>>7457585Last year and ongoing. These companies don't make money by producing their own content, they do it by licensing and outsourcing production. Remember that Marvel bought Toy Biz, renamed the company Marvel Toys, then sold the Marvel toy rights to Hasbro while Marvel Toys made TNA Wrestling figures and toys of comic characters from other publishers.
Having someone else pay you to use your shit and eat the cost of producing it while taking revenue from the sales is a more lucrative endeavor than producing your own stuff and tying to make a profit while balancing that versus paying to produce it yourself. It's why Marvel didn't start making their own movies outright in the begining and signed their properties over to places like Fox and Sony, but the movie biz is a different beast entirely now and it was essential for them to start their own production company, but for physical goods it's still best to let someone else handle the grunt work and make bank for you.
