The future of Playmobil

[Erik]

Also, on one pirate ship, they had an african american with raggedy clothes and a slave collar. Not rascist, hmmm?? (they almost got sued!)

Don't believe everything you read on the internet, son-and I don't see what's possibly wrong with a portable toilet booth or a hazmat suit...I know from first hand experience that both these things are WAY safer than swords or guns, lol...

[Rhalius]

Gladiators are slaves too but there was no issue taken with that. An ex-slave should be no trouble.

[Klickteryx]

Gladiators are slaves too but there was no issue taken with that. An ex-slave should be no trouble.

That issue was a single racist woman trying to jump on the bandwagon of being aggrieved about nothing. She had no problem buying a pirate set for her son did she?
Most of the prisoner/criminal figures that have come in chains and cuffs over the years in playmobil have been white. This was a set based on pirates which used a lot of ex-slaves in their crews and as was pointed out at the time, three out of the four klickies in the set were that darker colour.

I'd like to see a slave set. A group of European peasant types with chains around the neck and ankles. Would be good for ancient and medieval themes as well as convicts being sent to Australia or even white slaves in the Caribbean or Barbary pirate raids along the European coastline. No slavers would be in the set so the identity of the slaves would be open to whatever you wanted them to be.

[Birdie]

Okay I'll admit, I was one of the people who voted for "expand movie franchise business" 
They produced their own animated TV show and I do not like the look of it at all, and they're doing the merchandise for that anyway. So I'd rather see them produce sets of movies I like.
I know a lot of people hate the fact that Lego went that way, but I would love to be able to buy Playmobil Harry Potter sets or recreate sceneries and castles from Disney movies. I imagine it would look awesome in a Playmo version, if the items were developed at a high standard (you know, design-wise).

Which brings me to the next thing I voted for: "back to basics".
Playmobil is moving towards ever younger target groups it seems, and so a lot of the newer sets look like Fisher Price toys meant for toddlers. I understand why they do this, from the company's point of view, trying to make money. Kids stop 'playing' with toys a lot sooner nowadays. When I was a kid, my best friend and me enjoyed Playmobil most when we were 10 to 12 years old. The target audience is now 4-year-olds. It shows. For a collector the half-a-buildings, the preschool look and preschool colours, the weird facial expressions, the lack of fine detail and the heavily printed faces and clothes for clickies are a real shame.

I like the moving hands, but I don't need bended arms or legs. It makes the clickies less versatile.
Same goes for the smiles: if all clickies wear a smile, they are interchangeable. I have no problem imagining clickies feeling sad or angry since the smily face is kind of generic to me.

But I'm pretty sure both my wishes will not come true
So I focus on what I do like from the new stuff, and I mostly collect re-issues and second-hand sets from earlier periods.

[Rhalius]

Same here, most of my playmobil budget is spend on reissued DS sets and PCC exclusives. A small bit on auctions too and not really much on new stuff that actually appears in stores.

I think the latest pirate batch is a complete fail and shows most of what is wrong with their direction. Barely any accesoires, no loose gold pieces but instead ugly piles of gold with a terrible color, a pirate ship that costs more yet doesnt even have a playable cabin, a weird raft that has a cannon on it and a plastic sail, a lighthouse the size of an outhouse with a huge window in it, and a large island set thats not offering anything interesting. Its only redeeming quality is some nice looking clickies due to new parts.

The pirate batch before it from some years back was a very strong one though so I can really say without a doubt that in this case its certainly not nostalgia blinding me.

[Klickteryx]

I buy mostly second hand stuff from the 90s.
Some of the newer sets I like such as the alpine sets and I like the Dwarf with treasure hoard set. Speaking of which, I've bought two of this set, both of them have a small treasure box which will not close because the hook part wasn't moulded properly. In one it was the gold box, in the other it was the silver box. I can't replace these either as such a service doesn't exist in my country, the people in the shops stare at you blankly and say they'll look into it and you never hear from them again.

I don't like the way they're adding larger bases to the sets and reducing the number of klickies. It's nice to have an environment for the klicky to exist in, but random bases that don't fit together, buildings that can't be modified and are difficult to store because they're one huge piece detract from the set. Great for lazy/stupid parents who can't put things together and don't like mess, or can't teach their children to pick up their toys, not so great for the future of the product.

[Rasputin]

I don't like the way they're adding larger bases to the sets and reducing the number of klickies. It's nice to have an environment for the klicky to exist in, but random bases that don't fit together, buildings that can't be modified and are difficult to store because they're one huge piece detract from the set. Great for lazy/stupid parents who can't put things together and don't like mess, or can't teach their children to pick up their toys, not so great for the future of the product.

  so true

Bring back the "system" in geobra

Building system
Klicky system
Interchangeable system
A person is anything system

[Ismene]

I don't understand the fear of assembling buildings. I got the 5305 at age 8. I put it together. Kids can figure things out. For younger children, teach them. Toys are supposed to be educational. Figuring out how to assemble things is a life skill people need.

[Rhalius]

Agreed, but it all seems to be part of the lazy way society seems to progress these days. Movies must be fast paced too otherwise many people seem to get bored. 
Musicians dont need to be able to sing or write a song, they just need to look appealing, be more of an icon than an actual artist.
Many videogames are simplified, sacrificing depth for this to try and appeal to a mass market while alienating the actual fans of those franchises.

Good thing that kickstarters, youtube and other means help give real talent a platform to share their gifts with the world though. But that does not apply to toys.

[bonniebeth]

Yep, we live in an age of instant gratification. Heaven forbid you should have to do a little work before you can enjoy playing. My little niece-in-law is like that. She wants me to set all the playmobil up for her so she can play with it. She doesn't have the patience to do it herself. For me setting it up is the fun part. I do think playing with playmobil has increased her patience and dexterity a great deal, though.