Your Dad and you are both 1/2 right...hasbro is in it for the $$$$. It's called Capitalism. And you are right that Hasbro cares for the Fans....it wants to keep the "fans" happy so they continue to get $$$$ from the happy Fans.

 

If I were a Hasbro engineer, I'd love the figures and lore... But it would be hard to love a fandom that posts online (and threatens to stand up at Botcon and) demands that I be fired because they don't like a sub-line or figure.

 

well, yeah. I mean, they certainly didn't make Masterpiece for the fans they love so much...

this is all just hyperbole. Sure, they make crappy toys, but when you have a billion dollar budget that's is going down by the second, and people start buying third parties and bootlegs because of your previous failures; I'm sure you'll probably be in it for the money too!

 

Hasbro cares for the fans, yeah sure. Also, Santa Claus exist.

For srs, I think hasbro is pretty ok in terms of fan relations. I mean, look at Mattel with he-man.

 

Your sarcasm takes away children's innocence... not that I'm Christian. when I said hyperbole, I meant I was being sarcastic too.

why the hell would ANYBODY think that Hasbro actually cared.

 

I realize Hasbro has made new versions of characters Fansproject already did, but they are hardly comparable. Generations Springer has no die cast, and is completely different in it's engineering than Defender. FunPub's Chromedome is a repaint of an older toy. The closest comparison you made was Smart Robin and the new Voyager Brainstorm, who are both Voyager sized toys, have the Headmaster component, and are based on the same character.

Also, as for Hasbro's business practices, they do try new things, but sometimes they work, and other times they don't. Hasbro is still run by humans, and they make mistakes. (Like most of the toys in the Age of Extinction line.)
But the thing is, what new things they do try all comes down to profits, and how much they can make. Hasbro goes by the "If it's not broke, don't fix it." logic. They are still making money from the brand, by the boatloads even, so they don't need a radical change at this point in time.

Hasbro COULD produce the same products that the third party companies do, but here's the question: how much will it cost them compared to how much it costs Fansproject? How much would these products sell for? Transformers are already considered too expensive by a lot of parents, especially in this age where Hasbro thinks producing toys that look like enlarged Happy Meal toys and selling them for $10-20 is okay.

As for appealing to authority, Hasbro DOES know more than a lot of us do about the toy business. When certain fans complain that Hasbro doesn't appeal to us, it's because Hasbro will devote 90% of their resources to the part of the demographic that makes them 90% of their revenue: kids.