134 replies to this topic

[youtube]

I found internals

[death by cheez]

We've had internals, but those look a little clearer on my screen. Old, but nice, find.

[bourbon]

I was going to save my first post for my SS2 write-up, but this thread is... irking me.

As you are already aware, this is yet another Recon re-shell. Counting the still unavailable Deploy, that makes four Recons that Nerf has released in a row. Four. It seems to me that Hasbro thinks they can get away with this, and they are right. Do you know why? Because a vast majority of you are willing to buy it anyways. Why on earth would you gut an Airtech 2000, (regarded by many, including Talio as one of the best primaries ever made) to put into this shell? How about this. You spend your 40$ on something else, and don't buy the Longstrike.


Nerfhaven has a huge amount of members. Nerfhaven also has a significant impact on the NIC, being the largest Nerf related site out there, with a generous assortment of some truly talented contributors. I also think it is safe to say that we are the only demographic that buys nearly every Nerf product multiple times. How many Longshots have you bought? How many Nitefinders? I know from the modifications picture thread that the answer for a few of you would be "dozens".

You may not feel like we have a say in the products Hasbro produces, but we are the consumers, and we have the internet, the most powerful tool for spreading information ever made. If Nerfhaven as a site condemns this product and boycotts it, perhaps Hasbro will realize they can't get away with this anymore. We can even use Youtube to our advantage. Maybe some members here who already own the gun (FA24, SGNerf, Ice, etc) can post poor reviews on Youtube. You guys are like Nerf celebrities, if you say this gun sucks, people will listen. Some of their customers actually care about the internals of the guns, and aren't stupid enough to buy Recons for the rest of their Nerfing careers.

The NIC may only be a few thousand members strong, but if we take a stand together, we can hopefully ensure the Longstrike (and Deploy) get rather poor sales. We live in a capitalist country, and the consumer ultimately decides what the companies make. If we can hurt the success of these guns even slightly, Hasbro could get the message that it's time to move on to something new. I'm tired of N-strike. It's trying to turn Nerf into Call of Duty, and I'm pretty sure that isn't what most of you want. I'm also getting fed up with the inverted plunger system. 50 foot range tops is absolutely abysmal. If you too hate where it seems Nerf is taking us, please strongly consider not buying the Longstrike or Deploy. Spend that 40$ in the Trading forum, or on eBay, but do not purchase these new guns.

Edited by bourbon, 16 January 2010 - 06:10 PM.

[BritNerfMogul]

I was going to save my first post for my SS2 write-up, but this thread is... irking me.

As you are already aware, this is yet another Recon re-shell. Counting the still unavailable Deploy, that makes four Recons that Nerf has released in a row. Four. It seems to me that Hasbro thinks they can get away with this, and they are right. Do you know why? Because a vast majority of you are willing to buy it anyways. Why on earth would you gut an Airtech 2000, (regarded by many, including Talio as one of the best primaries ever made) to put into this shell? How about this. You spend your 40$ on something else, and don't buy the Longstrike.


Nerfhaven has a huge amount of members. Nerfhaven also has a significant impact on the NIC, being the largest Nerf related site out there, with a generous assortment of some truly talented contributors. I also think it is safe to say that we are the only demographic that buys nearly every Nerf product multiple times. How many Longshots have you bought? How many Nitefinders? I know from the modifications picture thread that the answer for a few of you would be "dozens".

You may not feel like we have a say in the products Hasbro produces, but we are the consumers, and we have the internet, the most powerful tool for spreading information ever made. If Nerfhaven as a site condemns this product and boycotts it, perhaps Hasbro will realize they can't get away with this anymore. We can even use Youtube to our advantage. Maybe some members here who already own the gun (FA24, SGNerf, Ice, etc) can post poor reviews on Youtube. You guys are like Nerf celebrities, if you say this gun sucks, people will listen. Some of their customers actually care about the internals of the guns, and aren't stupid enough to buy Recons for the rest of their Nerfing careers.

The NIC may only be a few thousand members strong, but if we take a stand together, we can hopefully ensure the Longstrike (and Deploy) get rather poor sales. We live in a capitalist country, and the consumer ultimately decides what the companies make. If we can hurt the success of these guns even slightly, Hasbro could get the message that it's time to move on to something new. I'm tired of N-strike. It's trying to turn Nerf into Call of Duty, and I'm pretty sure that isn't what most of you want. I'm also getting fed up with the inverted plunger system. 50 foot range tops is absolutely abysmal. If you too hate where it seems Nerf is taking us, please strongly consider not buying the Longstrike or Deploy. Spend that 40$ in the Trading forum, or on eBay, but do not purchase these new guns.

What's this? Viva La Revolution?

Look bourbon, hasbro makes reverse plungers because it's cheaper. End of. They will continue to make them as long as it saves them money.

You would need a devine act of god to change that. Not the whole NIC.

[Vengeful Waffle]

Bourbon seems to think that we (Active forum users) are a large portion of Hasbro's sales. We are not.

[Captain]

Bourbon raises some interesting points. While our impact on Hasbro's sales seems negligible, I still feel like we should try to get through to Hasbro somehow. Maybe we could actually do something, but certainly not if everyone just says "screw that, it's not going to work."

[bourbon]

Just how popular do you think Nerf is? It's not like Longstrike sales would be measured in millions. Even if we prevented a few thousand being sold, that's still a pretty major hit to their profits.

As I said before, we can make a much bigger splash than you'd think we can if we exploit the internet. People have become famous overnight because of Youtube. People were fooled into thinking Kanye West died thanks to Twitter. With minimal effort, we can cast a bad light on these guns.


I honestly can't see how you would think it is a bad thing I am saying this. We can't Nerf forever on aging equipment. These are plastic toys, and epoxy, goop, and hot glue can only keep them together for so long. If Nerf continues the way it is now, we're in big trouble. The Longshot was released four years ago, and now that the Longstrike is here, I doubt it will be around for much longer. Then what? The Nerf product line will be made up entirely of Recons, (aside from side-arm blasters), and if you've ever used a Recon or Raider outdoors, I am sure you agree it's rather underwhelming.

Without good guns readily available, the amount of intelligent newcomers to this hobby will dwindle (and I said intelligent because milisim retards with black guns aren't what we want here) . A kid doesn't want to show up to a Nerf war with his AR removed Longstrike only to get pelted from modified airguns a good 50 feet outside his effective range. I know if I had to go up against Ryan's pimped out 3K with a Recon I wouldn't exactly be thrilled about it. The reality is, these new blasters just can't stand up to the classics, no matter how you look at it. How are you supposed to break it to a newbie that he's gonna get his ass handed to him unless he ponies up the cash for older blasters? And how is he going to get them? I know a few years ago when I started Nerf, my parents wouldn't exactly thrilled about me sending money to a stranger on an internet forum, and they sure as hell didn't let me use eBay when I was that age either. I had to find my guns in stores. If no war worthy weapons can be found in stores anymore, these kids are going to get discouraged and possibly give up the hobby.


Without new blood, this community will stagnate rather quickly, people will lose interest, and organized Nerf wars on a large scale will cease to exist. As annoying as newbies are, with their complete disregard for the CoC, constant thread necroing, and general stupidity, the odd one blossoms into a valuable member of the community. Hasbro releasing absolutely horrendous stock guns makes it even harder for a new Nerfer to get themselves established. The beauty about Nerf is that it really is a hobby for anyone. We have Nerfers from all around the world, ages ranging from 13-50. Nerf guns are cheap, easy to find, and you don't have to be over 18 to buy them. It's way more accessible than Paintball and Airsoft, that's for sure. However, if the only good guns are 10-15 years old and you need to buy them online, that advantage of accessibility is gone.

You may think this isn't a big deal, Hasbro releasing four Recons in a row, but the way I see it, if this keeps up, Nerf is definitely going to take a turn for the worse.


What are you going to do about this? Buy the Longstrike and tell Hasbro it's OK to release inverted plunger Call of Duty knock-offs? This isn't rocket science, just sit this one out and spend your money on Nerf guns that are worth it. For 40$ you can get several classic blasters that are actually war worthy.

PS: Brit, I know bringing this topic up on NHQ stirred up some shit, and I apologize for that. I honestly thought NHQ could handle such a discussion. You do have to admit that despite my radical views on Hasbro's current product line, I am right. If you don't like the way I'm going about this, that's fine. You could at the very least try not to spread a negative attitude about it, however. People saying "we can't change it" and "there is no hope" are exactly the opposite of what we need right now.

Edited by bourbon, 16 January 2010 - 08:11 PM.

[durka durka]

Damn bourbon, those are the best first posts I've seen out of anybody on NH.

bourbon does have a point. We can try and do something about this. Even if nothing happens, we end up with the same result we would get if we did nothing.

Like Brit said, it seems Hasbro makes inverse plungers to save money. If we were to hurt the sales enough, it would be cheaper for Hasbro to just give in. However, I doubt we will ever be able to do this, but it's worth a shot.


Save your money and beat Hasbro at their own game. Skip these new guns.

Edited by durka durka, 16 January 2010 - 09:01 PM.

[hawkshot]

The more that I think about it, I think that if the NIC decides to not buy anymore reverse plunger guns, Hasbro might start to lose money they could get from the NIC and people that are friends with people in the NIC and could switch to regular plungers. Even though it'll cost them more to make it, we'll start buying them.

Edited by hawkshot, 16 January 2010 - 09:14 PM.

[rork]

Just how popular do you think Nerf is? It's not like Longstrike sales would be measured in millions. Even if we prevented a few thousand being sold, that's still a pretty major hit to their profits.

If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that you should totally buy with the money you save boycotting one of biggest toy companies out there.

[Roger Explosion]

With Hasbro "Nerfing" all their blasters, I wouldn't be suprised if the NIC turn to using nothing but homemades and off brands.

I'm more excited to see if Lanard and Buzzbee make any new guns this year. Seeing as though last years crop had some real gems in there.

[bourbon]

Did I ever say my goal was to make Hasbro bankrupt? No.

The goal of every company is to make money. If these guns don't sell well, they will make new guns. You don't keep manufacturing a product that doesn't sell well. If we boycott this gun, WORST CASE SCENARIO is that they will introduce price cuts early. Best case scenario, they get their shit together and start focussing on a new line of blasters. N-Strike has been around for a long time, because it sells like crazy. As I've said many times before, this generation is hooked on multiplayer FPS video games. As long as these people keep buying N-Strike, the company will continue in this direction. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Why change their product line if the Recon clones are still selling?

They will change their product, and quickly, if it's not selling. Think back when Nerf bought Larami. They did this because their guns weren't turning a profit. They needed a new product, and fast. They quickly snatched up Larami and rebranded the guns in a desperate attempt to cobble together a new product. The Supermaxx guns were some of the greatest blasters ever, and the Airtech line that resulted from the same technology was just as amazing. It didn't take much to bring this change either, just one bad christmas season was all the convincing they needed to do something drastic.

If profits start to dip, the most logical thing to do as a company is to change the product. They'll see that people don't buy blasters for appearance alone, we want quality blasters that do cool stuff. In the past, every Nerf gun had a gimmick, and save for a few failures (cyberstrike, max force) there was some seriously cool stuff. The Blastfire could shoot five darts semi-automatically. The Lightning Blitz gave us a dual wieldable Nerf scattergun. The Powerclip is arguably the coolest gun ever made as a clip fed automatic. These guns didn't need to piggyback off the popularity of pop culture to sell well. They were so damn cool, you wanted one anyway.

Every new blaster is the same. Clip fed, spring powered single shot guns. Because they look like real guns, people buy them. We need to show the general public that this isn't what Nerf is about. It's about playing with unique, exotic blasters. Running around in the summer breeze with your friends blasting eachother. Or jumping over that couch with a Powerclip in your basement. Not lying prone in the grass with a black longstrike. It's not about headshots, camouflage, trenches, tanks, red dot scopes, swat turns, flip clips, tripods, and grenades.

Right now, Nerf is milisim. People have been saying that is where it's been headed for quite some time, but truth is, we're already there. We need to drag it back to the lighthearted, ridiculous tag game it always should have been.

Edited by bourbon, 16 January 2010 - 10:37 PM.

[Hipponater]

Did I ever say my goal was to make Hasbro bankrupt? No.

The goal of every company is to make money. If these guns don't sell well, they will make new guns. You don't keep manufacturing a product that doesn't sell well. If we boycott this gun, WORST CASE SCENARIO is that they will introduce price cuts early. Best case scenario, they get their shit together and start focussing on a new line of blasters. N-Strike has been around for a long time, because it sells like crazy. As I've said many times before, this generation is hooked on multiplayer FPS video games. As long as these people keep buying N-Strike, the company will continue in this direction. If it isn't broke, don't fix it. Why change their product line if the Recon clones are still selling?

We're not enough of Nerf's product share to impact them with a "boycott". If all of the NIC didn't buy the longstike/deploy (impossible), Nerf would hardly notice. We're sucking NFs off the shelf and neglecting Mavs, but the Mav is still their best selling blaster, they won't cater to us.

If profits start to dip, the most logical thing to do as a company is to change the product. They'll see that people don't buy blasters for appearance alone, we want quality blasters that do cool stuff. In the past, every Nerf gun had a gimmick, and save for a few failures (cyberstrike, max force) there was some seriously cool stuff. The Blastfire could shoot five darts semi-automatically. The Lightning Blitz gave us a dual wieldable Nerf scattergun. The Powerclip is arguably the coolest gun ever made as a clip fed automatic. These guns didn't need to piggyback off the popularity of pop culture to sell well. They were so damn cool, you wanted one anyway.

And right now they have the first clip and drum fed blasters than can shoot quicker and reload faster than anything before. The Raider was in Time Magazine's top 10 gadgets. They have a products and it's selling like hotcakes. They are on a roll, and it works out that reverse plungers are cheaper to make, easier, and work for everything their product needs to do.

We just need to roll with the punches. Maybe we'll continue to see off brands and homemades most commonly on the field. But that's fine, we don't need nerf brand guns to nerf.

I don't really get the longstrike. It's really just a reshelled recon. Even if it was a reshelled LS, it still brings nothing new to us. It's nerf's "longest", but it's just a fake barrel. Nothing too exciting it seems, atleast the deploy has the transformation gimmick.

[Merzlin]

A lot of tl;dr.

No, we will not impact sales on Hasbro guns. Bourbon, stop dreaming. If you even knew the ratio of
NIC members : entire kid population who buy nerf guns, you wouldn't even consider "boycotting" a certain gun.

So, who thinks the next gun that's not a recon reshell will be released? I say 2012.

Edited by Merzlin, 17 January 2010 - 12:40 AM.

[bourbon]

Even if our actions are a drop in the bucket, it's better than doing the opposite and buying the damn gun.

I think the majority of you are underestimating our influence. Have you forgotten about the Youtube nerf community? Ice (uin13 on youtube) has 11,000 subscribers, and FA_24 has 3500. Ice's channel has over 6000,000 views, and unless those subscribers are watching his movies over 500 times each, that means there are others who watch his material, but do not nessecarily subscribe. Angel has at least a million views. I don't know of any other big ones as I don't keep up with NIC "celebrities".

If the Nerfers on Youtube all worked together to bash this gun, people will hear it. Probably the best approach would be if videos were made recommending the Longshot over the Longstrike that would be great too. Everyone uses Youtube. If we can educate Nerfers that this gun is a poor choice, and then tell them what guns to buy (regular plunger guns) Longstrike sales will be noticeably reduced. People are impressionable. If someone who they idolize tells them something, they believe it.

[Ice Nine]

Even if our actions are a drop in the bucket, it's better than doing the opposite and buying the damn gun.

I think the majority of you are underestimating our influence. Have you forgotten about the Youtube nerf community? Ice (uin13 on youtube) has 11,000 subscribers, and FA_24 has 3500. Ice's channel has over 6000,000 views, and unless those subscribers are watching his movies over 500 times each, that means there are others who watch his material, but do not nessecarily subscribe. Angel has at least a million views. I don't know of any other big ones as I don't keep up with NIC "celebrities".

If the Nerfers on Youtube all worked together to bash this gun, people will hear it. Probably the best approach would be if videos were made recommending the Longshot over the Longstrike that would be great too. Everyone uses Youtube. If we can educate Nerfers that this gun is a poor choice, and then tell them what guns to buy (regular plunger guns) Longstrike sales will be noticeably reduced. People are impressionable. If someone who they idolize tells them something, they believe it.

There are eight hundred and sixty Toys R Us locations in the United States as of me typing this. I will not take into account Targets, Wal-Marts, and other retailers, which certainly exist and sell the product. This gun came out legitimately on September ninth. Let us assume that on average each store sold twenty five of these guns per week until this week. That is 473,000 Raiders moved in the United States. This is probably a low estimate. Ice has the most subscribers, at eleven thousand. Let's just say that another nine thousand, for kicks, are on YouTube and are active Nerfers. That is sway with approximately four percent of the Raider market.

Hasbro currently has the infrastructure to continue to manufacture Recon internals at low cost, or lower cost than increasing Longshot internal production (or creating a new internal system). They have no incentive to improve on their best selling products. A four percent change in the market maximally is absolutely insignificant to the overall toy line profit of Mattel Industries.

The Longstrike has an interesting shell that is not wholly useless to plans that I have had in the past. If I find one in a thrift store a few months after release I will gladly purchase it; in the mean time, it provides a very useable indoor gun. There's something slightly quirkier about it that the Recon doesn't have, and I enjoy that. It will be fun, especially after stripping the stock, scope, and extension barrel and using it in an indoor war with a Raider drum. Pump action is not wholly inconceivable.

I read this in the morning and while I'm still reasonably correct I regret posting in this abortion. Atrocious.

Edited by Ice Nine, 17 January 2010 - 01:10 PM.

[nostyleguy]

Just to give a little experience, I'm a Target cashier in Michigan and i can honestly say i ring-up a few nerf guns a day, maybe a dozen. in 2 years with Target i've never seen anybody purchasing a nerf blaster who looked like a modder.
By that i mean somebody in his late teens to mid 20's in age. Its been 100% young kids (13 and younger) and older men/woman (parents/grandparents). So, unless there are a lot of 8 year old and 40 year old modders, I'd say we make up an infinitesimally small percentage of the Nerf market.

Now another obstacle is that, even with a large enough influence in static market composition, we still would have an uphill battle. It would take a disproportionate amount of strict negative feedback to change Hasbro's ways because, currently, their infrastructure is totally devoted to N-Strike and reverse plungers. Basically, any bad media we could generate would have to be so impactful that it influenced sales enough to warrant a whole sale transition in the companies business model. That's a monumental amount of negative influence, not just a few bad reviews.

tl;dr: Even if we are able to reduce the longstrike's predicted profit by any brow-raising amount (doubtful), it would still take MORE than that to really change anything coming down the pipeline because the inverted plunger design is so cheap and portable that it can withstand smaller volume of sales due to a higher profit margin (cheaper to make) and less overhead (infrastructure already exists)

[Lion]

They'll see that people don't buy blasters for appearance alone, we want quality blasters that do cool stuff.

So, you buy nerf blasters for their incredable range of 35 feet, up to 50 feet for most modded blasters, 80 feet for the highly modded ones? If you're just getting nerf blasters for how well they shot, shouldn't you just get into paintball?

[durka durka]

The longstrike is nothing new or special. It looks like a "loser", and is basically a recon. Case closed.

This shouldn't have to be about hurting Hasbro, it should be about not buying a longstrike because it is a piece of shit. Who cares what happens to Hasbro. Save a few bucks for something else.

It doesn't matter how much of Hasbro's sales are from the NIC. You don't have to buy every single nerf gun that hasbro pumps out. Buy a longshot or nitefinder instead. That's money well spent.


I think you guys are missing what bourbon is trying to say. He thinks that the NIC could have sway over other people who buy nerf guns via use of the internet. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with this, but it seems bourbon was interpreted as saying that he thinks we have enough members to directly influence Hasbro.

[wisdom000]

Jesus Christ.....

I don't know whether to laugh at or just feel pity for some of the posters on this thread.

Nerf guns are TOYS people. Nerf makes them for CHILDREN, and occasionally for office workers. The do not make these guns with the concern of adults who want to take them apart to make them shoot farther in mind.

While Nerf is certainly aware of the NIC, you are NOT the reason they make these guns. Nor do you get to decide what playing with Nerf guns is all about. Understand, the typical kid doesn't give a rat fuck how far a blaster shoots if it looks like something his spastic 3 year old brother drew in crayon. They want blasters that look cool, and let them play soldier or whatever. You want proof of this, just look at the sales difference between the older blasters, and the new N-Strike blasters, the difference is staggering.

On one hand, I love the NIC, the ingenuity and inventiveness I see come out of this community amazes me. On the other hand, for a group of adults and young adults whose hobby is publicly playing with childrens toys, the amount of pretentiousness and elitism I see in the NIC is ridiculous and it sickens me.

[pinz321]

Hmm, lets see, in the according 2000 census, 2010 was to have 72.2 million children in general, a large portion being 8-11 and 13-17. We– The approx. NIC are around 27,000 people of all ages, if we are assuming that we are all active members. Though I am a 7th grader, my math says that the NIC is 0.03% of the children of United States; considering the fact that not every single child in america buys nerf products, we are really looking at a cipher of around 0.07% of the people that nerf are from the NIC. Now, that last number may not be accurate, but its a lot closer than most of you expected. Even if we got 1 million kids to not buy ANY of the newer guns, we would still be 1%. We can't fight it. If you want good guns, run a company your self.

I rest my case.

[rokor]

Hmm, lets see, in the according 2000 census, 2010 was to have 72.2 million children in general, a large portion being 8-11 and 13-17. We– The approx. NIC are around 27,000 people of all ages, if we are assuming that we are all active members. Though I am a 7th grader, my math says that the NIC is 0.03% of the children of United States; considering the fact that not every single child in america buys nerf products, we are really looking at a cipher of around 0.07% of the people that nerf are from the NIC. Now, that last number may not be accurate, but its a lot closer than most of you expected. Even if we got 1 million kids to not buy ANY of the newer guns, we would still be 1%. We can't fight it. If you want good guns, run a company your self.

I rest my case.

Mhmmmm, so you're 12?

[dizzyduck]

Everyone shut up.

1. I consider myself an avid modder, but I rarely buy blasters at retail. I get most of my lot from thrift stores or by buying them off of other NIC members. There's no point to me spending $30 on a kids' toy.

2. Buy it, don't buy it, whatever. Make it work. Stop bitching and moaning that Hasbro is making its blasters more difficult to optimize. Hell, if someone comes up with some sort of breakthrough to make the reverse-plunger system that much more effective, everyone would stop bitching and moaning, and everyone would be scrambling to buy every Recon they could get their hands on.

It's just a matter of figuring out how to do it. And if it's impossible, then so be it. Stop expecting Hasbro to cater to your every whim. Stop thinking that you, the members of the NIC, are worth that much to Hasbro and its bottom line.

[Mepain]

In agreement with dizzyduck, I highly suggest that everyone take a few minutes to read this article.

While I certainly don't acknowledge the continuation of this argument, I felt that everyone involved should be aware of preceding events.

[2iko]

Everyone shut up.

...

2. Buy it, don't buy it, whatever. Make it work. Stop bitching and moaning that Hasbro is making its blasters more difficult to optimize. Hell, if someone comes up with some sort of breakthrough to make the reverse-plunger system that much more effective, everyone would stop bitching and moaning, and everyone would be scrambling to buy every Recon they could get their hands on.

It's just a matter of figuring out how to do it. And if it's impossible, then so be it. Stop expecting Hasbro to cater to your every whim. Stop thinking that you, the members of the NIC, are worth that much to Hasbro and its bottom line.

Well, we all know how, the Scout and the LSFG both employ it as efficiently as possible. The problem is it's not really possible to combine it with a clip unless the plunger is extremely small, so small I don't think it's viable.

Edited by 2iko, 17 January 2010 - 01:04 PM.