When we talk about toy making, Made in China is world class.

Source of the map: Dior / Zhihu

What is the highest level of toy manufacturing in China?

Know friends | Dior

I saw this question through a friend recommendation, and I was very excited to climb all the buildings seriously, but the feeling of reading was very strange.

Personally speaking on the issue alone: ​​For the current level of toy manufacturing in China, it is definitely a first-class standard. After all, it has been producing toy products for world-class toy companies for more than a decade, whether it is production technology or coloring process. It is top-notch, coupled with the low labor costs, it also makes nearly 80% of the world's toys Made in China.

Let's talk about the feelings in most of the answers: Because I always collected the reasons for buying toys, I met several toy factory owners in Dongguan in the late 1990s, and I was fortunate enough to visit several.

One example is the company, which is for the sake of Shouwu, Diamond Select (the largest comic channel dealer in the US, also produces toys), McFarlane (when he went to the first generation of the dragon series that was popular at the time), the child The company, such as Zhibao and Disney, manufactures toys. From the level of manufacturing technology, the factory is completely easy to control. In the words of its boss, the toys are actually the same, without any difficulty.

In other words, Chinese manufacturing is certainly world class, without considering the so-called intellectual property issues to discuss technology.

Diamond Select in 2002

Production of the statue of Marvel character Loki

McFarland's Dragon Series

Image from Baidu search

Well, the question is, what exactly is the "toy" we are discussing here, and if it is a toy like a rattle, a ball, or a rattle that does not require intellectual property rights, it will be discussed without considering cost and complete conscience production. Then Chinese manufacturing must be the best in the world.

But if you are talking about Transformers, Gundam, film and television theme 1:6 movable humanoids, animation, comic character dolls, and even GK toys, then the reason why these toys make everyone like and the core is actually intellectual property. section.

The author conceived a work, created a character, and was loved by the public, so that the toy was put on the market for players to buy and enjoy; or the designer created an image, a character, made a toy, and then the player liked or even sought after; similar Such "toy manufacturing" is relatively recognized by everyone.

So the so-called "toy manufacturing" may not be just about the toy production.

For the sake of personal hobbies and familiarity, take the example of Transformers of Hasbro. The history of Transformers characters and toys can be traced back more than 30 years ago. Even the toys of all deformed robots and even robots will be called "Transformers" by many people.

Hasbro's Transformers brand has been established since then, there are countless loyal fans around the world, initially to create animated ads for toys, the result is animated globally, so the toy is sold, this is almost a well-known product success case, and the animation continues to rely on animation The work promotes toy production and also makes the brand of Transformers prosper.

However, a brand always has bottlenecks and shortcomings. Transformers are no exception. With the increasing age of the core fans of the original Transformers, the purchasing power has increased accordingly, and the sales of toys are not as good as before, especially in the face of future potential market. It’s a child, and now the child’s perception of Transformers is not as good as the golden age of the 80s, or even when the Transformers are relatively quiet in the late 1990s; it can be said that if there is no DW comics (including the current IDW comics), 07 real people For the movie, Transformers may be as silent as many of the animated characters we are familiar with.

Along with another round of fiery fashion, the toy has also started to sell again. Hasbro has seized the opportunity to open up a series of toys that will pay for new powder and old powder.

Then the entire Transformers brand began to work from low-young animation, slightly older animation, live-action movies, comics, games, etc., using the strategy of animation, comics, games and toys to push the Transformers toy back to the back. In the public's field of vision, similar to the major business supers also reappeared in the figure of toys.

Of course, this change is for most non-core fan groups, but for fans who insist on collecting Transformers, it has never disappeared, but after all, this is only a small number of people.

In the Transformers animation works, the super-popular character Six-faced Beast is a metamorphic toy product that has been redesigned by Japanese designer Lianjing Zhangwu and recently launched. It has six fixed deformation modes and is highly playable.

The above paragraph does not seem to have anything to do with toy manufacturing, but for companies that make toys, there is no such thing as a foundation, no market reaction, and no follow-up toys.

For example, many of the characters who appear in Transformers have so far had no toys or even toys. The reason is very simple, which is derived from market feedback and survey of popularity.

I have talked to many Japanese designers who designed the Transformers Toys of Japanese company Takara Tomy. Why do many people just stop making toys after a short time, and some people who are supposed to be partner roles only have A and are late. I don't see B. Some characters that are super-characteristic in animation and comics have never seen any toys and the like.

The designer said with a smile, in fact, what they want to do most is not limited to the following: designing all the characters to play; redesigning the toys that feel unsatisfactory design; hope to design a certain series in multiple series. A few characters that I particularly like; I hope that I can play freely without restriction in the current toy design process.

The most critical factor that constrains toy designers and even the company's decision-making is nothing more than cost and sales. Transformers have a very clear classification system and a very clear price system.

In order to facilitate the promotion strategy for different markets, the second is to facilitate the scientific process of managing products, and then consumers can easily find the right way to buy their toys according to their own needs.

At the same time, if a character's response is flat or even a mess after the product is released, even if the character is the protagonist, even if the partner role can be combined, it will not save the fate of the subsequent products.

TakaraTomy's Master Piece series, the 24th automaker commander, has a role in the original animation of the lion that can be combined with Lion King. Unfortunately, the sales of this product were flat after the launch of the product, and the plan of the follow-up Lion King was also suspended.

(In fact, there are two factors for the role of the copyright party: first, whether the popularity of the character is high enough, and secondly, the most important thing, see how the character related products of the character or even the sales of the related products of the series. Therefore, whenever you want the series to follow, the best way is to pay for the purchase in addition to the active voice.)

To the so-called toy design and manufacturing, take the Transformers toy designed by Takara Tomy as an example. The American Hasbro company will design and produce a Transformer Transformer toy, so the company will character, design requirements, grade, toy parts. Hard data such as the number of toys and the total weight of toys are sent to the design team, and then these Japanese designers complete the design requirements based on these hard requirements.

In other words, all the Transformers toys we see on the market, no matter how complex or simple, are the result of various calculations and research.

There is also a small detail here, because the US version of Transformers requires a different time to market than the Japanese version, so Japanese designers often press the design deadline to complete the design and then quickly send it to production for the global market; The toy is relatively late for a month to go public, so the designer has enough time to adjust the tightness of the parts, detailed description and even deformation mechanism, as well as enough time to redesign the color scheme, which is why Japanese toys and US toys have One of the very different reasons; of course, because the Japanese version of the toy faces the age and the US version, so the Japanese version of the toy is often much higher than the US version of the price.

The boxed transformers in the picture are Japanese-style toys. The coloring, joint tightness, and even the head carving and color matching are very different from the US version of the toy. Similarly, the listing period is a few months later, and the price of the item is also Expensive, a few of the figures are about 50% expensive.

There are a lot of toy collectors who will complain about how the material of the Transformers toy is not as good as before or how dissatisfied. In fact, there are also many factors. In addition to the design restrictions mentioned above, there are pricing issues. In order to ensure the continuous increase in costs such as logistics, labor, production, raw materials, marketing and channels, relatively stable pricing can still be guaranteed, such as controlling parts to reduce the number of molds, and specifying the weight to determine the logistics freight.

Another core reason is that national markets, especially the United States and China, are constantly improving their safety standards for toy materials, so the materials used in Transformers are now quite different from those of the 1980s.

That is to say, when talking about toy manufacturing, it is not appropriate to put aside any link in the commercial chain or to talk about health and safety factors.

In October 2016, in New York, I played the Shadowshadow Shadowshadow, which has not yet been released. The split can be changed into airplanes and tanks. I talked with the designer about many considerations when designing this toy, which mentioned about I like this character very much, but since the sales volume is not expected to be very high, I will use another method like remodeling to produce another super-popular character in the future.

The so-called third-party morphing robot toy that emerged from more than a decade ago (sorry, you can't and should not use the so-called third-party transformers to describe these products, because strictly speaking they are not Transformers), in fact, it is because Many players feel that some toys are not perfect in design, and some of the favorite characters are not able to produce toys.

Later, due to the re-heating of Transformers, third-party manufacturers have gradually expanded their camp and scale. A large number of deformed robot toys based on the characters in the Transformers works have emerged on the market, and many players have also been satisfied, and third-party manufacturers have benefited from it.

Strictly speaking, these third parties can't be defined by piracy. They don't use the persona name, don't use the registered faction logo, and don't put the name "Transformer" on the package for sale. Therefore, from a legal perspective, it is not a piracy.

In this regard, I have talked with the owner of the Transformers brand in the United States, designers and designers of the Transformers in Japan about their views. From a professional perspective, several Transformers practitioners do not think about the design of third-party toys. Explain, but they all understand that the behavior of these vendors cannot be defined by illegal means, but several people have said the expression of "violation of the rules of the game" at different times and in different occasions.

In fact, I understand this, for example, an image from the beginning of the design to the birth of the work, is to score 80 points from 0 points, then enter the subsequent peripheral production, through business considerations and designer efforts, an image from The work became a toy, and it was 90 points from 80 points, and good toys even achieved 100 points.

Then the role of the third-party vendor, regardless of the rules of the game, perhaps taking over from 80 points, designed a toy that can reach 110 points or even 150 points from the point of view of the game, but there is no corporate behavior constraint of the former copyright owner, maybe There are also no health and safety considerations.

Perhaps some third-party manufacturers took over from 90 to 100 and designed a toy accessory bag. A toy can be very beautiful and even more game-playing.

Both of these are common third-party vendors' models, and it can be said that these vendors become taller and stronger by standing on the shoulders of giants. So when discussing the level of toy manufacturing of these manufacturers, in fact, perhaps a little more comprehensive thinking about other factors.

As for some cottages, KOs, and manufacturers that directly convert other companies' products in various proportions, they can't even count them with third parties.

I have said a lot. In fact, if I want to talk about the level of toy manufacturing, if I only talk about the level of production, then it can be said to be the same level as a few decades ago: it has always been a world-class level. Then there is no need to explore those excellent third-party vendors or even pirated vendors.

All in all, when we talk about making this topic in China, we should probably consider and discuss other necessary links and factors besides pure production and processing. Maybe, in this way, you can find more interesting content to share.

Thanks for reading this, in short, it is always fun to play with toys together.

Source: Knowing the Daily

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