Hasbro Soakers sliding into Gimmicks!!

[Ben]

From what I've read, while bigger might seem better to us, bigger water guns are simply not as profitable. Larger water guns take up more shelf space, which means restocking more often is necessary. I can remember when I was younger going to toy stores and seeing that all the Super Soakers sold out. That's because they were bigger. Now I can walk into WalMart and the few guns in the front might be missing, but there is a selection.

Let's say that on the shelves we can fit 6 of water gun A or 30 of water gun B, and the same amount of profit is made from each. It obviously makes more sense to stock the gun that makes the most profit, i.e., gun B. Combine that with the fact that more expensive (read: larger) water guns sell less and smaller water guns are much more profitable.

And while we might want bigger water guns, you have to realize that we're the more dedicated group I was talking about. Most people (again, from what I'm told and have seen) don't care about bigger water guns. Most people today especially don't care because they don't know about the old CPS line. If someone showed someone else a Flash Flood and said this was the biggest Super Soaker blast ever, there would be no reason for them to not believe that. Check out Amazon's reviews of the Flash Flood: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...0273312&sr=8-1

While some of them do mention that the gun is weak, most people seem more than happy with the Flash Flood.

And when we were younger, we didn't have to pay for water guns. The HydroBlitz today costs about 40 USD, which is pretty steep if you ask me. I don't know how well the HydroBlitz has sold, but judging by the number of reviews on Amazon, it probably has sold similarly to the smaller Arctic Blast, which is good news. Now if they backed the size of the HydroBlitz with good performance...

Most of this information and reasoning comes from back in 2004 when Big Bee (CEO of Buzz Bee Toys) went onto the now defunct WaterWar.net forum and posted about the issues involved with making bigger water guns. Basically, water gun manufacturers are waiting for market conditions to change.

[sbell25]

My point was that to the average 10-11 year old, (myself and my friends years ago) the biggest was by far the best. I wasn't into soakers back then like I am now, and my friends definitely weren't. But we all thought that my 2700 was just awesome.

Of course you're right about the profits and shelf space. However, it is frustrating, and doesn't make much sense, to see something like the Hydroblitz when we can't have another CPS 1500. Perhaps they were just testing the water (no pun intended), and if so it could be a sign of good things to come.

[Silence]

But the HydroBlitz is a perfect example of designing water guns to pull a profit.

It has size, which is the appeal you can see without opening the box. That's enough to convince any window-shopper to buy it.

And it lacks power, but that's a hidden drawback - you don't see it until you go home, fill it up, and shoot. You've already paid for the water gun (and most people, especially kids, don't make returns). And unless you've felt CPS power, you still won't be disappointed!

Ben's stats show that the marketing tactics work. This listing of water toys, ordered by sales, shows the Arctic Blast just barely edging out the HydroBlitz. Where's the Flash Flood? Where's the Secret Strike? Where are all the water guns from previous years, which have actually had more time to generate cumulative sales?

And as long as water guns like the Arctic Blast and HydroBlitz sell well, things really aren't going to change.

[Ben]

That's an interesting page. I didn't know you could sort by sales on Amazon. It verifies what I was thinking earlier. The HydroBlitz sells similarly to the Arctic Blast. Though, right now is the middle of winter, but I bet the sales would be comparable during summer as well.

That could be a good thing though. The Arctic Blast is the water gun at the $20 limit we heard so much about in 2004. I suspected that the $20 limit doesn't exist any longer, and this verifies that to me. A water gun twice as expensive sells about as much.

Another interesting thing is the age range determined by the manufacturers (see each individual page). The Flash Flood's range is 8 to 12, while the Arctic Blast and HydroBlitz's is 7 to 10. That's somewhat counterintuitive because the Flash Flood and Arctic Blast are nearly the same thing, but it just verifies more of what I had been thinking. We're not their target age group at all.

However, it is frustrating, and doesn't make much sense, to see something like the Hydroblitz when we can't have another CPS 1500. Perhaps they were just testing the water (no pun intended), and if so it could be a sign of good things to come.

That definitely is frustrating. For the website update I wrote a short page listing potential improvements in current water guns, and as far as I'm concerned they could do a lot to improve power while making water guns cheaper.

If they ditched the 3 valve assembly in the HydroBlitz and the 2 valve assembly in the Arctic Blast for one valve with a larger ID, then we might be going somewhere towards better performing and cheaper water guns. Of course, I don't know how hard larger ID ball valves like newer water guns use are to pull, but I wouldn't imagine it would be an impossible task. If someone from any of the companies could come online and explain why ball valves are small other than to reduce performance, I'd appreciate it. Small ball valves reduce performance in all manufactured water guns.

[Aqua_Flash]

Personally, one of the big reason's why I feel Super Soakers before Hasbro came in were so great was despite the fact that Hasbro owned Larami at the time, Hasbro hadn't fully taken over, so they weren't the ones designing and making the guns fully, I think Larami did most of it.

Since Larami were a smaller company than Hasbro, they had more time and focus to give us what we wanted in good powerful and practical CPS and air pressure guns. Since Hasbro are a much bigger company, when they bought Larami out fully then because of that then the focus most likely wasn't as much, since they own and produce many other brand names, which means they most likely spend less time focusing on Super Soaker.

The thing that annoys me most next to the fact that from the HydroBlitz they can make powerful guns (just not properly at the moment) is the fact that I get the feeling that they have just cut their audience age range in half ever since the full takeover.

When Larami were making the guns, they pleased everybody, the XP line for a smaller audience who wanted something simple yet good at the same time, and the CPS line for a larger more older audience who wanted power in a good package, even this attracted a younger audience who wanted more power, with guns like the CPS 1000, 1200. etc.

From that surely Hasbro from what they are doing now have just pretty much limited themselves here, missing out on opportunities to make more money from attracting a wider audience, and again, I find it a little hard to see how cost and shelf space is an issue in this case again demonstrated by the HydroBlitz this year.

I guess I may not be fully right, but I still think Hasbro really can do better than what they are doing now. I gave them a chance buying a few of their soakers from 2004-06, and really, even though there is some good aspects, for the price it is nowhere near as good as what you got before. I could go on but I won't as most of it has been said before.

[Ben]

The complete takeover did coincide with a change in direction. You also have to remember that a lot of their team left at the time (at least that is what I have been told). BBT came from the ashes of Larami after the takeover.

The HydroBlitz does seem to break all the supposed "rules." I have a few theories on why they made it like that.

The first one is what SilentGuy said earlier. People don't know it's not as powerful as before. They might just associate size with power and assume it's extremely powerful, when it's not.

The second one is pump strength. Back in 2004 I emailed Big Bee about some water gun physics questions, and he told me a lot, especially about pumps. With a target age of 7 at the least, Hasbro can't assume that the kids are very strong. So, they have to make pumping easy to cover the lowest denominator. Teenagers 14 and older are much stronger than 10 year olds, but the gun is CPS, so it can't even achieve higher pressures than what is given out of the box. That's partially why the pumps are so small too. They might assume that the kids can't use much of a stroke length.

All that results in a weaker CPS PC, a small pump, and small nozzles so decent range can be achieved. Making more powerful water guns can be done without compromising things like the lowest denominator kids, but I don't think Hasbro's interested in it.

Something I really don't understand is the recent insistence on using ball valves as triggers. Now that I think about it, the reason why we see such small valves might simple be because larger ones are hard to pull. When it comes to flow vs. how laminar a stream is in performance, flow wins. So, a larger disc valve beats a Max-D valve. Maybe if they reverted to the old valves it would help. I don't know.

[CPSMaster2000]

Sure, i understand that they can make more money on small soakers, but they are losing the audience larami built up with the cps line..look at the nintendo wii...they targeted not only kids but adults too and it propelled them from number 3 to #1 in the space of one year. Sure they are successful through hardware sold...but what about software? Their system is seen as a gimmick system, sells alot but nobody uses it to play real games on. The same can be said about hasbro's terrible soaker line as of late. They have a cheaper more affordable line aimed to target 10 year olds but they are losing their older audience. We have jobs and can buy our own guns while parents are buying for the younger kids limiting sales imo. People buy these soakers because they are super cold, or whater but we don't use them in water fights? At least nobody who has ever seen a cps fire will. Ive never lost a battle with my cps2000, 2500, or monster..when I bring those guns out into the common battle field these days everyone scatters..that true power! I've personally seen kids toss their guns to the side and ask if they can try mine. Ever since Ive had kids knock on my door to ask if they can use it in water fights. So then we look at the Xbox 360 which is as we know the hardcore gamers system...it has a crazy attach rate of 7 games per system or something compared to wii's..2 games per system. Everyone loves and plays their 360 for the real games, even if they just bought a wii.

so what I propose is they at least take advantage of this 10 year anniversary(like the ss50, ss100) and release a tester line of cps water guns..new ones..or remake of the cps2000(i know most everyone would want that gun)..they could just make a "limited" number and see what happens...how the market responds? As earlier stated kids these days were not around for what I believe to be the golden days of super soaker, so a flash flood IS a powerful soaker to them.
i gotta get to class, thanks.

[Drenchenator]

Welcome to SSC, CPSMaster2000!

I have to agree with much you've said, and I'm sure all of us would love rereleases of the old CPS guns, but it just doesn't seem like it will happen right now; Hasbro hasn't released anything approaching true CPS power in a long time. But if they did, a 10-year anniversary set of the legendary '98s sounds excellent to me! I know I would buy at least one of them.

[MarsGlorious]

Great Idea. What if someone sent a letter to hasbro asking to at least consider releasing a new CPS gun. Just to see what happens. If Hasbro declines then we could ask BBT. We could maybe create a petition.

The real downer is that Hasbro has many other toys and aren't heavily dependent on their super soakers doing well. We should remind them of the popularity that Larami gun's enjoyed.

What do you guys think?

[sbell25]

The petition idea has been tried many times before. Not to sound harsh, but unless you want to argue with a computer generated response from Hasbro I wouldn't bother. Thing is, what we say isn't going to have any influence on what Hasbro decides to do. We are not their target audience, they will not listen.

BBT can't make a CPS cannon, as CPS technology is patented. If they were going to make a big Hydro Power cannon, they probably would have done so already. I'm pretty sure that there are limits on the Hydro Power design that prevent them making anything really powerful anyway.

The situation sucks, hopefully it'll change in the future, but for now there's simply nothing we can do.

[MarsGlorious]

Humm, yes it is quite hopeless. All we have to rely on is luck.

sbell25 I need your advice with the trigger spring problem.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by MarsGlorious

We should remind them of the popularity that Larami gun's enjoyed.

I don't know how many times I have to say this, but the old water guns were popular with some people, but actually made less profit than todays water guns do, so they were less popular overall. All companies do what they think sells. If large water guns don't sell, they won't make them.

Petitions don't work because at best we could get 0.0001% of water gun users, not enough to make any dent in their sales. Sending complaints to Hasbro doesn't do anything because the people who respond to them just send a robotic response.

To respond to some things CPSMaster 2000 said too, like it or not, todays' water guns sell and the vast majority of people are satisfied with them. If people learn about the older ones, of course they'll want them, but barely anyone knows about those guns. And Hasbro probably doesn't want them to know about those water guns, because then more (but still not a majority) be dissatisfied with the other ones. Like it or not, the facts are that larger water guns don't sell as well. I'd be fine with testing the waters, but the companies obviously aren't.

I wouldn't say the situation is hopeless. Some entrepreneurs could start their own business. In fact, I am starting my own with the SSC store. Others are welcome to join in. And Hasbro has been making efforts to release larger water guns. While the age range is still too young, the HydroBlitz seems to break all the rules we were told about years ago. All the indications point towards no changes this year though, but we might seem some serious improvements in 2009.

[CPSMaster2000]

If we can only find .00001% to sign-up then we have to find a way to get more. People solve problems..there is much strength in numbers as is seen in dollars for hasbro according to Ben. How can we recruit more people..? Social networking sites? Videogames? Viral marketing is probably the most effective at least for us. As this is usually the cheapest option. Demo the power of cps blasters or "REAL" soakers compared to new ones..youtube etc. Groups in facebook....or a facebook petition...and we can message 100 ppl we dont know every day to sign the petition in exchange for something...not sure what we could offer them..and maybe set-up some automated e-mailer to annoy hasbro if possible..send e-mails to all their departments so as to make it harder for them to ignore us. Tie in other questions which are hard to ignore...Im not sure how it works with them but maybe one of you do. I refuse to sit by and watch them destroy my childhood...i loved waterguns..and now they well SUCK!!!! Our other option is to use the knowledge we have to design something else that could work to cps power..sell it, advertise it on our web pages and sell the idea to buzz bee toys...yes I know that is Much much harder than I make it sound...but we must know enough to at least take a stab at it. Im sure before the cps was invented ppl thought it was impossible to create cps power...but it happened. That would of course be the best option not to mention the most profitable. We could use the high prices soakers sell for on ebat as an example....it seems as though hasbro is neglecting larami's fanbase. they want us to grow out of soakers so they can continue with their current practices. So I suggest that sitting idly by is not in our nest interest because in reality...if they were going to do something for us they would have rereleased a gun on 1 of the 2 anniversaries which have just passed. I am fully planning to create a soaker business..I have since I was a kid...and the market seems really weak right now. Anyways...I need some zzz's.

-Cheers!

[Ben]

Well, the thing is (as I've explained), barely anyone cares about quality water guns. I'd say at best 1% of the people who buy water guns might care that they're as good as they were 10 years ago. Huge efforts to recruit people, while they would help out the dedicated people (like us), they won't make any dent in Hasbro's sales. There's too many parents who buy water guns for their 8 to 11 year old without caring about how well it works. That's basically what it comes down to.

I was hoping to do some viral marketing to advertise this website, but I don't see that as a step towards companies making better water guns. We could and definitely should try some viral marketing, because at the very least it will attract more people to water guns.

What I do want to see is some line targeted towards people like us. The CEO of BBT talked about that 4 years ago, but nothing ever happened to it. He said they were considering a line of extra powerful water guns to be sold in sports and outdoor stores. That could work from what I know, but I'll admit I know little to nothing about the factors involved.

Another misconception (at least in my mind) is that we need another CPS alternative. No, we don't. Actually, Hasbro lost a patent infringement case about CPS, and they didn't even invent the cylindrical type of CPS to begin with. I'm not a lawyer, but I think it is completely safe to sell cylindrical CPS water guns. People forget that water guns like the Water Worm have been selling for years and they all use the same technology as Super Soaker CPS.

Anyway, if BBT or Hasbro wanted to increase performance without affecting cost much if at all. they could do a lot of things that don't involve changing the pressure chamber. Larger diameter pipes is one of those things which could increase performance dramatically. People don't know that the reason why CPS guns performed well was the diameter of the pipes. CPS guns operated typically at a measly 20 to 25 PSI, while the XPs were at about 45 PSI. Having larger diameters allows for more flow, which turns into a big performance increase. I think the reason they don't have larger diameter pipes is because the valves they use today would be too hard to open at larger diameters, but that's just speculation.

Good luck with some sort of water gun business too. The more of those that care about quality we have, the better.

[Chewie]

The problem is the big guns just aren't suitable for children. My two 'big boys', a XP2500 and a MonsterXL, are MASSIVE. I seriously doubt a child under the age of 14 could even LIFT a fully-loaded MXL, let alone properly fire one. They are definitely 'toys for adults', and we have to convince them there's a market for that.