Sephiroth
Wade Wilson
Surviving
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Post by Sephiroth on Oct 11, 2022 22:08:40 GMT -5
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the concept for the computer mouse was developed by engineers for Xerox, but they just couldn’t t get the higher ups on board with the concept of a computer attachment named after rodents. Steve Jobs and Wozniak saw it’s potential immediately.
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Post by jimmyjackezekiel on Oct 11, 2022 23:09:27 GMT -5
Bandai/Sunrise insisting that Mobile Suit Gundam be dubbed next after Wing instead of X or Turn A.
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Sigma: Current SRW Champ!
Dennis Stamp
Writes about wrestling, does videos about game shows, helps transpeople, loves baseball etc.
Posts: 4,525
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Post by Sigma: Current SRW Champ! on Oct 11, 2022 23:34:00 GMT -5
IHOP doing their IHOB ad campaign. That almost killed off their business. If they had just said they're expanding the menu then most people wouldn't have batted an eye and maybe frequent their establishments more.
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Post by GodzillaIsMyMonster on Oct 12, 2022 0:34:42 GMT -5
No, that one I understand entirely. They had already changed the formula in other nations and continued to do well but held off doing so in the US until they lost a hold of their share of the market to Pepsi (this was a time that RC still had a national impact, albeit massively reduced from their heyday). Switching to the formula they were using elsewhere could have helped, but there was a backlash. Coke Classic was a desperation move that worked so well that people formed conspiracy theories around it. Pepsi... eeww. I love Rc Cola. It's still widely available where I live. Coke is my all time favorite dark soda tho. Sprite is my preferred pop tho.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Oct 13, 2022 15:08:03 GMT -5
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the concept for the computer mouse was developed by engineers for Xerox, but they just couldn’t t get the higher ups on board with the concept of a computer attachment named after rodents. Steve Jobs and Wozniak saw it’s potential immediately. Nah, Xerox created a commercial product with a mouse, Xerox Star, which was based on the Alto that Jobs saw on his visit to PARC, the problem was it was slow, underpowered, unreliable and expensive, costing $50-$100,000 for a complete setup as it was a networked workstation setup. It was sold right at the dawn of the PC age too, which saw businesses move away from workstations and non x86 architecture, which didn't help.
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Post by The Thread Barbi on Oct 13, 2022 17:48:57 GMT -5
According to Andrew Tate, anything I have done so far in my life.
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Cranjis McBasketball
Crow T. Robot
Knew what the hell that thing was supposed to be
Peace Love and Nothing But
Posts: 41,948
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Post by Cranjis McBasketball on Oct 13, 2022 17:53:29 GMT -5
NBC killing off the original Star Trek. Amusingly because their executives had the same illiteracy towards Nielsen ratings that several wrestling fans still have today. They only looked at the total viewership numbers and not the key demo numbers. Star Trek had poor overall viewership numbers, but did really strong in 18-49. Between that and the petty dislike of the show for a number of reasons, they screwed themselves out of a lot of ad revenue. Syndicated reruns of TOS doing better in both demo and total viewership than several first run network shows only emphasized how much they screwed up. They must have learned because key demos, despite low ratings, is one of the only things that limped Seinfeld along until it became a hit.
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Post by G✇JI☈A on Oct 13, 2022 18:11:09 GMT -5
Here is another from Australia .. although this is quite small compared to others.
In 2017 the cheese manufacturer Bega bought acquired the local rights to distribute Kraft products. So they rebranded some of those famous Kraft products as Bega Singles (cheese slices), and Bega Mac & Cheese.
This didn’t last long at all, because a few months later they were back under the Kraft brand.
Guessing consumers did not take to the rebranding despite being exactly the same products.
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Push R Truth
Patti Mayonnaise
Unique and Special Snowflake, and a pants-less heathen.
Perpetually Constipated
Posts: 39,293
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Post by Push R Truth on Oct 13, 2022 18:22:40 GMT -5
Should we make a Warcraft movie about Arthas, by far the most popular and well known character in Warcraft? I mean, WoW is one of the biggest games ever and Warcraft 3 led into it and is wildly praised.
Naw, let's make the movie about some shit about the first game that almost nobody played and lets make the CGI characters feel real and the real actors wooden as shit.
But to be fair: picking on video games movies is almost cheating for terrible business decisions
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Oct 15, 2022 8:55:22 GMT -5
Couldn’t find it in the thread with a quick search, but wouldn’t be surprised if someone beat me to it.
What a Maneuver!‘s (WAM) “Hold my beer” response to their own scandal after slamming Pro Wrestling Tees (PWT) on their scandal.
For those who don’t know last year PWT had a data breach so that a lot of their customer’s data such as credit card info was stolen. Unfortunately this happens to big companies all the time. But the most damaging part was PWT delayed telling their customers with a popular thought being that they delayed revealing this just so it would not hurt their sales.
All WAM had to do was be the bigger man, keep their mouth shut, and provide quality customer service without creating their own scandal. They could have been THE t-shirt company for non-WWE wrestling.
Instead they dunked on PWT all over social media. This would’ve been fine if not a little petty. But then they shot themselves in the face with their own scandal. They put a shirt for sale with white supremacist overtones on their front page. When customers immediately started complaining rather than apologizing and removing the shirt, they doubled down. Hard.
Since then a bunch of people have cut ties to WAM including this very forum. I don’t know how their bottom line was effected exactly, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they only sell a fraction of what they once did. Meanwhile PWT came out of their scandal looking bad, and having their business hurt, but are in a MUCH better spot than WAM.
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Post by Feyrhausen on Oct 15, 2022 10:22:57 GMT -5
The American comic book industry. An institution as American as apple pie. Comics were sold everywhere and every kid read them. Even girls. The characters were adapted to every medium from prose, movie, radio, and TV.
First mistake was sticking to a price point. Back when they started comics were huge with up to a half dozen comic stories, a couple of prose stories, maybe some pin ups. All for .10¢. Comparable to magazines at the time like Life. But when costs and inflation made magazines raise their prices comics stuck to that .10¢, shrinking their page count as a result. So by the time they had to raise their prices they were a tiny pamplet that no longer seemed worth your time.
Second mistake was letting the fans take over. The first generations of comic creators were professionals doing a job. Starting in the 70s you had a generation that cared more about their fanfic than what served the characters and therefore the business. They had an encyclopedic knowledge of comics and thought that everyone else should to. They overfocused on continuity. And above all they turned an all ages readership into adult men who were overly focused on sex and violence.
Third and the biggest one, building on the other two was abandoning the newsstand distribution system in favor of the direct market. The direct market came about because of comic book stores popping up to sell back issues. Distributors began selling to the direct with the agreement that unsold issues could not be returned, instead kept for back issue sale. Comic publishers took advantage of this by moving some low selling comics to direct only as you didnt have to print as many copies making them more viable. But then the bean counters got involved and they loved the guarnteed nature of the direct market. No need for returns or credit. Then the 90s boom hit and there were comic stores everywhere so the newsstand was abandoned as unnecessary. And the bust hit, stores closed everywhere and comics now were only available in the few stores that managed to survive. My city, a capital city, had 1 store for years. These stores were for the most part the domain of the comic book nerd. Smelly, overweight, hostile to women, POC, and anyone who wasnt a true fan.
Now when the movies make billions the comics struggle to sell a fraction of what they once did. Their merchandise is everywhere but comics are still in the same hole in the wall stores. And where the (successful) movies have embraced the all ages fun that comics were once about the current comics have been forced to cater to an aging readership that demands me and more "mature" stories.
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Post by Baldobomb-22-OH-MAN!!! on Oct 15, 2022 10:50:32 GMT -5
is it too early to add Facebook/Meta f***ing HARD into metaverse/NFT BS that nobody wanted?
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Spider2024
Patti Mayonnaise
Dedicated 6,666th post to Irontyger
I believe in Joe Hendry.
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Post by Spider2024 on Oct 15, 2022 10:50:50 GMT -5
The entirety of the Google Stadia. The pre-planning, the reveal, the leadup to launch, the "launch", the full launch, all the stuff they did (and didn't do) in response to what needed to be fixed along the way, even the end was badly done (yes, even in the landscape of things that failed and needed the plug pulled, Stadia still was ended in a rough way.) Google is lucky they're worth like a trillion dollars, a lesser company would've felt lasting aches and pains from the whole thing. Should we make a Warcraft movie about Arthas, by far the most popular and well known character in Warcraft? I mean, WoW is one of the biggest games ever and Warcraft 3 led into it and is wildly praised. Naw, let's make the movie about some shit about the first game that almost nobody played and lets make the CGI characters feel real and the real actors wooden as shit. But to be fair: picking on video games movies is almost cheating for terrible business decisions OF COURSE!
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chrom
Backup Wench
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Post by chrom on Jan 13, 2024 18:08:12 GMT -5
Tonka had gotten the right's from Japan for a cartoon, when coming up with a name for their upcoming line of transforming machines, a year ahead of Hasbro's own idea. Had narrowed the ideas for the name for it down to including GoBots and The Transformers.
They went with GoBots, which while still a modest success in both ratings and toy sales, was only a drop in the bucket of what The Transformers would bring in.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jan 14, 2024 3:04:25 GMT -5
GameStop pumping millions of dollars they didn't have to sparr into NFTs at their peak, ending up making double to single digit figures per day from it for most of the time since after the wheels fell off the obvious scam gamers quite vocally did not want. Two years on, the plug has been pulled.
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Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Jan 14, 2024 3:20:49 GMT -5
Tonka had gotten the right's from Japan for a cartoon, when coming up with a name for their upcoming line of transforming machines, a year ahead of Hasbro's own idea. Had narrowed the ideas for the name for it down to including GoBots and The Transformers. They went with GoBots, which while still a modest success in both ratings and toy sales, was only a drop in the bucket of what The Transformers would bring in. Tonka's problem was they had limited experience with branding character driven boys toys so they quickly found themselves playing catch up with Hasbro who got Marvel involved from day 1 to make sure every mainline toy released had a strong name, bio and unique art on every package. If you bought a Transformer, you could learn who they were from the box and make your own stories built around that while gobot boxes were mostly name and cross sell. The Hanna Barbera cartoon didn't help, twenty years ahead of time in terms of representation, but twenty years behind in terms of quality,it was so bad BanDai held one test screening for potentially importing it and the feedback was so negative they made an unrelated anime instead.
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Post by KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!! on Feb 20, 2024 6:39:30 GMT -5
I forget which line it was, but Blu-ray label, Vinegar Syndrome had a product line where the concept was it would only be available at indie retail stores.
In theory it sounds like a good idea because physical media indie retailers need any excuse they can to get people in the door. The problem was even indie retailers with substantial online presences were prohibited from selling the items online. Mike from Grindhouse Video said none of them were selling in-store and he even asked VS if he could sell them through his indie store online. But they declined. So Mike had a bunch of these collecting dust while maybe a bunch of people throughout the country want to buy them. But they can’t get them. Because Mike only had a store in Tennessee.
As far as I know VS still has the product line, but completely axed the original concept.
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Post by devilfish on Feb 20, 2024 12:29:00 GMT -5
Here’s one from the UK. Back in the 1990s Hoover vacuum cleaners were the biggest brand of vacuums in the whole country. In fact, Hoover were so popular that the word Hoover became slang for a vacuum cleaner in England.
A way to grow their business, they did an ad campaign, where if you spent over £100 a new vacuum cleaner. You could redeem it for two free plane tickets to a couple of different European destinations. It turned out that because of the redemption rules, which require jumping through a whole lot of hoops. Not a lot of people redeemed their free flights, and they still sold a bunch of products so they decided to expand the offer by giving away free flights to America. They didn’t realize that they were going to shoot themselves in the foot because back, then a plane ticket from London to the US cost about six times what it cost to fly to a different city in Europe. And most people were able to buy the cheapest Hoover that qualified, which cost around £120 (as such that was jokingly called the Christmas. Everyone got a Hoover.) and then tried to jump through all the hoops and all of the fine print to get these extremely expensive fights to the USA.
Hoover did sell a bunch of vacuums in the beginning, however, it became a PR disaster when news stories came out about them, disqualifying people for the most Ticky-tack of reasons, denying people their free flights, and making it all but impossible for people to redeem the vouchers.
The resulting PR disaster cost Hoover to lose so much money in England, that, among other things they lost their royal warrant, which is a fancy form of promotion in which they are given a few of approval by the royal family
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fg
Unicron
Gaming
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Post by fg on Feb 20, 2024 15:22:11 GMT -5
There’s a YouTube channel called Company Man who talks about the rises and falls (and in some cases roses again such as with WWE.) There are two videos from his channel that I like and maybe more. One was Circuit City m.youtube.com/watch?v=l2BuRy3e_xU&t=379s&pp=ygUYY2lyY3VpdCBjaXR5IGNvbXBhbnkgbWFuFast forward to 3:20 when he talks about how Circuut City made a horrible investment in Divx (a disposable DVD.) There are even Divx videos on YouTube that Sat it’s unlikely that they will EVER go out of business (HAHAHAHA!). Also he talks about how CC would seek out locations that are cheap and inconvenient for people to get to. They were like: “Why pay $$$$$ for these expensive locations when we can save money by having people come to us.” Also, they fired their best employees because they were making too much money. Basically they penalized them for doing a good job and their replacements didn’t do as good of a job. (Facepalm.) Also, there is Sears. (Yes I’m posting this because I used to work there.) m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qws713t3HBY&t=513s&pp=ygURc2VhcnMgY29tcGFueSBtYW4%3DEverything he says about Eddie Lambert (the owner of Sears) I think is true.
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Post by BorneAgain on Feb 20, 2024 18:42:28 GMT -5
The issues with Atari are deeper and more complicated than just one big error as it was a series of wrong turns that got them in such a bad spot, but there was one particular decision by CEO Ray Kassar which may have been the nail in the coffin for the console division.
With loads of unsold inventory in warehouses and even retailers stating there were plenty of games on shelves not being bought because the market was so saturated Kassar had a choice. Atari could eat the loss via taking the excess cartridges back from retailers to dispose of them, dispose of at least the current excess supply they have in their own warehouses, or push the unsold games out into the market via insistence to retailers to sell them at discount. The latter option cost Atari the least amount of money at the time, but it soon destroyed them.
In a video game market already glutted with product, a further flood of cheap cartridges (not just at traditional stores but numerous places since titles were being sold everywhere) at discounted prices completely destroyed the value of Atari titles. With a customer base largely made-up of kids and older parents (ie people who weren't terribly discerning about which games were quality or not) and before even video game magazines were really established that could inform potential players, people would end up buying many, often bad games at absurdly low prices. That made releasing new quality, high budgeted games completely impractical because one (relative to the time) AAA Atari release had no appeal to customers that could buy 5 other 2600 games for the same price. The latter may have been largely bad, however given how disposable games were seen, it didn't matter.
So, with old games slashed so much that even retailers were barely making money and Atari largely unable to make real profit from new games, the company's best chance to turn things around evaporated. Even a change in leadership with Kassar's removal and a shift towards actually disposing of excess cartridges (see the infamous ET landfill) was too little too late, and with the console division dragging down Warner Communications stock price to the point of hostile takeovers now being a risk? It was sold off to Jack Tramiel and the Atari company as it existed since 1972 was gone for good.
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