>>7635622>Feels like everything has to be licensed these daysIt's precisely because of shit like Xevoz. In the 80s and 90s, we still got a ton of original toylines, but in the early 00s, love for lines like that was starting to dry up. Even a toyline as fucking awesome as Xevoz found it hard to gain footing (there were other reasons for this, like over-ordering wave 1, but my point stands). The lesson this taught companies is that original properties were a risk. Why spend tons of time and effort on a gamble when you know that slapping Wolverine or Optimus Prime onto some piece of crap will guarantee sales every time?
And frankly, this situation is only going to get worse, as we see more and more small companies get literally eaten up by the big guys like Hasbro or Mattel. When you have next to no competition, and you hold a full deck of AAA licenses, what reason is there for you to ever make anything original again?
I'm looking to the indie toy market these days. Lots of people are doing really nice shit with resin casting and 3d prints, and some of the bigger names, like Glyos, are increasingly getting more and more of my toy budget. If the big companies won't give us what we want, it's up to us to make it.
