>>11546221Because it's less of a risk in the investors' eyes. Licensed toys already have a baseline market of people who are familiar with the product, so there's less marketing required. Why invest in making Johnny Thunder or Dino when you can just sell to people who already know Indiana Jones or Jurassic Park? That's also why anything that doesn't fit in a license gets swept into City or Ninjago – they already know it'll sell.
It's the same reason we get so many franchise and nostalgia movies, rather than new stuff. If it flops, the exec who pitched it can just say "I guess people just weren't as interested in that brand as the data implied" rather than "we made a bad product"
On a related note, we're never getting the old way back. Now that the market is saturated with IPs people recognise, they're not going to buy up toys of the no-name characters they don't recognise. It's true of the old Lego building style too; now that every Lego set is packed with little bits for exact details, something with a simpler build like pic attached wouldn't be bought by a lot of buyers. It's probably more in line with the 4+ sets these days.
