into a fiscal year where their figures will be the only ones on toy aisle shelves where you can't actually see the toys inside, and it's going to be embarrassing for them. Online retail will be relatively unaffected (insert joke about how we all have to get 90% of our Hasbro toys online anyway because of their shit distribution), but for a kid running into Target with a $20 in his hand, they are going to run right past all the eco-friendly cardboard boxes and straight to the shiny plastic bubbles where the toy is on full display. Same will go for the adults who want another desk toy, and there is absolutely nothing about cardboard that can trigger an impulse.
