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Ruined Forever / Toys

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Toys are technically meant for kids, but that definitely won't stop the Periphery Demographic from calling Ruined FOREVER at the sight of the newest gimmick.


  • The greatest, trope naming example of Ruined FOREVER, Transformers, has had this happen all over the franchise
    • The most historically notable fan reaction was with the Beast Wars toyline and subsequent show, which older fans considered a dead-on-arrival concept that would kill the (long-dormant) franchise, since alien robots disguised as Earth animals is somehow less convincing of a concept than alien robots disguised as size-changing, driver-less, modern day vehicles. ...So of course it completely revived the franchise.
    • Then, Armada was criticized for its design hiccups that caused a detriment to appearance, transformation, or compatibility with other toys. Animated got it for its cartoony proportions that made super-accurate toys more difficult to engineer, and then Prime for supposedly not originally planning on having a toylinenote . Most recently, Titans Return and Robots in Disguise are getting flack for the various visible hollow spots on the toys to reduce the amount of material and assembly needed in a given toy, as well as loose joints and easily peeled off stickers.
    • None of these "faults" have actually resulted in a significant drop in toy sales, and in fact several toylines have topped the supposedly "perfect" Generation 1 toyline many times over. All of the perceived problems were present in several of G1's various subseries and gimmick groups, and well articulated figures didn't become the norm until the inclusion of the ball joint very late into G1/early into Beast Wars.
  • When the license for Marvel Comics toys went from ToyBiz to Hasbro, fans declared that the toys were Ruined FOREVER. Some even sold off their entire collections in "protest." The fact that Hasbro's first series of Marvel Legends had been designed and created by the ToyBiz crew, and would in fact have been ToyBiz's next series if the license had not been transferred, did not seem to matter to these folks. The only change was the name printed on the card, and that was enough.
  • LEGO has its fanatics, especially when it comes to its "Constraction" lines, like BIONICLE. Never mind the Fan Hater crew, even the line's followers expressed their hatred over several "drastic" changes. Some felt the story went downhill when the characters started speaking (as in, the very first page of the very first comic). Others left the story when the setting changed from a tropical island to a futuristic city. Then, when the marketing took a sharp turn and advertised the sets with rap songs and (decidedly non-canon) websites, even more fans turned away. And then there was The Reveal of the Great Spirit, the introduction of a new planet, and the sudden overflow of sci-fi elements. Thankfully, in contrast to many other fandoms described here, BIONICLE's fans never declared outright war over the subject. However that still doesn't mean there aren't any seriously butthurt people out there, banned from popular forums.
    • The dropping of the BIONICLE line for the more kid-oriented and multimedia Hero Factory caused many to claim LEGO's death, while in fact they were laughing all the way to the bank.
    • BIONICLE's 2015 relaunch, after a period of rejoicing, has lead to cries of the franchise being ruined again, due to the sets using Hero Factory parts (inevitable, as that's LEGO's current action figure system) and due to the Toa now being simply labeled as "Masters" on the packagings.
    • LEGO is also widely known for how, when you were a kid, it was all about being creative with boxes of generic blocks, whereas now it's all specialized parts designed around building one particular model. This complaint has been around for so long that it's begun actively disproving itself—after all, if a man born in 1992 misses the sets from when he was a kid because they allowed for so much creativity, then clearly the man who complained in 1997 about how LEGO sets didn't allow for any creativity anymore must have been off the mark a bit.
    • Technic line going nearly completely studless. Now you cannot build anything without pins. Metric trucktons of pins. Also the constructs are now less sturdy and more rickety.
      • The older Technic sets offered wider variety of machines. Now it's mostly all cars. Licensed brand cars which turn up the set price to astronomical proportions.
    • The slight (but perceptible) change in the colour of grey bricks in 2004 caused bitter complaints online.
    • Parodied in this LUGnet post from 2003.
  • The Barbie line sees its fair share of this, but the Fashionista's have it happen every time anything AT ALL happens. Good examples include when Wild was replaced so the line wasn't four blondes and two minorities ("Wild is gone and has been replaced with a girl who makes the line look more balanced? Ruined FOREVER!"), when Girly was replaced by somebody whose name didn't imply it was setting in stone what it meant to be a girl ("Sweetie is too nice!") and when they made it possible to swap heads easily (Which was something the fans had been wanting for years) because it meant the line was selling out to the mainstream.
  • Professional Wrestling figures, every time the style of figure changes or a different company starts producing them. Even if said figure series provides far more articulation, more realistic face scans and less chance of breaking than a previous series, people won't be happy. The best example is from Bone Crunching Action to Titan Tron Live - Bone Crunching Action had barely any articulation, were made of rubber and looked ugly. Titan Tron Live had much articulation (more as the series went on) and soon the faces looked much better, but they were criticised by the Fan Dumb who didn't want to start their collections all over again.
  • Littlest Pet Shop collectors can't stand the Blythe Loves Littlest Pet Shop merchandise, shorts, and show, which give a human companion to the pets. A human companion with a disproportionately large head and big, round eyes. She was designed and named after a doll who had previously only spent one year on toy shelves, back in the 1970s, before becoming popular again in the 2000s with both the Japanese and doll customizers.
  • amiibo have dealt with this too. The Villager amiibo of Wave 1 was easy to find at first, but so impossible to find afterwards that people would have to resort to buying a scalped one (costing around $100+). However, reprints in Japan were announced, so people were happy and many imported, but the Villager amiibo had slightly smaller eyes, so it made him look like he had a bigger forehead. Therefore, amiibo hunting communities started going crazy about it.
  • Monster High has gotten hit with this every time a reboot happens:
    • Generation 2: The designs went a Lighter and Softer direction?! They're dropping a bunch of characters or replacing them with new ones?! The dolls don't always have articulation anymore?! The franchise is garbage now! No wonder they Quietly Cancelled this version!!
    • Generation 3: They changed up Lagoona's design?! A bunch of characters got their personalities changed?! Witchcraft is forbidden in the monster world now even though there were witch characters in the past?! They broke up Cleo and Deuce?! Ugh, why isn't this reboot flopping as hard as G2 did?!
  • MGA Entertainment got the rights to Bratz back? Looks like the girls with a passion for fashion are back and better than- wait, they're focusing more on friendships than on the "hip" attitude that made the girls famous? RUINED FOREVER!!!
  • American Girl has had this happen multiple times:
    • Mattel bought the brand? Clearly they only did it to turn American Girl into the larger, more expensive Barbie. Everything they've ever made for the line is of bad quality with cheap plastic and thin ugly inaccurate cloth, instead of the high, handmade, perfect quality of every product before then. In fact, we'll call products released before 2000 "Pre-Mattel" in a tone that makes it clear anything Mattel released is shallow plastic trash that doesn't care about the quality or history of the brand at all. They just don't get the true meaning of American Girl.
    • Historical characters are being retired? This is terrible! How will children learn about history without American Girl! They're clearly being replaced with those awful, uninteresting Girls of the Year or completely pointless historicals—the war of 1812? No one knows about that era. American Girl just isn't radical like it was when I was younger and the stories really mattered. Also, these new modern Girls of the Year only care about shallow things like going on expensive trips and dancing, not saving horses and speaking up against child labor. Nothing important happens in the modern era that concerns children. Mattel is ruining the line just to make money and they don't care about the true meaning of American Girl at all.
    • BeForever was so bad it's tainted my childhood memories and showed once again that Mattel doesn't care about the characters or historical accuracy and never respected the true meaning of American Girl. It's all bright colors that never existed in the past, the books have been smashed together without any pictures anymore, and BeForever is a stupid name anyways. This can never hold a candle to the older, "classic" looks and Pleasant Rowland would have never wanted this. This shoddy rebrand didn't appeal to anyone at all, not even the target audience—and if they think they like it, they just don't know or care about real history. We'll be using "Pre-BeForever" the same way we use "Pre-Mattel"—with an unspoken sneer that items released before then are better and everyone knows it.
    • What do you mean they've made historical characters for the The '70s, The '80s, and The '90s?! I can't be getting old enough to be historical. Mattel must be cheaply pandering to nostalgia and nothing else.


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