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Hasbro - What Happened?
by Aqua Flash
(10/08/07)
Hasbro decided to fully take over Larami at the end of 2002, which brought in the years to follow right up to now and probably in the future a fairly big range of not so great soakers compared to 2002 and before. This has made demand for older soakers go up and a lot of frustration at the mostly underpowered and weak soakers made now. But why is this? Why did quality and power just take a big step down? There are a number of reasons that have been thought of, in which Aqua Flash will now analyse and share his own views on and go into other details about this very frustrating matter that has now been in place for a fair few years now.
One reason that people thought may have caused this which was thought of in 2003 and 2004, was the fact retailers were complaining about soakers taking up too much shelf space and not making enough money off the larger guns, which imposed a $20 price limit on soakers made in 2003 and 2004. While it is sort of true at the time, I don't believe this anymore now, as you can see that in the past few years after 2004 soakers priced over $30 were made and they still take up a fair bit of shelfspace, look at the HydroBlitz new for 2007 as an example, its priced at $40 and is rather big, so it makes me believe that this issue just went out of the window, and there is more to it than just a stupid price limit and moaning about how much space they take up in the shop. I'm pretty sure the older great CPS guns over $20 must have got a lot of interest. About nearly 2 years ago I did a bit of phoning around Toys'R'Us stores asking if they had any older CPS guns, and they said they only had the new ones, but believe it or not they told me that a lot of people have been asking this and they said they prefer the older soakers than this new stuff being put out, which pretty much makes me think that this reason isn't really very true. People over here (me included) would most likely be happy to pay more than $20 for soaker like the CPS guns of old instead of this mostly new crap out now.
It may also be down to the fact Hasbro are a much bigger company who make a much wider range of toys than Larami did, as Larami didn't make as many things so they could actually focus more on the Super Soaker brand actually making it good. Although this doesn't mean Hasbro can be let off just for that. If they can make a gun as big as a HydroBlitz selling it for $40, then it proves they can still make powerful like in old times, its just that they won't for some retarded reason. They could even rerelease some of the older CPS guns if they wanted to probably, but they won't. I'm pretty sure they can, I mean they listen to the Nerf community and that community are pretty happy and impressed with their stuff, they have even had meetings with the community taking in their feedback, not only that, I remember that there was a Hasbro respresentitive who was a member on one of the Nerf forums. If they can do that with Nerf they could do all this and give interact with the soakering community as well, but they don't, most likely because they either don't care as much about their Super Soaker brand (even though they have the opportunity to actually make good guns and make us happy), or they are too scared to speak up for the mess they have created to us. Perhaps they lurk around and watch most of us ramble at them, we don't know that though. Before when Larami was in charge (and when I wasn't around online), they actually interacted with the online community and helped them with stuff like web space and giving awards to various great sites back then in which most of those are sadly inactive or lost. They really did care and they knew what we liked and wanted. They even gave out sample soakers for free to the owners of the big sites, very caring indeed, Larami did their homework well, and knew what they were doing no questions asked there. Hasbro barely do anything like that, the only thing I can remember Hasbro doing was when iSoaker.com had a contact (probably from Hasbro) in 2004 saying that CPS would make a return in 2005, which it did, but it wasn't as powerful as we all knew with the old CPS 2002 and before.
There is also reasoning that Hasbro are aiming their soakers towards a more younger kid audience. This I don't even believe at all, if this is the case, then Hasbro really don't care, you want to know why, well, read on. Basically, when Larami were there making soakers, not only did they make ones that targeted the younger kids audience, they also cared about us grown ups who wanted bigger more powerful guns. They also offered younger kids the choice of making smaller yet still good air pressure soakers like the XP 270, 310 and many more if they wanted a good starter gun that they would still find useful if they wanted to upgrade. Or, for the younger kid who wanted more power in still a good managable package, there were guns like the CPS 1000, 1200, 2100, and even the Splashzooka 65oz for kids who didn't like pumping but still got what they wanted with good, raw power. There were more guns to choose from in general, as you had the XP/Max D line for air pressure guns for the younger audience, and you also had the big CPS line for the older audience while still giving the younger audience a choice of guns to suit them as well if they wanted something with more power. Larami knew this, and they did the best for us. Everybody was pretty much satisfied, as it gave younger kids a good choice and us people who are older (teens, college to even family) a good reason to have some good fun in the summer without looking stupid with a puny underpowered squirt gun, too bad its not like that anymore with most of what is being offered now. Look at the NYC Toy Fair pictures 2002 on iSoaker,
the younger kids as you can see are using CPS 2100's, they don't seem
to be having any trouble using them, Hasbro don't seem to think that
though, they've pretty much thrown stuff like this out of the window
and have also thrown a lot of our older audience out of the window with
it Those priceless moments of going to a toy shop to celebrate or have some fun and coming home with a big bad glory days of old CPS gun (or even air pressure gun for the kids) with a big smile on your face in the summer are sadly gone. Come back home with a HydroBlitz despite being big its just not the same, as they aren't really badass due to the lack of power for a gun its size. So, this pretty much makes me feel that Hasbro have actually taken a step down here, they have limited their audience, but they don't really care I bet unless they get lots of sales, doing that has neglected a lot of us people who really liked the older more powerful guns that suited us. Its rather surprising the people I know around me say the new guns are crap and how the older guns are so much better, its like that on the web, you find quite a few kids on sites like Amazon saying how the old soakers Larami made and CPS line is just so much better, so it even gets through to a fair few others too.
So, this leads me to believe that Hasbro just aren't as clever as Larami are, and they aren't bothered as much either. Its amazing to think that guns like my CPS 1500, 1700 and 2100 were made by a company who knew what they were doing with Hasbro paired with them, that is pretty much no more now sadly, take out (or in Hasbro's case buy out) a major component and think things will be just as good with someone else in charge, that isn't always the case is it?
There are other problems that have come as a result of Larami being taken over, distributing has got way worse, before in counties like the UK and over Europe, you used to your local toy store like Toys'R'Us and there would be a whole isle of all the newest and baddest soakers out there ready to take home, with Hasbro distributing its not like that anymore, they don't really make them easy or as easy to get anymore, not that it really matters much at the moment since most of them aren't very good anyway. Quality has also gone down, less focus on the brand has led to most soakers Larami made instead of lasting years before something happens (which can be fixed) has now gone down to a matter of months on a fair few guns, either way, they don't really last as long now, Hasbro's very good at making money strategy of making you go out to buy a new one while using cheap materials to make as much profit as they can. Larami made profit but also didn't skimp on the quality.
I don't know if people from Hasbro have looked at or read this site, if they do then they are probably afraid to look at it as it shows that they can't hide from how successful they were back with Larami way back from 2002 and before. Guns like the Flash Flood and Aquapack Devastator are decent and worthy of a mention, but if you go from 2004-07 and they are the only guns to be worth a mention then its a pretty awful achievement, and even then those guns aren't as good or as powerful as the older CPS guns made. If this was Larami nearly every gun or every gun they made each year was great, with probably about two guns not being so great, but out of lots of guns they made, then its barely anything.
Basically Hasbro can fix their problems and make good stuff, its just they aren't trying very much, I guess we should just leave them to it and let them decide, hopefully tough competition from the developing Buzz Bee Toys Water Warriors brand will give them a well needed wake call and kick into gear, but for now all we can do is watch and wait, or just pay more for older soakers and build our own (however building your own gun is near impossible over here unless you know what your doing and have time).
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