Post by Straya on Jul 1, 2012 6:27:39 GMT -5
“From what I’ve heard, it was toy sales for GR. It’s also a bigger budgeted show than Ben 10 which probably doesn’t help its case.” - Fill Marc Sagadraca
For those who don’t know who this is, Fill worked as a story board artist on the third season of Generator Rex, including the GR/Ben 10 crossover. He’s also just as much of a fan of GR as many of the rest of us who watched the show religiously. So if that’s what he’s heard, it’s probably a good idea to take what’s been said about toy sales making or breaking an animated series to heart, particularly where GR is concerned.
I know a lot of people were dissatisfied with the job Mattel did with the GR toys. Quite frankly, I am one of those people. I don’t know if there’s something in contracts somewhere that prevented CN from going to Bandai to produce the GR action figures (since they handle the Ben 10 line), but whatever the reason we got what we got. We as fans like and want quality. I get that, being a fan myself. The problem is that when those of us with money to make purchases and influence the success of a series/line look at the merch and say, “I don’t like how this turned out, I’m not going to buy any of it”, we’re not supporting the show itself. In the minds of the execs, why keep something on air and continue to produce more episodes if those episodes don’t lead to merch sales? I hate how that is with a passion because it’s affected my favorite shows since I was a kid in the single digits. Hell, it got a lot of my favorite characters killed in the 1986 Transformers movie because their toys weren’t selling or weren’t on shelves anymore. No joke, that’s the legit reason for character death in that case. But that’s how it is and it’s something we as fans need to keep in mind. If we don’t like a toy line and boycott it, we’re a step shy of boycotting the series and limiting its success. And given the amount of shelf warming some GR toys did, I have a feeling that the fanbase could have done more than it did to support the show along those lines.
Unfortunately, the window has nearly closed for us at this point in using merch purchases to demonstrate our devotion to the series. Most of the physical goods (at least here in the United States) are either on clearance and hard to find, or they're simply unavailable. This lesson is one to keep in mind for future reference, though, in that if you really love a series? Buy a couple of the toys if you can afford it. Even if the toys aren’t that hot, plunking down $10-15 for not-so-hot toys is still you saying, “I want the show they represent to stay on the air.” Think of it as tossing a $10 bill into the [insert name of show here] donation pot if you have to.
So where does that leave us currently in terms of what we can do to show a little support that will put numbers on paper? Barring being able to buy what scattered merch remains, the most obvious option is paid legal downloads from iTunes and Zune. This is why I’ve spent months harping on and off different places about buying the episodes and not seeking free and illegal downloads. With illegal downloads and episodes not hosted online by the source, CN has no way of knowing how many people are still watching and interested, and obviously there is no financial gain for them as a network and studio. I get that not everyone has money to spend on these things… It does cost about $100 in Microsoft points to download all of GR from Zune. I know because I’ve about done it (I’m one season shy of owning it all at this point). But for those who can afford it, it’s what they should be doing in order to obtain episodes. Keep in mind also that there are people who worked on the show, aka people who deserved to get free episodes more than anyone else, who also paid to download from services like iTunes because they wanted to do things legally and support what they put so much hard work into.
I still firmly believe that CN could have done more in the way of advertising, however, because I’m honestly not sure I ever saw a TV ad for the GR toys? Ads for the show itself seemed few and far between after the first couple of months it was on air. And many of us in the GR fandom have experienced running into people online in forums and role playing communities who never even heard of GR, period. Or if they did, they had no idea what it was about. It was never something they really ran across that much, probably because…well…where was all the advertising? In fact, I think the only major ads I ever saw after those first couple of months were when the GR/Ben 10 crossover was about a month away from airing. Then, after that, the advertising for GR pretty much vanished again.
Basically what all of this amounts to is that the fates of these shows are ultimately in our hands. It’s an unfortunate truth that sales are the deciding factor in cases like these, but it’s one we have to accept. In our convo, Fill sited the Pixar Cars movies as a good example of this. The first one was not as critically acclaimed as The Incredibles, but because the toys did so well a sequel got made, more toys were produced and Cars is still a big deal. I wish quality story telling and compelling character development had more to do with shows staying on the air than they do...but they just don't.
(Post edited together from two posts I made to tumblr. Shorter in length, same basic information.)
For those who don’t know who this is, Fill worked as a story board artist on the third season of Generator Rex, including the GR/Ben 10 crossover. He’s also just as much of a fan of GR as many of the rest of us who watched the show religiously. So if that’s what he’s heard, it’s probably a good idea to take what’s been said about toy sales making or breaking an animated series to heart, particularly where GR is concerned.
I know a lot of people were dissatisfied with the job Mattel did with the GR toys. Quite frankly, I am one of those people. I don’t know if there’s something in contracts somewhere that prevented CN from going to Bandai to produce the GR action figures (since they handle the Ben 10 line), but whatever the reason we got what we got. We as fans like and want quality. I get that, being a fan myself. The problem is that when those of us with money to make purchases and influence the success of a series/line look at the merch and say, “I don’t like how this turned out, I’m not going to buy any of it”, we’re not supporting the show itself. In the minds of the execs, why keep something on air and continue to produce more episodes if those episodes don’t lead to merch sales? I hate how that is with a passion because it’s affected my favorite shows since I was a kid in the single digits. Hell, it got a lot of my favorite characters killed in the 1986 Transformers movie because their toys weren’t selling or weren’t on shelves anymore. No joke, that’s the legit reason for character death in that case. But that’s how it is and it’s something we as fans need to keep in mind. If we don’t like a toy line and boycott it, we’re a step shy of boycotting the series and limiting its success. And given the amount of shelf warming some GR toys did, I have a feeling that the fanbase could have done more than it did to support the show along those lines.
Unfortunately, the window has nearly closed for us at this point in using merch purchases to demonstrate our devotion to the series. Most of the physical goods (at least here in the United States) are either on clearance and hard to find, or they're simply unavailable. This lesson is one to keep in mind for future reference, though, in that if you really love a series? Buy a couple of the toys if you can afford it. Even if the toys aren’t that hot, plunking down $10-15 for not-so-hot toys is still you saying, “I want the show they represent to stay on the air.” Think of it as tossing a $10 bill into the [insert name of show here] donation pot if you have to.
So where does that leave us currently in terms of what we can do to show a little support that will put numbers on paper? Barring being able to buy what scattered merch remains, the most obvious option is paid legal downloads from iTunes and Zune. This is why I’ve spent months harping on and off different places about buying the episodes and not seeking free and illegal downloads. With illegal downloads and episodes not hosted online by the source, CN has no way of knowing how many people are still watching and interested, and obviously there is no financial gain for them as a network and studio. I get that not everyone has money to spend on these things… It does cost about $100 in Microsoft points to download all of GR from Zune. I know because I’ve about done it (I’m one season shy of owning it all at this point). But for those who can afford it, it’s what they should be doing in order to obtain episodes. Keep in mind also that there are people who worked on the show, aka people who deserved to get free episodes more than anyone else, who also paid to download from services like iTunes because they wanted to do things legally and support what they put so much hard work into.
I still firmly believe that CN could have done more in the way of advertising, however, because I’m honestly not sure I ever saw a TV ad for the GR toys? Ads for the show itself seemed few and far between after the first couple of months it was on air. And many of us in the GR fandom have experienced running into people online in forums and role playing communities who never even heard of GR, period. Or if they did, they had no idea what it was about. It was never something they really ran across that much, probably because…well…where was all the advertising? In fact, I think the only major ads I ever saw after those first couple of months were when the GR/Ben 10 crossover was about a month away from airing. Then, after that, the advertising for GR pretty much vanished again.
Basically what all of this amounts to is that the fates of these shows are ultimately in our hands. It’s an unfortunate truth that sales are the deciding factor in cases like these, but it’s one we have to accept. In our convo, Fill sited the Pixar Cars movies as a good example of this. The first one was not as critically acclaimed as The Incredibles, but because the toys did so well a sequel got made, more toys were produced and Cars is still a big deal. I wish quality story telling and compelling character development had more to do with shows staying on the air than they do...but they just don't.
(Post edited together from two posts I made to tumblr. Shorter in length, same basic information.)
aen, i'm Kaleidocat on ao3! im in a personal branding crisis rn haha
And I did eventually finish my thesis, if anyone was wondering