Ghostbusters definitely has a dedicated, older fan base but it's relatively small. Much like Indiana Jones, people may like the movies (and certainly the original ones) but the enthusiasm is not enough to sustain a significant toy line. Remember that the original toy line's success was based upon the cartoon - not the live action movies.

I actually liked the plasma figures but I just couldn't understand why Hasbro couldn't make us more Ghosts

I wish they’d at least have done the GB2 uniforms with a couple slime blowers. (I’m aware they didn’t use those in the GB2 uniforms but I’d take it to get them.) I’d of course go with a Frozen Enpire wave. But hell, do a ghost wave, Slimer with swappable heads, Librarian, Muncher, separate Scoleri Bros. with their chairs, and Vigo, with Garraka as the BAF. Did end up putting at least one of those clearance figures to good use. Bought a Ray and an equally clearanced Quantamania Ant-Man and made a quick Grooberson from Frozen Empire, so at least I have him to fill out the ranks a little.

I wish it would come back and they have plenty to pull from. I mean you can do the Grey suits from Ghostbusters 2 as well as the Slime Blower versions of Ray and Winston. They can do Vigo and the Scoleri Brother, The Rookie from the Video Game, some of the characters from the IDW Comic. Can't forget Real Ghostbusters versions and Ghosts from it, they would be great in this line as well as the Extreme Ghostbusters. And a 1/12 Ecto-1 would fun in a day easily.

Hasbro’s prices are insane. As someone that donates toys, it’s not reasonable to spend almost $30 on a single action figure, when I can get 3 Barbie dolls or a handful of Hot wheels. Hasbro prices their toys to adults, not children and that means they can artificially inflate prices. Under the guise of “inflation” or “collectible” or any excuse they get sheep to regurgitate their obscene prices.

The fact they threw in the Zuel head with the afterlife two pack says it all

I'm in the UK and I get tired of trying to track any Ghostbusters figures down at decent prices. But honestly I collected the whole Matty line and when these plasma figures arrived I felt like I had enough Ghostbusters and to dive in another line there was nothing here that was new to invest in. But I kinda feel like this for the whole franchise is it doesn't do enough new with it. I'm all steamed out.

My biggest gripe is no company Diamond Select Hasbro, Lego ect has never made a Dana Barret we always get Zuul “Gate Keeper” why? She is very important in the story to me it was a waste

I was really hoping we’d get Plasma series figures from Ghostbusters 2, Slimer, Stay Puft Marshmallow man, Melnitz, Grooberson, and Callie

I wish we got these figures here in Australia to the extent that they could have ended up in bargain bins. The Afterlife wave of Plasma Series trickled in to a tiny number of collector shops and they were stupidly expensive (around $40-50aud each) so it was never exactly freely available. We got the figures that were aimed at kids, including the retro line of busters, but once again they weren’t in a lot of retailers. Hasbro are generally not very good with their distribution and especially so in places like Australia where the market is comparatively smaller, exchange rates aren't exactly great and import costs are high. For some reason all GB stuff is imported as collectibles, not toys, so that has some impact on the taxes etc. It just seems like Hasbro didn't really know who they were aiming for with these products and gave up pretty much straight away. In the end, what we got was an inferior imitation of a portion of the line that we got from Matty Collector.

you're speaking my mind exactly, coming from me too, a big ghostbusters fans, there just isnt enough interest in younger audiences as much as their is people 30+ in this series, i feel like all of the plasma series is probably finished forever, the o ring will be the last we see of figurines for a while and even then if they charge 40 for the ghostbusters and 40 for the car i cant see it doing that well. also that's a great point you made! plasma series has pretty much no ghosts! im not counting the terror dogs and gozer and things like that and im especially not counting egon, seriously no slimer? the interesting thing to me about ghostbusters is the one off adventures they go off on with weird ghosts, the first and second movie are chalk full pack of them. funnily enough i think playmobile was handling ghostbusters better to a point than hasbro was, more ghosts, more vehicles, and plenty of throwback. hasbro's two in the box is awesome, cant wait for it to show up, and i really hope they do more "made to order" ghostbuster props cause those do well and make me (a ghostbuster fan) very happy and satisfied, but i've kinda accepted that this series isnt and will never be as loved by the masses as i and others love it and i think im okay with that, im okay with it being niche, im okay if someone's 6 year old doesn't care what an ecto 1 is, its had a great run and ill be perfectly comfortable with just a one off statue and Halloween costume here and there for the franchise, to let it rest. of course i DONT think this franchise as a whole is dead. (that being said im not confident in them making a sequel to frozen empire, a movie i very much enjoyed) but its never gonna be as big as something like godzilla and kong or transformers and will probably keep stubbing its toe in the same corner its been hitting since the 80's (bad release windows, not enough advertising and or misleading advertising), and thats okay. even knowing that, ill sit my butt down in that theater seat, grab my little foam finger, and keep rooting for it as long as someone keeps bringing new ideas to the table.

So I love Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones line. But in older at 52 so these tugs at my heart stings. But the repetition is hard. I only got the slimed version so far... but that run was lacking accessories to pay for paint. The line just needed more stuff. Like yiu said no Ghost is baffling. I love your videos great insight.

Great video👍. Couldn't agree more. I was glad to see the old kenner figures back but the newer plasma series just dont do it for me i'm afraid. I feel the last time we got good figures from the franchise was the diamond select ones from a few years back. Keep up the great work😁

The biggest issue I've seen here in Canada is Unavailability and price. $35 Canadian for a Plasma Series figure not including taxes that would put it close to or over $40. Frozen Empire has been out since March 22, guess how much Ghostbusters merchandise there is in toy section of Walmart? None. At least none in the two I've been two and the third a friend of mine works in.

I could never find the plasma Egon at retail and without my favorite Ghostbuster I didn't want to get the other guys. I do have all of the Real Ghostbusters released so far and I plan to pick up the o-ring ones but what I really want is something more like the "realistic" Real Ghostbusters by Diamond or even someone like Mondo releasing those Real Ghostbusters renders that were floating around a few months ago by their sculptor.

I could die happy if only the people that did the 3rd party Underground Arsenal would do a 1/12 scale Ecto 1 sans Ghostbuster logos we could source from elsewhere.

I try to be pretty laid back, but the the fact the Phoebe - the star of Afterlife - was a store exclusive I never saw makes me so frustrated. I didn’t pick up any other kid figures until I saw them for $4 bucks, and I haven’t even opened them still.

As another poster said. Ghostbusters audience tends to skew older. However...they did have afterlife and frozen empire which were positively received. Both lines could have offered more. Indy could have had Crystal Skull but also drawn upon the various Indy games. Heck they could have done sets for Indy that had like gators, spiders, snakes, etc.. Id also point to Star Wars believe it or not. They keep making Star Wars figures but I dont think they sell particularly well. You can find characters from disney+ shows or even force awakens still rotting on store shelves. Even legacy characters like Palpatine and such are finding their way ro discount at Ollies. I saw Leia's endor figure from the black series at Ollies. They recently did this 4" line of star wars figures and even those are now finding their way to ollies, etc.

I’d describe myself as a waning casual ghostbusters fan and I ended up getting the entire first wave. I enjoyed and wanted to get some figures from it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to get the old characters or the new ones but Phoebe and Egon being packed together made the choice to get all 8 or get nothing, and I went for nothing. I was still hoping to get some more figures from some of the older movies though. Eventually I saw that they had done Tully and a second terror dog and I was ready to buy them right away since they were at the top of my list of things I’d want next, but they’d already sold out. Like I said I’m a casual and I certainly wasn’t following tons of hasbro and ghostbusters accounts so I didn’t know until it was too late. When I saw the third wave I was very confused. When were all four of them ever covered in green slime? Plus I thought every GB toy manufacturer knew that minimal effort variants like that (slime covered, marshmallow covered, dark gray jumpsuits, etc.) were better saved for exclusive sets, especially while the more desirable standard versions were still on shelves! The whole thing feels very botched and I’m not surprised it failed. Still probably the best set of movie ghostbusters figures though.

I'm guessing Hasbro is stuck because they probably feel they need the original GBs in another Plasma wave to anchor it, and they've done them three times now: young, old, and slimed/glowing. There's always their college/street clothes look, I guess. I think one more crack at it with a wave of different characters from all the movies would've worked: Peck, Louis Tully, Vigo, Gary Grooberson, a real good Slimer, etc. They can always bring it back!

I'm a 3.75 collector primarily so them making 3.75 figures I'm all in

This makes me so sad. I figured when Hasbro got the license for this line, they would actually do it some justice. Carry it on for awhile. I'm still holding on to hope that we will get more.

I wanted all the Plasma series but they were so hard to find, and when I did find them, there was only ever Ray and Egon on the shelves. And without much chance of finding all four, and being relatively similar to the Mattel line, I passed on them. Some were Toys R Us exclusive too. No TRU nearby. I love the Afterlife and Frozen Empire "kid lines" but again, super hard to find. Even at the theatre for Frozen Empire, I wanted Ghostbusters popcorn buckets, pins, whatever it is, I'll take it! Nope. Theatre did not receive their own exclusive popcorn bucket, and had no idea about pins. Is It a distribution issue? Real Ghostbusters Fright Features figures are still not available locally but I'm told they are clogging the shelves two hours from here. We can't buy the things if they don't put them in the stores. Is It as simple as that, or something more complicated? 🤷‍♂️

I would have loved to get a new Plasma Series Phoebe with her upgraded packé

Ghostbusters is one of my favourite movies but I always stop myself before buying any plasma series figures because I know the line is dead in the water.

i agree... but the advertisements were bad, and the stores only carried so many and didn't do it all at the same time, or sell at the same time. I still want some, but couldn't get my hands on any of them. either resellers bought them out or they just never put them on the shelves.

I need to go where you found them at bargain stores. Can't seem to find them a lot in Walmart and Target, and some stuff is sold out surprisingly.

Hey Chris, great video! It pains me to see this line die, I think it was great within its price range, but I believe the main issue with it is that Hasbro didn’t seem interested in knowing what fans wanted for the line, so there was all these missed opportunities along the way, which turned out to be quite frustrating for collectors. The lack of ghosts is my main concern; as I said once in one of your previous videos, I can’t believe they made a repainted slime set and didn’t offer Slimer as a BAF with it. Then there was the terror dog issue, we got Vinz Clortho BAF with wave 1, and AGAIN with the ‘Tully’s Terrible Night’ set, which is also annoyingly hard to get, Hasbro eventually corrected the mistake with the extra Zuul head in the ‘Family That Busts Together’ set, but c’mon!… So no Slimer, no library ghost, no Stay Puft and absolutely no trace of Ghostbusters 2, and then they move onto the Afterlife set and there’s no Muncher, which is pretty much the only ghost with decent screen-time, instead we got that Mini Pufts set. Fans have been begging for an accurate scale Ecto-1 and that never happened either, so in a nutshell, I think the main issue with this line was the lack of interest to tap into collector’s wishes or expectations. I believe Hasbro could give Plasma Series one last (but very important) breath, with a Slimer/Muncher two-pack, which might even help boost sales of remaining stock.

I think ghostbusters in general does make money. But I think it’s best if they market towards adult collectors. The Haslabs and Spengler/1984 wands sell great. There’s been so many 1984 ghostbusters action figures of the main guys it’s not surprising they didn’t do to well. I think it’s dumb every single peice of frozen empire merchandise was marketed towards children when ghostbusters kids toys obviously don’t sell well. The adult market is there but they won’t sell to them.

I think the lack of a 1/12 Ecto-1 was a big hit to the line. And even for the size it would’ve been, it didn’t need to be a HasLab because Ecto-1 is one of the most recognizable film vehicles ever

One thing that I felt was a bad decision was packing Phoebe only into the "The Family that busts together..." two-pack instead of giving her a standalone release. She was my favorite character in Afterlife and I still haven't managed to get a hold of her, because these two-packs and exclusives are really hard to come by in europe.

I would have loved to get some good modern made GB figures, but they didn’t look good. At least to me. Kind of like Hasbro’s heart wasn’t in it and was just half-assed.

the issue is gb and back to the future are just great solo films and never could do more and live its time. people would love the shirt and owning the film.but arent crazed enough to buy toys.

I personally enjoyed the plasma series. I have almost all the main figures, just missing dana, gozer, and the 'family that busts together' 2-pack (that never showed up in any of my target stores). and aside from trevor, lucky, and podcast, the plasma series was really hard to find where I live.

I am a big fan of the plasma series. I am currently customizing figures to fill in voids of this toy line. Also customizing new characters from Frozen Empire. Truly I have been collecting both Mattel and Hasbro 6 inch lines. They both display well. To bad Hasbro discontinued the series but left it to us customizers to fill the voids.

I picked up a lot of them - but only when they were on sale. I did pick up Gozer at full retail when they released just to see how they were - but their quality, in my opinion, was very low. The details were soft, and plastic was far too rubbery to be an adult collector figure - so these were absolutely geared towards kids. I have a kid, and several nephews who are the target demographic for Ghostbusters and they couldn't care less. Attempts to show them the films, cartoons and games is basically like pulling teeth. Unless it's some KZfaq game streamer or similar they're not interested. So if kids aren't interested, and the figures aren't really for the adults - then yeah, they were destined to fail. I think that's why the HasLabs for Ghostbusters were so successful - they were good quality, and aimed at adult collectors. I know many adults who aren't into action figures at all - but they collected the Diamond Select Ghostbusters figures. Those had great details and were targeted at adults. I did end up picking up 2 Terror Dog build a figures off eBay - and then the Zuul head to make them different. The last time I bought anything was the wave, on clearance, to build the Terror Dog Sentinel figure. They're sitting next to my Mezco One:12 Ghostbuster set. If there were more Ghost figures, I think I would have picked up more.

i almost bought the original team, but the figures felt too ugly to me for the price, i wish they would look more like black series and not marvel legends. by that i mean the joints are too obvious, the pins etc... I would have also liked some extreme ghost busters done in a realistic style, much like black series when they translate clone wars or rebels characters. and yes, they really could have packed each figure with a non painted transparent ghost.

I thought the Plasma figures were undersized, lacked paint ops and accessories. It's was destined to fail.

There’s so Much hasbro can do with the plasma series but they just don’t. It’s highly annoying especially as a huge Ghostbusters fan

It's really unfortunate that we didn't get the variety the line needed. I would have loved to see some Gohstbusters 2 figures. The slime throwers would have been an easy accessory to retool onto the base Wave 1 bodies and it would have been nice to get more ghosts in general. The plasma series seemed to be an almost half-heartd effort on Hasbro's part, only going far enough to say "See, we did it better than Mattel!" what with the butterfly joints and double jointed elbows and better likenesses, but then they only went on to repeat themselves and the Afterlife line was barely on shelves where I live. I certainly found more classic stuff in stores, so I often wonder if the newer films are just not really connecting with people enough. I dunno, I often feel like Mattel managed to make this work somewhat better in terms of generating interest.

Your main assumption is wrong. "Plasma Series" as a term covers their replica roleplay items as well as the 1:12 figure line. It included the Afterlife 1:18 Ecto-1 as well. Like Star Wars Black Series it doesn't just refer to the figures. It might well be that the new 1:18 1984 Ecto-1 and the figures that go with it will be labelled as Plasma Series too. Now, if the question is, "Is the 1:12 figure line dead and over?"-probably yes. And the scale was wrong in the first place. That's no scale for world-building, no ghosts, no Ecto, no firehouse could have been seriously done in that scale to give you the whole world of Ghostbusters. And that was one of the main negative critic points of the Afterlife Ecto-1 release. It had the wrong scale for the figure line and it wasn't detailed enough to be a collector's item only (like the Hot Wheels Ectos). They try to right that wrong now with the 1984 line, and I hope there will be more to come-fingers crossed for Ghostbusters Day. But yes, Hasbro has handled Frozen Empire so far totally and utterly abysmal, for whatever reason. If you want a great toy line that's almost complete, look at Playmobil. For the 1st movie they basically gave us everything, for the second we got the best Ecto-1A ever made plus the guys in the dark suits and slime blowers. That it ended there is a shame but a bit understandable, as Playmobil doesn't make great kids/teens figures. Afterlife Playmobil would have looked silly.

Great video ❤❤💚💚

Distribution was terrible. Figures never showed up at retail and were sold out online, only to appear at liquidators 8 months later.

I didn't even know these figures existed. Probably could have made some Rebel repair crews out of these

Who made the stop motion at the beginning? ❤

👍

wasn't there a collab with Mcfarlane? we need adult collectors figures

I'm a ghostbusters guy and I'm about to break it down. The toys was over produced, I don't think they sold poorly... 100% I think the fans some kids and teens got theirs, so what was left was over stock, over produced figures of you guess it the same humans, this was a issue in the 80s which killed the line. In fact slimer being the focus, the down grade with q5 bs and variants plus tmnt killed rgb in the 80s. Sony problem itself is they seem to not know how to make a ghostbusters movie. These directors try to make it everything else and somehow miss the ghostbusting. We watch ghostbusters for the ghostbusters not some love story or slimer. The last movie had one ghostbusting scene. That was at the beginning. And for the toys much like the 80s. They need ghost. From the show movies etc and even stock art ghost. Variants need to make sense like civilians clothes rgb egon etc. Ghostbusters should be getting the same treatment as joes. But sold in not so high quantities. Enough for fans and some kids to get a hold of. That on top of hasbro wants to be everything but a toy company. So my final verdict. Gb is over. It's a fans brand and fans have to make their own stuff unfortunately. Def agree with the different uniforms all the characters fe was more toyetic

if a cartoon comes out then maybe cuz i know a lot of kids and adults would watch it. just subbed and would love to do a collaboration with you, if you are interested.

There's only so many time you can sell the same 4 figures that folk actually want, Ghostbusters has never had the depth of popular characters like say, TMNT has and so lines always peter (lol) out like this.

It's because the movies used *kids and a little girl as the lead* ..... that doesn't translate to toys/figures for boys or for men over 40 😄😄😄😄

Rgb over gb any day. They actually busted ghost.

The plasma figures are some or the best ever, straight off of the shelf. The new movies killed the lines......no one wants the new no name characters attached to junk movies with political agendas.

Lets see, Ghostbusters 2 made 215 million dollars worldwide on a 30 to 40 million dollar budget. How is that failure? Simply because it did not make as much money as the first one?

I hope someone else gets the Ghostbusters licence. Hasbro have seriously mishandled it.

They've definitely lost a customer stopping this line because those smaller figures aren't good at all and look nothing like the characters

Its a hasbro problem i do not like hasbro at all the mattel and diamond select figures all sold very well as both mattel and select did many characters ghosts and accessories and they all sold but hasbro do not give fans what they ask for. we dont want the same re painted khaki flightsuits but with extra paint we want ghosts like slimer the librarian and others. how about ghostbusters 2 figures and especially frozen empire red coat ones they could have even done a janine or melody from frozen empire but we got nothing but smaller versions of figures i already have a repaint of a car i already have and re releases of old 80s figures i own and a 84 wand which is literally the same as the previous one with different handles. Hasbro is the worst company to have the brand and i will not be buying the new ecto, smaller figures or any sort of 80s re release as its a joke i just want new figures from the new movie because i hate not being able to own figures from each respective movie! Plus not releasing much of the kids stuff world wide is silly as it lowers the market for those toys!

June

If Frozen Empire had done better, we might have seen more figures, but GB movie figures have never done the kind of numbers Hasbro wants.

It’s Hasbro’s fault. They were underscaled and their character selection was to safe and uniform.

bruh, hasbro is dead...

the issue is gb and back to the future are just great solo films and never could do more and live its time. people would love the shirt and owning the film.but arent crazed enough to buy toys.