Our kids were gifted "Guess Who" (a game which is problematic in a whole host of other ways). I was shocked that it was thin plastic and cardboard. The while th

Our kids were gifted "Guess Who" (a game which is problematic in a whole host of other ways). I was shocked that it was thin plastic and cardboard. The while thing felt disposable. I feel that this must be a strategy used on toys that were previously popular. They're not going to return to being the popular must-have item that people will pay a premium for, but there is residual value in the marketing campaign from the 80s. So the toy companies push the build quality as low as they can and milk the last good will from the brand by making it a cheap impulse purchase. To your larger point, there are still high quality toys around. You just avoid the big Toys R Us style stores and go to an independent or smaller toy story. Plan Toys and Green Toys stick out to me as two brands which felt consistently high quality and were widely available.