I agree completely. Exclusives need to be highly desirable to warrant the high costs for them. Its when people want them but don't want to pay the high costs that they tend to get selfish and don't want anybody to have them.
Quoted for absolute truth, d00d. If these things were cheaper, everyone would love them. But then, of course, they wouldn't be made; the money made on them wouldn't be enough to pay for them to be produced. It's a trade off; awesome toys, or no toys.
Going to have to agree with everyone who's saying that it's a trade off as far as the convention exclusives are concerned. You can either afford them or you can't, but just because the club doesn't make them doesn't mean that Hasbro's going to release them at some given time. So, as Draven put it, we either get some awesome, but hard to get exclusives... or we get nothing at all. Personally, I've managed to get a hold of both sets from the last two years by budgeting money from my income taxes. I've not been able to afford to go to the convention, because travel is expensive (which it would be expensive no matter where I live in the world), but I have been able to budget to get the non-attendee package both years and that's really what I want anyways. Admittedly, getting the show only exclusives is a bit costly, but I've managed. And I still manage to pay my mortgage, car and in the process of still paying off the medical bills from my daughter's birth. However, a little bit of budgeting goes a long ways. After all, exclusives wouldn't be quit as exclusive if they were easy for everyone to get. It's unfortunate but that's how it works. As for the side talk of Classics selling well. They seem to be selling well in my area also as every time I see them at a store they're usually gone the next day. The only one that seems to be shelf-warming in my area is Starscream and Optimus Prime. Usually a couple of those left on the shelves.
They're still fairly limited if you're outside the BotCon area, and indeed outside the US. I seem to recall something about IDW reprinting the last storyline that was in the club comic -- the same will probably happen with this eventually. If the quality is on par with the bit of club comic I saw, nothing much will be being missed. Yeah, but anyone who attaches "must" to bits of plastic whilst being entirely serious tends not to get much sympathy even from other toy collectors. The question as far as Hasbro's concerned is whether an exclusive will hurt other business -- essentially whether bad PR will cause people to drop buying other product. Usually this isn't as much of an issue as it could be because exclusives are repaints or slight remoulds for cost reasons. An entirely exclusive comic that's actually good might generate some bad PR, or at least some concerted copyright infringement. But it probably won't be (entirely exclusive, or particularly good.) Still, if it gets a wider reprint, it'll most likely get enough speculative purchases to make the exercise worthwhile.
Phazer, regardless of who is paying for it, this is not a full blown fiction. One would have to be crazy to think that there can be a similarity between what we are doing and a full blown promoted fiction. As it has been stated more than once, Skyfall and Landquake are going to be the principle players in the story. They are CLUB characters. This fiction is being used by us to use to support the Club. Cybertron was used by us to support the club. IF Hasbro wanted to do a full blown fiction, they would, it has nothing to do with them being too busy, come on. The reason is that the classics is ...a...filler line. It is a 9 month line. To compare it to Beast Wars is just silly. Beast Wars had over 25 toys in year 1, an all new cgi series, a fast food tie in and merchandising. The point of the Classics fiction via the Club is to support the Club. But who pays who and so on, it is not as black and white as you want it to be. It is not some simple formula that you want it to be.
Actually, by my counts, Classics is a hair over Beast Wars average in half the time. BUT, Beast Wars was basically rebuilding the brand, Classics is "riding the wave" from the past 4 years along with new movie hype, so I hardly view it as a fair comparison We have the movie rerelease. For the current crop of kids, the old film is basically new, and Hasbro has had success promoting My Little Pony through Direct to DVD films, along with GI Joe. Aside from Mirage, Jetfire, and debatedly, Ramjet (and the minicons and some LoC) damn near EVERY Core Classics figure is fairly prominant in the film, including exclusives due next spring
Even if that's true, since when are the writer's wages the ONLY costs of producing a comic? Well, you have to understand that they plan ahead by that much. It takes that long for the responses to your whims to make it to production. I'm sure they're scripting the Classics cartoon RIGHT NOW since your comments have popped up in this thread. Wow! Are you going to bend spoons next? I'm simply AMAZED that you predicted that a given TF line would end. BTW, I now predict -- drumroll, please -- that the 2007 movie line will be "killed" by Hasbro within 12-18 months of its first wave. TAA-DAAAH! Also, the ongoing shipping of the TFU Railbots and Aerialbots to KBs/CVSs and "TFU" Energon repacks to dollar stores would seem to disagree with your assertion that Universe is completely dead. That's, what, 3-1/2 to 4 years the line has lasted? They sure jumped right on your "suggestion". Next, GEE! You predicted that there would be a shift in the stylings of TFs over the course of a few years. Whodathunkit? Really? Is/was Universe a "main line"? I have -- NOT counting con exclusives -- 63 TFU toys, and I skipped quite a handful of them. Counting up Classics about which we're aware (and it's reasonable to assume we know about most or all of them): Voyagers: 4 (including Magnus) Deluxes: 11 (including Skywarp and the OP/Megs 2-pack) 20th OP: 1 (I'm being generous to include this here, I think) Soundwave + tapes: 3 Legends: 8 Mini-Cons: 18 =============================== Total: 45 (over half of which are at a $4-or-less price point) Meanwhile, Cybertron has/had (if I'm counting correctly) 137 figures. That's a "main line" these days. Classics is not. To put it simply: Says you.
Not true. The comic portion is being produced by IDW. I think I'm willing to take your word over ZacWilliam's regarding the Classics comic as a Hasbro Production and not a Fun Publications' one, but you'd have to tell me first the source that makes you so sure that others are innacurate in their rants, while you're not in yours. So, you're not sure. OK. Or, are you? Wow, just wow. Do the math again Phazer. This time factor in the number of NEW MOLDS in Beast Wars and in Classics. ONLY new molds. So, if Hasbro is paying Don as they're paying Forrest, then I guess it's impossible for them (Don and Forrest) to receive money from other companies ... say like IDW or Fun Publications? Chicken and egg if you ask me. If there were no live action movie for 2007, then Hasbro wouldn't have had to think about a "filler line" but a full Armada-like/Energon-like/Cybertron-like line. Were that the case, are you sure Classics would have been the full line? I'm not, but I'm not the driving force behind Hasbro's decisions like some other posters on this thread. -airfox
So you can only have fun if the exlusives are mainstay, important figures from the Classics line (or the line of the moment)? That's what your fun depends on? And I'm ruining your fun by wanting popular figures to be available for everyone, and not just a few? And I'm being selfish? Sorry, I'm done in this thread. We're just not going to be able to come to terms.
Like I asked before, I'm being selfish for wanting great figures to be widely available? Ok. Well, seeya.
Well you know, you can always want in one hand and shit in the other. Let me know how that works out for ya. Also, don't take people's opposing stances to your desires to be a personal attack on you. That's how you lose at the internet.
Well looks like I'm signing up for the club. And as for my opinion on classics exclusives, while I agree on wanting them all, a figure made is better than none, while I may not be able to afford him now, it'll be something to aspire to later to focus and keep collecting on. I want at some point with the redone Movie and G1 series, all 112 or so G1 transformers. A G1 real Ironhide and ratchet with the right head and body style of the toon. Bumblebee remolded into his Cybertronian form. Wheeljack done the same. It does mildly irk me that hasbro doesn't make a basics add on for classics using strongarm for brawn (remolded head as seen), A new powerglide or cosmo, gears, and more. We've got.. Wheeljack (energon downshift) Ironhide (energon rodimus head, inferno or new body) ratchet (Energon rodimus head, inferno, snowcat, or new body.) brawn (strongarm as said before) prowl sideswipe (armada wheeljack remolded as said before) hound jazz sunstreaker (armada wheeljack again, new head too this time) bluestreak gears tracks huffer inferno skids red alert trailbreaker warpath cosmos seaspray windcharger hoist grapple powerglide (various beast wars like tech planes to be used) Blaster Perceptor Cassettes (or accessory to blaster's mode) omega supreme (if you must... repaint energon, but classics new mold prefered) snarl sludge swoop slag aerialbots protectobots technobots ultra magnus metroplex skylynx kup arcee springer fortress maximus Alpha Trion (vector prime repaint/head remold.) Junkions that still need to be made, and that's just the bulk of the G1 good guys from the Toon. And yeah classics has made me finally make a checklist of Original toon characters, I have the decepticons too. Still working on perfecting it. I just want these figures made by any means, I'll worry about how I'm going to get them later once I know they exist.
Then what would the Club have to attract new members and provide for their existing members. Its all very well to say that you don't want things to be as they are but you're not exactly giving an alternative.
No need to take it so seriously. I mean, sure we'd all like for the Club and Convention exclusives to be available for all, but they aren't. That's the nature of exclusives... they're exclusive and not easily obtainable unless you have the disposable cash. The only other thing that I think you might be getting wrong is that there seems to be this underlying assumption on your part that if these figures weren't made for the club/convention than Hasbro would put them into the mainline. This is, in my personal opinion, a large fallacy that seems to keep being brought up by the small minority of people whom seem to dislike the idea of MC's high priced exclusives. I remember it when people were complaining about Ironhide and Ratchet the first year that MC had the convention... people were going as far as to say that MC is the reason that Hasbro didn't make an Ironhide or Ratchet out of the E. Tow-Line mold for the now defunct Universe line. And I'll say the same thing today that I said two years ago... the only reason that Hasbro allowed (yes, they allow MC to make exclusive figures) them to make these guys is because they had no plans to in any way shape or form. And that really is the bottom line. Anything the club or convention gets is something that I'd say Hasbro doesn't plan on doing otherwise.
lets all just move along from this arguement please. I don't want to have to close a news thread. I realize that most people are keeping their cool, but if we just drop it, then there'll be nothing to worry about.
Redline, I PMed you. Something I've having trouble understanding about why my post was deleted. I thought it was more civil than some of the other posts.
yeah, i reckon so. you'll find out along with the rest of us when they decide to announce the next exclusive toys.
According to someone on the boards (I think it was Joe Moore, but don't quote me since I can't find the post in the archives) they've already decided on all the figures for next years convention. But that's all the poster knew... I'm sure the only people whom would really know would be the crew at MC.
