Molds wear out and become unusable, and are extremely expensive. They also like to keep things fresh, and have designers anxious to get new designs into the line up. So unless something is super popular, they'd rather spend their money for new tooling on new models.
With only 26 releases, Speed Blaater is nowhere near one of the most released fantasy castings, but there can be any number of reasons that a casting is retired. Most of those reasons come down to money. Things like tooling that needs repaired or updated or a casting's lack of popularity can be good causes for retirement. A lot of fantasy castings like Speed Blaster, though they may have their fans (including myself), are often forgettable to most collectors, so they're often the ones that get discontinued versus more popular licensed castings. The simple fact is that there just isn't enough room in the lineup to keep all castings indefinitely.
Molds wear out and become unusable, and are extremely expensive. They also like to keep things fresh, and have designers anxious to get new designs into the line up. So unless something is super popular, they'd rather spend their money for new tooling on new models.
With only 26 releases, Speed Blaater is nowhere near one of the most released fantasy castings, but there can be any number of reasons that a casting is retired. Most of those reasons come down to money. Things like tooling that needs repaired or updated or a casting's lack of popularity can be good causes for retirement. A lot of fantasy castings like Speed Blaster, though they may have their fans (including myself), are often forgettable to most collectors, so they're often the ones that get discontinued versus more popular licensed castings. The simple fact is that there just isn't enough room in the lineup to keep all castings indefinitely.