Posted 25 October 2010 - 04:25 AM
I think Mattel and DST are both letting their licenses sit dormant for the time being. They both know that they have a potentially marketable license in their hands, but the problem that they face is the economy. The first thing people cut from their budget in a recession is recreational spending, and "toys" are at the top of the list for recreational spending.
DST has actually been pretty smart; they put their action figure line on hold, and are continuing to release ships and Tek. While ships and Tek certainly cost more then figures, the releases are fewer and further between, so people can actually still afford them. Likewise, Mattel's problem wasn't that they had a product that nobody wanted, their problem was that they had products that people wanted but simply couldn't afford.
Knightone, Mattel's lines performed poorly for the same reason that all toy lines performed poorly in 2009 and 2010, which is the fact that the recession has pummeled the toy industry. Even lines that sell well like Hasbro's Star Wars line have taken a bit of a hit. The fact that Mattel still has their license, even if they're not using it should say that at the very least, CBS has faith in them even if they don't have that much faith in a Trek line right now. The fact that CBS and Playmates have made it sound as if they've actually terminated their license with each other speaks volumes about their 2009 Trek line.
To be honest, I understand why Trek didn't sell well in 2009; people simply couldn't afford it. The difference between Mattel and Playmates though is that I actually saw stock move when it came to the Mattel line. Ships were sold, and people bought them, even if they might not have been in the numbers that Mattel and CBS would have hoped for had the economy been better. The stock for the Playmates line on the other hand didn't move. I could walk into almost any store in my area that was carrying the Playmates line and the only thing that might change was the amount of dust on top of the figures, which were effectively peg-warmers. They were discounted multiple times, and even with discounts they moved at a glacial pace. Playmates also seemed to have trouble selling ships. Their $25 dollar 1701 sat as a shelf warmer long after the movie had been released, and much like the action figures, it too saw several discounts. A friend of mine actually picked up the Trek XI 1701 for $5.00 dollars. My friend works at Wal-Mart, saw the ship marked down to $5.00, and bought it after he clocked out one night; with his employee discount, it was actually closer to $3.00 dollars, and had it been defective, there were two more sitting on the shelf that didn't seem to be warping out of the store anytime soon. The quality of the merchandise, coupled with a lack of disposable income effectively killed Playmates' line. Mattel may not have had their line sell as well as planned, but the quality wasn't as much of an issue with their product as it was with Playmates'.
If the economy continues to stagnate though, I could actually see the 2012 Trek film having a very minimal toy presence, quite possibly something akin to the Art Asylum NEM line that consisted of four figures after two were canceled when the movie bombed. If Trek XII is the "Revenge of the Fallen" of J.J. Trek, this will be even more likely then if the movie does well as we hope that it will.
