I think that it stems from the fact that a company creating a batch of new yoyos is taking on a large risk. Ordering a smaller batch initially allows us to gain insight on how the product will do. As for colors many manufacturers have a moq for each colorway created. For example FPM has an moq of 25 units for each colorway that is anodized. I don’t think this is done maliciously, but with the ease of access to create yoyos now, and increased supply of throws it’s hard to justify larger orders for smaller companies.
3 Likes
I do agree that the “handles everything” pitch is a cop out.
While there are of course some examples of this (OD comes to mind), I wish that more releases had info that talked more about what designs influenced it and why, instead of leaving it at the footnotes of at all.
3 Likes
Couple easy points/answers I’d like to share with my 2cents
- It is so easy to make yoyos now. Not just for existing companies but new companies as well.
- Newer yoyos sell a lot better than re-runs/2nd runs (except for classics, as you said, ex: if there were a peak rerun)
- Some companies release only 1 small color/drpp at a time for the same reason.
- Newer yoyos are inherently less risky than reruns.
- Sometimes “v2” yoyos are good if there’s been a gap between releases.. trends and what people like change, but I agree this shouldn’t be happening within at least a year of the OG design lol.
- Most yoyos are at least decent off the first prototype that it’s uncommon for people to really fine tune a design with a 2nd or 3rd prototype
- #6 is doubly true if the company hires an outside designer who most likely charges for additional changes between prototypes if said changes are large enough. This is mainly a boutique issue since most OEMs/large companies have an “in house” designer.
- Yoyo design has been pretty optimized for performance trends and therefore have extremely similar design language, which makes the market look/feel even more bloated.
- This also makes it hard for companies to want to make those special outside of the box yoyos because they can be pretty hit or miss.
- Name/face recognition plays a bigger role in selling a model than every other point above. Doubly so in a saturated market.
19 Likes
Thanks for your insight!
1 Like
Makes me wonder how many yo-yo’s Sydney Sweeney could sell.
5 Likes
I’d buy one
2 Likes
Kind of interesting, I was looking the other day at the amount of views “the what did you get in the mail” thread has got comparing the few years it has it existed. I noticed it slowly has declined year by year which was surprising. Not sure if that statistic means much.
For me lately with yoyos getting wider there’s not as many that get me hyped. I’ve always been pretty selective with what yoyos I buy and typically buy 3 or 4 a year.
4 Likes
A Sydney Sweeney yo-yo?
I’d buy two… Good things come in pairs..
8 Likes
That’s interesting, but I think you’d need to be able to correlate this to numbers of active members, per year. Is that data available? Has the number of active members been declining?
2 Likes
I’m not sure if we can see that info. I just happened to click sort posts by most viewed on the main forum screen and all of the mail day posts were some of the most viewed. From 2024 to 2025 it went from 110k views down to 76k views which was the largest drop of them all. Alot less posts as well.
1 Like
Hello, team player leader of yoyofriends here. This is a great discussion. Firstly thanks for all the criticisms and ideas. Here is what I think. We release alot of models because we think most of them (if not all of them have their purposes). For example. Artifice was built for team player James Heder. Him and I talked for hours on discord so this yoyo can be exactly what he wants. Armageddon was built after team player Yahoo’s request to build a 53mm yoyo. Now looking back, it is kind of our bad for releasing them close together. We have all our design story here, telling what is the yoyo for, how we designed it, and what would it play like.
I also have a YouTube channel overviewing how each yoyo play like and how they compare to other yoyofriends lineup.
As for tweaks on an older yoyo model and release them as a new yoyo. Like Peregrine X, Hummingbird II etc. Because the yoyoing scene and tricks are evolving at a fast pace. We want to bring some of the older design to a more current standard. For example. I do not think a gap width of 4.46mm, 43mm width and 62g of the Hummingbird is up to par in the current meta. The string use are now mostly thicker, horizontal combos are generally getting longer, and body tricks requires wider catch zone. We would update the yoyo not nessesarily for them to be a competition yoyo, but to have the feeling of the original but more competent in performance in the mordern days.
Nowaday the most advanced yoyo is pushing 60mm wide and 68g. A yoyo that can handle everything you throw at back in the day does not mean it can do that nowadays. I did not even market Hummingbird II as a competition yoyo anymore because it’s not even up to the best current competition standards. This is why we keep working with the players to make new models to give them the best odd in a contest. (yes, we have prototypes even above 60mm width in player testing phase).
We do reruns of a yoyo definitely if it sells well. We restock very frequently I think. We simply can’t release all the colorway at once, because each run are new yoyos being made. I however will try my best with the players and manu team to bring something cool or exciting to the table.
18 Likes
Philip, you are not only a Genius…. You are one heck of a Player.
I appreciate that even though you don’t post that often…. Obviously you are ‘watching’ and concerned about how people feel about the Yoyofriends products.
You don’t hesitate to step up and get everybody up to speed on how things ‘work’ at the Company.
You are like the yo-yo version of a software update, lol
….. please download Philips information to keep your yo-yo friends knowledge up-to-date🤓
Thanks….. I also Look forward to your videos. Always good content.
8 Likes
I’m so happy I went with you guys for my first two metal yo-yo’s 
your passion for the craft deff caught my attention as a new hobbiest! Keep up the great work and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for YYFriends!
2 Likes
Thanks for explaining
Well that’s it I guess. You could make him a yoyo the way he wants and let him use for a few months before you release it to the public. Now you might risk dead stock at you and your suppliers. Releasing them a few more months in between might have made me buy both. Now I don’t know if I buy either, but most likely not the Armageddon.
For me a delay between releases like that would have the disadvantages that I buy more yoyo’s I don’t need but it has the advantage that I can keep up with releases better.
Maybe it’s just me but usually I wait a while, think about it, hope one of my friends buy it so I can try it at a yoyo meeting, wait for review (videos) to come online. And then decide to buy. When stuff releases close together it kinda discouraged to even care about it.
I ordered the Heron yesterday. Same story. Waited for my friends to get them and get their opinion and opinions from others about it, gave it some time to think.
Ohh I have my opinion about this as well is related to that topic China soft slow pace economy has put its manufacturers in crisis mode to compete more. I watch videos specifically on YouTube that it’s far easier to own CNC machines because allot of bankruptcies have occured over in China. It’s the same for restaurant equipment and vehicles. The manufacturers left are willing to do everything necessary to stay busy and profitable want to make themselves the inhouse brand of choice. All the yoyo manufacturers are pretty much making prototypes and production models at a much faster pace. In the US, we don’t see every new boutique brand start up product released but that’s so much different in the Asia-Pacific region this happening. With move to much wider size yoyo I seen allot of new releases and prototypes on X in Asian languages that I often translate into English. It’s very interesting what prototypes make full production releases. I’m also thinking allot of the boutique brands are beta testing small batches more because they can be sacrificed and die off not affecting the main inhouse brands. IMO of course. If you dig deep enough there is likely a yoyo design already prototyped being used or co branded with slight ascetics changes not to fully copy the original design. I’m catching allot similar models out there that are selling for less money in the Asian Pacific region are near copycats or are overlapping each other should t be a surprise with China notorious fake market operations.
Thanks for your feedback Philip! I hope it didn’t sound like I was picking on Yoyofriends. I have a relatively large number of your throws and I love them all. I’m sure having in-house manufacturing, along with, clearly, a love for yoyoing, accounts for the variety of models.
3 Likes