Why are action figures getting so small? is it just the uk?

Don't misunderstand, I got fed up wih buying toys when Todd mcfarlen was over charging. And I think the marvel legends ( hasbro two pack) are unrealistically high. So...I share the anger. But...the reality of it is also very
Hard to face some times. But I share the sentiments of anger.

Yeah lol, that was great Count.

Good answers

Sadly it's not all bull, I have run a restaurant, one I started and own a small business.
Inflation or rather what we have now is stagflation ( in the us at least but...everywhere really), is driving the price of EVERYTHING up. This is simply getting passed along to costumers. The price of food goes up ( rice and wheat have been rising continuously in the face of already hij proces do to shortages)at the whole sale level. It's more expensive for providers to buy transport and sell ( their employes hourly has steadily goan up plus in America we have many business matching 401k, health savings and and the company's insurance angst law suits and med insurance for the entity that is the company) so they have to charge more. Don't forget about driving which most food moves buy truck and train and oh....vehicles powered by oil...so since gas is more expensive they must absolutely charge more to make up for the gas money they loose. Then when I go to buy my items I am being charged double or quadruple ( when I buy sushi grade fish to make sushi...goes on a boat, then a plain then a train then a truck. 4 increase all passed along. Then I have to drive to Baltimore from York to buy it ( about 100 miles round trip. Or I can pay the USPS a premium to deliver it?
So when I take it back pay MY employes, my local taxes, my insurance, every year I have to re-new my licnenses , health inspections, advertising? Waste? I have to charge more...and that's a small buisness. And once a company gets big like
hasbro the government digs those claws in deeper. Plus I'm sure being so many enviro sanctions and penalties for making plastic( not sure if you are aware but my gf is a big greenie and fallows a lot of the green politics hard. Their is a hard core war on plastic. ) their are many extra tax's just for the luxury to use it in a " non-essential " item.
( that's what figures are, tires are essential, plastic for prosthetic limbs are deemed essential. Action figures are luxury items.)
So also. The casting proceeds , depending on which you do are pretty expensive? Retro casting I think is the chelest cause you use the lest amount of plastic. Also plastic recycles in grades.
You can only recycle it down. Metal can be melted down from a car and made back into a car?
Plastic once it has been recycled I think three times is no longer viable. Sooo. You get hit with another tax for that.
Then their is licensing. R&D EVERYTHING people make dosen't go to market and accrue a profit so that considered lost hours. Likeyou have a restaurant full of employes and almost no customers? You are still paying waiters and cooks to sit around but you are making no sales? If some one makes a figure only to have a legal issues arise with a mold or a imperfection occurs in mas production or it just gets shot down rigt befor release ( happens a lot) all that time and money paid has been pissed away.
Now...toy companies do in my opinion some times jack prices too high...
But, that's also cause they want to stay in bussniess. If they go under. We have nothing to customize.
And being I know two guysthat work for one ofthe big 3 inch companies.
You would be shocked if you found out how mug say they persons who made the sculpts and desinge on the
Last batch of MOTU figs made per character. Cause they re, desinge them and then sell them to this company.
It's a lot of money. Like when Netflix buys the right to rent or stream a DVD. They don't just pay 25.99 a DVD.
They pay somewhere around 15,000-40,000 probably more now o' days those were figs from when I worked at Hollywood video in like 2000?) a DVD cause the idea of the profit is built in to each copy.

As for why the smaller scale? I assume it has a bit to do with price, but also some to do with ease of reproduction. Also retail space is expensive ( you buy the area your items are displayed in stores...even if no one buys it or someone say covers it puts other things in front of it or if kids take your toys off the pegs and put them in the wrong place)
But also I think that ml's sales dropped off around the VISION CHASE debacle. Marvel short packed the figs everyone wanted ( deadpool w/doop) and then you had to pay out the nose to get one. So toybiz started over stocking putting a chase in each box. But at that point everyone did what we are talking about now...
They got pissed and stopped buying. Eventually they sold off to hasbro ( the dry hump of ml's joint wise)
Hml sales have/had been dropping for a long time to the point that well maybe we see one line a year or two?
I think the success of the first marvel univers launch started a trend. Best guess on the size issue.

Also you are right on the magic number of oil....the pricing of oil is a joke.
If you ask a oil annalyst to show you the equation that they use to modify oil prices they can't
It's basically someone wakes up in the morning and says " hmmm... I think I will need 60 more cents
Off every dollar today? Let's raise the price of oil!" and those people happen to probably lives in the Arab emirates

I think the ending was symbolism for the main character getting a new start
Forgetting his past after defeating his demons. Lotta' symbolism. He had a big problem with everyone starting real fight clubs after the movie came out. He did a interview were he was basically pleading ( althought kinda half hartedly cause he was part of the cacophony scocity) with people to understand it was a
Metaphor told in a way that took you by surprise. I had a customer who didn't buy it he took it pretty hard when I told him that his dudly icon, Chuck Palahniuk ,was gay. Apparently being gay ment you couldn't be tough as well.

It makes it so hard to do anything at this point, I just started customizng within the past month or so and they small figures with my fat hands feel like it would be impossible to even attempt. Hell I have a heard enough time with the 6 inchers. I've gotten a lot of good suggestions as to where to get some cheap figs (thrift shops and flea markets mainly) but the best I can say is to just hunt for stuff. The wrestling figures are good for workin on and wonderful to start lots and lots of projects with.

I was just thinking the same thing! anyone notice marvel select figures have only gone up by a couple bucks(at the most!) in the last several years,but marvel legends and dc etc price have sky rocketed!?! the new ml two packs were 25 bucks when they first came out at my local tru,then jumped to almost forty bucks!! holy spotted cow batman, and the marvel select use way more plastic,its way thicker, better paints and more shades of it,and huge packaging,made out of mostly plastic.I don't know about you guys but im pissed at hasbro,toy biz only raised thier prices a little bit when oil got expensive,but hasbro doubles the prices?! SHANANIGANS!!! oh man it feels good to get that off my chest

I'm inclined to agree. I've heard for years that oil prices are what drives the price up, but yet it never goes down when oil prices drop? It's either complete bullocks, or they choose to keep them high even after the price of oil drops. Either way 16 for a 6 inch figure is just too damn much.

It would be amazing if the ending to Fight Club were possible, but the major credit companies all keep auxiliary servers offsite. It'd be more complex than just blowing up the buildings. Maybe coupling it with a cyber attack... lol

What makes me laugh is you can find dirt cheap, and crappy looking, 6" figures at the dollar store yet hasbro can't manage to do the same when some company you never heard of can?

I'm guna have to call bull or at least conspiracy on the oil prices. Besides if adding articulation coat so much and the price of a 3.75 inch is so much more cost effective bundled with the added sales from recent movie figs, either it should balance out or they have some serious planning and budget issues! When oil prices drop are we guna see a price cut or added articulation? How 'bout more product? No! Don't say inflation either. That's just a magical number that means zilch in the real world! Just my opinion though! I think we could use a little life imitating art here. Ending to Fight Club anyone?

DCUC figs are great for customizing just about anything, as for the 3.75 inch figs I found it a little hard to work with a first but after few you kinda get used to it and it almost becomes second nature like when working with the 6 inch ones ( "I said ALMOST I try to customize in both scales only cause I sell all my customs ( I keep none ) and there is a market for both scales and I try to cater to both.

Its because of stupid oil prices. Whenever oil goes up in price, making action figures gets more expensive. That's why DCUC are like 16 bucks now.

Mate, I can tell you it's not easy finding 6 inch stuff in the main shops in the UK. All the big chains are only stocking 3.75" stuff because that's all that's getting made. Flea markets and car boot sales are your best bet over here mate, unless you wanna go down the ebay route or use WWE wrestlers, they're easily obtainable from Tesco, Asda, toys r us and generally any high street toy shop. Oh and welcome to the realm mate, always great to have more brits on board .