Hasbro Does it Again!

Discussions of all varieties of stock water guns and water blasters.
DX
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Post by DX » Thu Oct 25, 2007 9:54 am

<span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>WHAT A DOUBLE STANDARD!</span>

Like WTF why not us too?
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers

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Post by SSCBen » Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:38 am

Thank you for bringing this up.

I agree completely that the double standard is uncalled for. Why do they get the LOW DOWN on next year's line up while we sit here waiting? Things like this just reinforce the negative image some have of Hasbro.

Hasbro, if you are reading this, go ahead and give us the news already. :goofy:

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Post by cobralex297 » Thu Oct 25, 2007 1:18 pm

Why not us, Duxburian?
Because it would make sense.

DX
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Post by DX » Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:50 pm

That's why NerfHaven is the best.

We have a WHOLE team of "insiders" who are privy to Hasbro's HQ, and believe it or not, they have to exhibit a lot of restraint to NOT tell you guys anything until the Hasbro suits tell them it's okay to pre-release information.


Great. Fabulous. If only there were more active members, I'd suggest opening another RP like the one at SM that had us breaking into Hasbro HQ. :laugh:
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers

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Post by forestfighter7 » Sat Oct 27, 2007 1:44 pm

Ridiculous. Gaaah. I hate corporations.
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Post by SSCBen » Sat Oct 27, 2007 5:34 pm

My current thinking is that Hasbro's marketing the Super Soaker brand towards a younger audience and any sort of communication or meeting with us wouldn't help them. Of course, that would be inconsistent with their release of a larger, more expensive, but still underpowered water gun this year (the HydroBlitz). They obviously are trying to appeal to an older audience, albeit with underpowered water guns.

With that being said, there has been attempts from Hasbro to come forward. iSoaker has mentioned a failed meeting with webmasters in 2003 (I was not to be included in this meeting because my website had little prominence then). He does seem to have some sort of Hasbro contact from what he has posted over the years, but the extent of this contact is unknown to anyone aside from him. And I'm assuming he's met or is in regular contact with Big Bee because he obviously does their website. He's as close to an "insider" as we have.

I never have been successful in getting information from Hasbro. I have come close, but never have been successful. The closest I got was after the 2005 line was leaked in late 2004 when I emailed a representative. He asked what information I wanted, said he will give me a copy of the press release, and rudely never replied after that. That's how you treat your biggest fans!

One thing worth noting is that Hasbro has no problem initiating communication with NerfHaven despite their blatant promotion of Nerf modifications. The appeasement goals of this website are not well founded. I won't comment further about this because I know iSoaker wouldn't want me to, but I feel it is worth mentioning.

It's time for Hasbro to come forward to the webmasters of the biggest websites. The webmasters of the three biggest websites are all over 18 years of age now. It's a prime time for a meeting or some sort of exchange.

To any Hasbro employee reading this: please come forward and email me: ben at sscentral dot org




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Post by isoaker » Sat Oct 27, 2007 5:58 pm

Hasbro works in mysterious ways. All I know is that there's been a shuffle around in the Super Soaker management level. I've been longing to reschedule a meeting with Hasbro, but recent attempts have not yielded any notable progress.

As for websites, I'd like to think that webmasters of personal sites are free to build sites based on personal preferences and not need to justify choices to anyone else but themselves. Modifications and homemade building are discussed here at iSoaker.com; just not pushed as hard as done elsewhere or on some Nerf sites. Then again, modding/building water blasters have never been the reason I enjoy soaking, anyhow. 'nuff said on that.

Getting back to Hasbro, it'd be great if they'd open up communication, but I don't put all my eggs in one basket, either. :goofy: Maybe one day they'll open up more, but at least there's one water blaster manufacturing company that is listening as best as they can.

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Post by DX » Sun Oct 28, 2007 12:58 am

I'd just like to note that Nerf webmasters are not only able to choose whether or not they want to pursue mods and homemades, but they are also free to pursue their tech without pressure to not make certain variants of homemades or to not do certain types of mods. What is the point of supporting tech if both the support itself and type of support is constantly pressured? I will leave it at that.

Getting back to Hasbro, I have never had luck in getting so much as a real reply from them. I am lucky to get automated replies, as I used to get nothing at all. Even though BBT listens more to our concerns, they don't have CPS. My problem is that I need a WW water gun on par to a modded CPS. It's asking and expecting too much.
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers

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Post by SSCBen » Sun Oct 28, 2007 11:10 pm

Hasbro works in mysterious ways. All I know is that there's been a shuffle around in the Super Soaker management level. I've been longing to reschedule a meeting with Hasbro, but recent attempts have not yielded any notable progress.


Keep trying and keep us updated. I'd be very interested in some sort of meeting with Hasbro.

With that being said, I'd also be interested in meeting Big Bee or any other manufacturer of water guns.

Getting back to Hasbro, I have never had luck in getting so much as a real reply from them. I am lucky to get automated replies, as I used to get nothing at all.


Emailing those listed on press releases seems to be more reliable from my experience, although, I only tried it once. Contacting customer service representatives doesn't seem to help at all and you're much more likely to get an already written response. Customer service representatives don't have much leverage anyway, so we should avoid contacting them unless it's a complaint about their product.

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Post by DX » Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:27 pm

Double Standard gets even worse

like <span style='font-size:17pt;line-height:100%'>WTF</span>

The defense that Hasbro is only aiming at younger age groups is now out the window, along with shelf-space restrictions, price restrictions, possibly even power. Everything we thought we knew is now giving way to just blatant favoritism.
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers

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Post by SSCBen » Fri Nov 16, 2007 6:56 pm

I'm listening to the audio file and I'm really struck by the Nerf segment. I haven't found any Super Soaker segment yet, but they explicitly spoke about making guns for young adults (OfficeTag). I'll keep listening for anything else interesting...



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cobralex297
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Post by cobralex297 » Fri Nov 16, 2007 11:07 pm

Of course, and understandably so, there is a bias at this site towards Super Soakers.

As well, however, it is important to consider that Nerf Guns are generally more practical than Super Soakers...
Nerfs can be used indoors, which is why they can do an office tag, ... although the notion of office soakers is a fun one, I doubt it's too practical. Also, considering the wii-integrated videogame, it is more practical to include a corresponding nerf gun, because integrating a soaker could be catastrophic for electronics, IMO.

And although it does give a sense of comeradery to think about how we're being persecuted, and there is favoritism to the Nerfers, it is also important to consider that it is not so unjust. We are not equal fan-bases; the number of Nerfers is so much larger that if Hasbro acts in their interests more and more frequently than it does for us, it isn't exactly unheard of. Favoritism Shmavoritism, they're playing to the fan base that is larger and therefore has more potential to make them money. They're just being smart businessmen, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Devil's Advocate, I suppose.

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Post by Drenchenator » Sat Nov 17, 2007 12:08 am

Nerf does have a certain advantage over us: they can play almost year-round. Our ammo is free though.
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Post by DX » Sat Nov 17, 2007 1:50 am

We can play year-round too, just nobody except me wants to. :p
marauder wrote:You have to explain things in terms that kids will understand, like videogames^ That's how I got Sam to stop using piston pumpers

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isoaker
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Post by isoaker » Sat Nov 17, 2007 6:33 am

Since 2001, the Nerf brand is up 274%

Somehow, I think the Super Soaker line has seen a decrease, not an increase since 2001. Some of us can almost scream out all the reasons why, but regardless of those, the bottomline can make some do odd things in order to help it "recover".

As noted above, too, soaking is considered "seasonal" which also limits its marketability, unlike Nerf that can be used throughout the year.

No real surprises here; for soaking to become more popular, even bringing back the CPS2000 won't change things significantly, really. IMO, we need a change in how people view water warfare altogether and that would require a simple, but good system of organizing more than just free-for-all water fights. I'm hoping that something along these lines will emerge from the Water Warfare League discussions over at WWc.

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Jim likes SS's
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Re: Hasbro Does it Again!

Post by Jim likes SS's » Tue Mar 04, 2008 4:13 am

What Hasbro need to do is release a more powerful range for the older generation, and a less powerful (and perhaps more fun) range for the little guys. This way, they would sell more soakers as we are going to be more likely to buy the new, more powerful ones, yet still sell the less powerful ones for the main target audience. In doing this, we start buying new soakers, instead of the older ones such as the CPS 2k. They sell more soakers, we getter better blasters. Its a win win situation.

Anybody agree?

-Jim
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Flash Flood [everyone's got to start somewhere :)]

Soon to include:

Arctic Blast
Sneak Attack
Aquapack

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isoaker
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Re: Hasbro Does it Again!

Post by isoaker » Tue Mar 04, 2008 7:10 am

@Jim likes SS's: the idea you've proposed has been around for quite some time now. While on paper it sounds good, the market for more powerful, higher performance water blasters is just not readily apparent as those on the forums would like to believe. There may very well be a large market waiting to be tapped, but going from design to making sales would require a lot of investment than many companies just can't quite afford at the moment, especially since there's no guarantee it'll pay off. The Monster series was Hasbro's attempt at targeting the older audience and, from what I've overheard, sales were not as high as some would believe.

That said, the future holds a lot of possibilities and I'm forever the optimist. And while it'd be great to see the return of higher performing blasters from Hasbro, also remember Hasbro is not the only water blaster manufacturer out there.

:cool:
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Re: Hasbro Does it Again!

Post by Gold Hawk » Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:33 am

isoaker_com wrote:@Jim likes SS's: the idea you've proposed has been around for quite some time now. While on paper it sounds good, the market for more powerful, higher performance water blasters is just not readily apparent as those on the forums would like to believe. There may very well be a large market waiting to be tapped, but going from design to making sales would require a lot of investment than many companies just can't quite afford at the moment, especially since there's no guarantee it'll pay off. The Monster series was Hasbro's attempt at targeting the older audience and, from what I've overheard, sales were not as high as some would believe.

That said, the future holds a lot of possibilities and I'm forever the optimist. And while it'd be great to see the return of higher performing blasters from Hasbro, also remember Hasbro is not the only water blaster manufacturer out there.

:cool:
This is what happens when a relatively small company (Larami), is taken over by a huge corperation (Hasbro):

Now, Larami cared about us, they gave us what we wanted, and they kept it going for 13 long years. Then Hasbro comes in, and says, "hey, we will give you lots of money if you give us your water guns". The people at Larami were probably thinking, hey, it's the company that gave us Mr. Potato Head, that can't be bad.

That is the whole point. It IS bad. Mr. Potato Head is for LITTLE KIDS. Hasbro doesn't really give a **** about older kids. So they hand out crappy output soakers which break easily, which keep the little kids happy, and they look at us (teenagers), and say to themselves those kids are happy enough playing Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft on their game systems. They don't really like playing outside.

Sadly, they are correct...to a certain point. But don't they think that just maybe, if they start making the good old huge weapons of hydro doom, that maybe, just maybe, some of those teens will walk down the toy store aisle, and look at a huge 2 foot long gun, and think, WOAH, SUPER COOL!, then buy it, tell their friends, and soon we have tons of these soakers just flying off the shelves.

Hasbro is blind.

Larami saw everything. They knew right from the moment that the CPS 2000 hit the stores, that not everyone could use such a huge water gun. So they kept producing XPs and Max-Ds which had fair power.

For Hasbro, it's reversed completly. They have small guns, but those don't have much power. They have a huge gun released last year called the Hydroblitz (which aside from being under powered, is freakin expensive).

I'm not saying all of Hasbro's guns suck. Just most of them. These are the only ones I would recommend from Hasbro:

Flash Flood

Helix

Aquapack Devastator

Arctic Blast

Sneak Attack

That's my opinion.

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isoaker
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Re: Hasbro Does it Again!

Post by isoaker » Tue Mar 04, 2008 9:53 am

Hasbro doesn't really give a **** about older kids.
Actually, I don't quite think this is accurate. What is more accurate is that Hasbro, being the BIG corporation, has a certain set of mindsets and is very good at doing some things, but really bad at doing other things. Oddly, their Nerf division seems to understand the various levels of the market better than their present Super Soaker division. This year has been particularly painful in terms of new releases from Hasbro. We'll see what the future brings, but I don't and never intend to sit idly by.

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Re: Hasbro Does it Again!

Post by Drenchenator » Tue Mar 04, 2008 11:40 am

Now, Larami cared about us, they gave us what we wanted, and they kept it going for 13 long years. Then Hasbro comes in, and says, "hey, we will give you lots of money if you give us your water guns".
To be fair, Larami was bought by Hasbro long before the guns got back. In fact, the whole CPS line was build during this mixed period. The guns only real became bad after Larami truly ceased to exist--when Hasbro completely absorbed it.

Don't get me wrong: I want to buy high-performance water guns as much as the next guy! It just seems that Hasbro can't be bothered with; Buzz Bee at least listens--and hopefully something will come from the meeting iSoaker attended. But for right now, there are really two viable options: building and buying; though both require a lot of time and money.
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