My #1 beef with Duncan has always been, and remains, their unwillingness to put resources into making the Imperial & Butterfly into legitimately useable yoyos. The damage they have done to the potential player base worldwide by pushing those harder than anything else is incalculable, and pretty much everyone who has bought one of the millions and millions of those yoyos sold in the past 20 years has come to the conclusion “Oh, I guess I’m no good at this” and walked away. It crushes my soul every time I think about it.
How many players has Duncan turned away with those products?
Tiger Electronics dropping the E-Yo did almost nothing in the market compared to the damage that Duncan has done with the Imperial and Butterfly.
Of all the companies in the US, Duncan is the one in the position to do the most good for the entire yoyo industry. To me, every day that they fail to act on the grotesque shortcomings of the Imperial & Butterfly is another day that they are exhibiting a complete lack of interest in growing the art and sport of yoyo play.
I hope they read this, I hope they fix those two models, I hope they live up to the responsibility of their heritage. They could do so much.
Steve, would you say the butterfly XT is the answer to making the butterfly a usable yoyo? Or are you looking for a more advanced option? I would say that the pro-yo, or pulsefire, could be viewed as an usable imperial. I remember that being one of the first yoyo’s I owned, besides ironically an orange butterfly, and I picked it up fairly quickly. Would getting the Butterfy XT and pro-yo to replace the butterfly and imperial solve your issue?
In order for Duncan to really do some good, they need to update the design of the Butterfly and Imperial to be something functional. Those designs have remained wholly untouched since they were initially released. Nothing has been updated, changed, or fixed in the Duncan Imperial since it was released in 1954, and the same goes for the Butterfly in 1968.
The Butterfly XT is not a good yoyo. The ProYo is pretty good. If they replaced the Imperial and Butterfly with something that was take-apart with a decent wood axle or plastic transaxle, they would be in great shape.
It should be noted this is not me just complaining to complain. I legitimately want them to fix these things because it would be great for them and great for everyone and mostly it would be great for kids who want to learn how to yoyo. I don’t want Duncan to fail, I want them to succeed.
Imagine if big box stores were equipped with Pro-Yos and Flipsides instead of your typical Imperial/Butterfly or Reflex (The Reflex is an auto return but it’s pretty bad. Feels cheap, not something I’d want a beginner to learn with)…That would actually set things right with Duncan (in my opinion) if they wanted to pull in the beginner to intermediate crowd.
I remember in 2004 big box stores like Walmart and Target actually were equipped with Pro-Yos, Mosquitos, Avengers, Speed Beetles, and Freehands. They also were stocked with F.A.S.T. 201’s. I like to think of this as a “mini boom” as I saw more kids than usual playing with a yoyo.
Today, my local Walmart stocks the Butterfly/Imperial as well as a Limelight (Wood Axle Pulse, pretty nice throw actually) and the Reflex (ugh…)
Yes a boom is possible but at this day and age a steady growth/ interest in the hobby is more likely as yoyoers are consistently more and more media coverage.
That’s funny. Tetz killed it with the Butterfly, if Duncan is so set on selling that you would think they wouldn’t have fired the only person legitimizing it.
I don’t think the functionality of a yoyo decreases over time. The Butterfly is very much the same as it was in 1968, as is the skill of the non-yoyo player.
Sure, easier to learn some things on a Draupnir. But is that really what you want, Steve? Everyone learning the basics on ultra stable, high performing, basically self spinning yoyos? That sounds absolutely disgusting.
I have had Butterflys that perform beautifully for exactly what they are. But then I have some Butterflys that are manufactured with the gap ever so slightly too wide, and they aren’t properly tug responsive.
A kid buying a yoyo isn’t necessarily going to ‘get’ why theirs doesn’t work (if they got a crappy one).
The overall design plus the manufacturing needs to be better. Overall, I really like the Butterfly when approached for what it is. But I do not like it as a reliable yoyo that will hook a kid into the hobby.
He wants a Butterfly that won’t “break”(I’ve found that with beginners, when their yo’yo gets in a knot, they think it as good as broken). He wants a Butterfly that will sleep for longer than 5 seconds. He wants a Butterfly that isn’t trash, basically. We’ve come a long way since 1968, we should revamp designs accordingly.
Now that reminds me, when I already know modern yoyoing, I asked my dad who were in the US at that time to buy me a yoyo or two. I sent him the link of certain yoyo but for some reason there was a problem so that it’s unclear for my dad what I wanted, he bought me a butterfly instead. I was disappointed honestly, but that partially because it that time I haven’t been into fixed axle and don’t even know there was such interest.
Today however, I would appreciate getting an Imperial or Butterfly especially the wooden ones, over some random lesser known bearing yoyos that are pretty much look and play similar, but that is because I have interest in fixed axle play.
I’m not the one to call out anyone who want to learn with a super stable bearing yoyo right away, the thing is, even with bearing yoyos people give up all the time. I’ll tell you, people around here mostly already have experience with crappy wooden yoyos that was popular when I was a kid, when people say “yoyo”, it was what they have in mind. And by crappy I mean totally crap, get the cheapest wood you can get, teach some random guy to use a lathe, then ask him to make something that look like a yoyo, though at least gravity pull was possible enough to call it a yoyo. Even then, when people start picking up bearing yoyos, most still give up anyway. I would blame the mindset of people nowadays where many are not willing to work on something, or they don’t know that it’s something that require work; they think it was talent.
I get it that what Steve means probably was, when a kid see someone playing intricate string tricks with bearing yoyos, then proceed to accidentally buy (or being bought) a fixed axle, then they can’t do what the cool guys with bearing yoyos do and give up too quickly. I mean, if most people today are playing fixed axle and doing fixed axle tricks as how it was in the old times, I say that would be different.
He didn’t even say anything about unresponsive yoyos in general! He just wants a butterfly that is usable for someone just learning. Something with a take a part design, wooden axle sleeve, etc.
This has gotten away from the topic at hand, and that’s my fault.
The larger point I was trying to make is that we don’t need another boom, we need the companies who have the distribution to make sure they are putting the right equipment in the hands of the next generation of kids, so that instead of creating yoyo buyers we are creating yoyo players.
We don’t need a one-year fad. We need steady, sustainable growth and the only way that is going to happen on any kind of scale is with quality promotion and quality products. Currently, neither are readily available to the average consumer.
I’ll go one step further and say that without some better equipment, a boom is not possible, because there will not be enough people to show their fiends how cool it is and kick things off.
