I've been thinking about this year's Botcon and the negative responses towards the set. The more and more I think about it, I don't think any theme or mold selection would have won anybody over. With Hasbro/Takara giving us characters we would never thought would have a new toy(i.e. Black Shadow & Skullgrin) and the 3rd party market filling the gaps between, i no longer see a place for the TFCC and Botcon toys.
Let's take this year's Overlord(Gigatron) for example. 2 years ago this figure would have been a hit, regardless of what mold they would have used. Owning an Overlord in your classics collection would have made this worthwhile for any justification. These days, thinking that a 3rd party company will likely release a G1ish style Overlord is a high probability. Why bother with the Botcon version then? A 3rd party toy will likely be around the same dollar amount, have more figures readily available and be close enough to character model.
I think Fun Pub is stuck between a rock and a hard place, even with dealing with Hasbro. They will take figures that were Botcon exclusives and release them in the mainline.
I don't know how Fun Pub will be able to continue to produce figures that collectors will want. Their market is becoming smaller and smaller each day. IMO, Fun Pub has become limited in what they can offer to us. I think this is why Shattered Glass figures are still being produced. They have nothing else to offer.
I hope I am wrong and next year's set will blow us away but what can they offer us?

 

Botcon toys are an awesome bonus that comes with getting to go to Botcon. Trust me, Funpub would have to have years upon years of shit sets for their market to really suffer. Gotta keep in mind that they only have to sell a few thousand boxes and at most a couple thousand of souvenirs - that isn't a huge number!

 

They should go back to the old way of making them new charecters like Glyph, Tapout, Landshark...etc) instead of redoing new charecters because atleast then their's never the worry of dissapointing people based on previous incarnations of the charecters.

 

Original BotCon characters were a necessity at the time, because for a while 3H was not allowed to use existing characters for their toys.

 

I think they'll be fine. It's just that these things are hit and miss. I don't see anyone complaining about Runabout and Runamuck. Collectors will buy it if it's good. Third party companies might affect sales but not too much. There are a lot of collectors that don't collect third party stuff.

 

There's still plenty of desire for botcon toys, and plenty of reason for doing them.

While this one looks to be one of the most unpopular sets ever, there ARE people who like it.

Last year's set, and the Beast Wars prequel set show why botcon sets can be so great. they do things that hasbro can't do anymore, because the market has changed, or lines have ended. botcon can revisit these series any time they want, and the fans love it when they do.

 

Keep in mind that there are fans for whom the brand name matters and to them, the unlicensed third parties are the "unnecessary" ones. Botcon Overlord may not be perfect, but as you yourself said, 2 years ago he would've been a hit. The people who would've loved him most back then are still okay with the way he is now. This set may have people disparaging it, but what set hasn't? There are people who love it too (particularly Treadshot and Metalhawk)

 

Make less figures. There is no need for 3 add-on sets, a boxed set, and a free attendee figure. I would suggest 3-4 figure team box set (or vs set even), an add on of two figures to the set, and maybe the troop builder. A nice legends or scout figure as a free figure.

The idea would be less figures to come up with each year. Less of a forced feeling for some of them.

 

Some sets are so good that you WANT more figures though. If/when they ever do another Animated set, I hope it's as big as the previous one.

 

I do agree that there are too many figures now. But I'm not complaining.

 

Just because this set is weak does not mean it is going to do poorly. Plenty of people will still like it and of course people will get it to try and scalp it.

 

I think i would perfer them to do one realy awsome figure instead of a few mid core ones

hell they could even go as far as makeing there own toy from scratch

now imagine if they only released 1 toy for 2013 and they made a blitzwing from scratch

 

The idea behind less figures is to give them a chance to do really good figures instead of forcing figures. But I do agree some years I want even more figures for that theme.

Maybe. It still hasn't sold out and recent sets really do not seem to have a premium price tag.

 

Impossible, unless you want to pay a couple hundred per figure. Their new molding budget allows for a few new heads, made of two parts each. that's it.

 

Wow this set is a huge flop than. I think its just that shattered glass does not have as wide of an appeal. I realize that there are people that really like it but for the most part it seems to have little following from the fans.

 

I have no idea what funpub has to go thru when selecting molds and characters. Maybe they have limited selection to choose from, and they do the best with they have to work with. I personally think the best set was the 06 set, and i dont think hasbro or any 3rd party companies can even touch it.

 

It's. It that I don't think. I myself am tired of Shattered glass. The thing with this year is that most of the figures aren't that good. And just the timing of Botcon this year is just off.

 

I don't want to sound like Botcon apologist as I feel theres plenty of room for improvement between the con and the club, but I can't help feeling a lot of people want this set to be a flop because they don't like it.

The simple fact is that all we know is that it hasn't sold out. It's well within the realm of possibility that they have sold as many sets this year as they did last. Maybe even more.

Thats not to say this years is as good, personally strong themes seem to result in better individual toys and this set is too vague.

As for after market value, I'd suggest the reason is that the production numbers have pretty much doubled since 2008 so there are an awful lot less of the popular figures from 2006-2008 available.

The add ons have even bigger jumps.
2005 Megatron 500
2008 Megatron 1100
2011 Galvatron 1800

Despite that SG Galvatron (and most recent add ons) still go for more than they were sold for at Botcon.

 

I'm a fan of shattered glass. I just think the figures are not that good this year. At least for my collection. I like 2 out of the boxset. Others have different opinions. I dont think the theme is the issue (there are a lot of people that like shattered glass, i think) but that a lot of people don't like the execution.

Bogaton: My statement about how previous sets selling had to do with a prior post on scalpers buying them up. I dont think they are buying the box sets up this year. You never know.

 

I don't know...I feel like fun pub haven't got as good a pulse on the fandom as it used to...as for this year:

Molds: I'm not sure what the process is when chosing a mold - but unless they are forced to use a certain set of molds (which I doubt, because they allways refer to it as choosing molds) then they should have known that the seaspray and skullgrin mold for example are highly controversial - some fans consider it to be a movie mold, others a classics mold. Ie, not a mold you would want to work with under the label of classics.

The colors: we are talking about a fandom where some fans chose to pay $40-$90 more for just a few changes in a paintjob (takara over hasbro) so making a classics toy that has some of the colors of the g1 figure on there, and not necisarily in the right place should be a no-no.

concept: Classics is a fan favorite - so it is a good concept, but then you have to keep to what made it a successful concept. SG? Not so much...some like it, but it doesn't have as big a following as classics.

Interaction: advertising the set the way they did set high expectations, followed up with a...less than stellar performance in their reveal threads here just leaves a bitter taste when it comes to dealing with them. They are supposed to market the convention and toys, not essentially tell the fandom that their oppinions doesn't matter - it's that kind of approach from Hasbro that led to third parties popping up.