>>5499357>Hell even Barbie is flounderingbecause they self-competed against another of their brands, for one. Then they keep making the dolls bland. That goofy-as-hell web toon that people like? 90% of us don't buy the dolls, we watch it because every character on that show is borderline psycho.
I know they made dolls to tie-in with that toon. The faces were crap, the extra articulation had the bad side effect of not mimicking the on-screen dolls(they are dolls in the toon and in this case, I think cutting back would've helped), they didn't really bother strongly with accessories(why didn't Stacy have a mini He-Man figure?) and best of all, no stands. Because these dolls balance so well on their own.
Their multi-racial dolls also really fail to sell well, and it's because they're not characters, it's just "well it's Barbie but she's black". They rarely even have unique names. That one called Raquelle in the toon? She's just "black-haired Barbie" otherwise. And yeah I know there's 50K years of evolution and burned-in behavior and all that other social stuff and possible racism and all that blah blah that I wont' get into that may play a part, but mostly it's Mattel's failure to give those other dolls personalities or even names most of the time.
Their inherent need to cut costs across all lines doesn't help, either. It's odd because Mattel generally does well across the board, they certainly have money to spent on paint apps and accessories, they just do not. Hasbro actually did far better on that even when they were under-performing. For fuck's sake a $20 action figure should have more than 1 accessory! Shit, ML even gets extra hands and heads now for the same cost!
