I think plenty of people do care, especially within the yo-yo community. For a company that seems to lean so much of its marketing on influencers and online word-of-mouth, it’s a problem.
But it’s impossible not to notice the lack of compelling products.
People have been saying almost all of this stuff about YYF for the whole time I’ve been in the scene (some 15 years now). While the controversies have gone from spurious cease and desists to racism the rest of the complaints here (questionable QA, releasing endless variations of specific designs, etc) are the same ones I remember seeing on the One Drop forums and Yoyonation wayback when.
I think YYF’s position in the market is pretty stable at this point and they’re probably just going to keep trucking along, occasionally coming up with something interesting.
I cant help but think, at least part of it is:
Buying from one of the biggest yoyo companies in the world = not cool
Buying from a small, so called, boutique yoyo company = cool
There’s so many companies making yoyos and the economics of scale doesn’t seem to be keeping the price of YYF down.
I also agree that Yoyofriends have kind of taken their place. I also like that Yoyofriends’ throws all come from their one shop.
Is yoyofactory the yoyo company that has brought the most different models to the market?
I have had a tone of ideas recently
Obviously just the stuff going on with the controversy and everything, but yoyofactory was at its peak during the yoyo boom 2022-2023, but when it stopped they just kept making more yoyos that we didn’t rlly ask for.
It’s being targeted towards the kids and new players rn
It’s also not being taken very seriously if you ask me, with the “cringy” “do the dna” types of stuff
I honestly love their products so much since they’re what got me to even start yoyoing, but it’s kinda dying now
Rlly hope to see some better logos to…
Is it Yoyofactory or C3 over the past two years?
Yes man, how difficult is it to make a decent logo? Some are degrading! hahahaha…
Before they worked harder 
The silver miracle is the 
Theres even these memes of the looks of yoyos before and now. Back then there was so much more design in the yoyos, but now we got yoyofactory with the big 8s on the 888 and the 23 on the miracle
kasuga ayumu left their team, that’s what’s up🤣
jokes aside, even as a beginner i only see their yoyos as entry models, most of their designs are just throwing sketches on wet tissue on the wall, just to see which one sticks, weird ahh looking yoyos
Id say c3
This is slightly tangential but will loop back around.
It seems like with how much easier it is for other manufacturers to compete YYF kind of had it’s identity dissolve.
If you want a min-max competition yoyo there are much better options that specialize in comp yoyos.
If you want a design experiment type yoyo, there are multiple options there.
And probably the most common are the brands who do a bit of everything, even low cost plastic Yoyos that used to be almost exclusive to the largest companies.
People have had issues with YYF forever but they were the competition powerhouse and dominated the entry level when YYJ fell off. There’s no longer as many barriers to entry for distribution and that ties into all the other factors.
C3 PRIDE RAHHHH (complete sentence)
YoyoFriends really is a yo-yo factory when you consider that they make yo-yos for pretty much every company now.
I just wonder why YYF wouldn’t be able to stay ahead of the competition.
They have had and still have some of the most well known and dominant players on their team, and many brand representatives that remain well liked.
They can produce high tech yo-yos like Miracle.
The produced the IQ which seemed pretty well received.
They produce innovative yo-yos like Nine Dragons.
They have a large back catalog of yo-yos like the 888 which maintain a following.
Whatever they are selling seems to give them plenty of resources to throw other stuff against the wall.
In an unrelated note Duncan has been killing it sponsoring awesome young players and events, no big drama recently that I’m aware of and overall releasing amazing nostalgic and comp yo-yos that hit almost every time. Sadly yomega didn’t figure out how to do much and is still in the not listening to any of their audience even though I had a small bit of hope when they opened their ambassador program. I’m just not sure if they did much with that.
Yoyo factory just feels stagnant with a bunch of controversy and misses that lead most to back off.
The most interesting thing I saw from yyf was the 3d printing kits they teased in May and they never followed through on that. That would at least have engaged the maker community and been a step toward collaboration or at least enabling community engagement.
Smaller brands hit different because for all the resources they don’t have most out allot back into the community and engage way more directly.
Are the other brands really competing though? I guess it depends on what you think matters in competitive yoyo. They have the most wins in the last decade by a good margin (at least in 1a). In the last year they sponsored 2 players in the top 3. So which is more important having the “best” yoyo or the “best” players?
lack of vision
Duncan really had a gud year in 2024. They dropped 2 banger yoyos, got a national yoyo contest winner, got thomas, got 6th and 7th in worlds, they’re really doing well rn
Thinking about GENPOP. 7068. Seems reasonably priced. Similar dimensions to extremely popular designs released in the same time frame.
The reviews and mentions I can find seem uniformly positive, but relatively rare compared to yo-yos that seem comparable. Is the competition just so much better?
Is my own YYF blind spot hiding its popularity?
It seems very in-stock in the US, and practically sold out in Japan, though that alone says nothing reliable about total sales.
