I would have. But the posts containing those quotes in the other thread were (with justification, admittedly) deleted, and I can't find the original posts in which they were made. If you can, please link me to them and I'll happily add them to the opening post.

That was part of the reasons I created this topic. To provide a venue for people to discuss and debate this issue that wouldn't be off-topic and therefore subject to moderation hopefully.

As for FT's rep leaving the boards... I hope they don't. If their response to outrage is to turtle up in indignation, that does neither them nor us any good imho. I would encourage them instead to reach out to the community and try to justify their position, or clarify it. Perhaps they can even completely allay our concerns and diffuse said "outrage."

EDIT: Found the quotes. Adding here, and in first post.

Original quotes:

Responding to a user saying 3P companies should not invoke IP in trying to scuttle other 3P products:

When asked who said direct retailers are:

EDIT: In case anyone missed the responses...

In response to whether they are certain the transformation is identical (apart from external aesthetics):

When asked for further clarification on what if any pressure was applied to retailers:

So at this point I must withdraw my boycott and my initial opinion. No retailers are being threatened. It is now my responsibility to ensure that message gets out.

 

Fanstoys has always had a bully like attitude towards smaller companies that want to get into MP. They mocked Daca Toys first as well as Gigapower. Arafat fell for it but Giga have stayed clear of dalianjj's taunts.

They are yet to act like this with veteran 3Ps.

 

What's good for the consumer is innovation, advancement, new ideas, new ways of engineering.

The way Scoria's rear dino legs just vanish, the way MT Visualiser has that lens that integrates into the robot mode, the way the Badcube Bombshell has a built-in colour-swapping chest - my mind boggles at such feats of ingenuity.

As such, the idea of a ripped-off Transformation scheme is anathema to me, as a lover of Transforming robot toys. Quakewave was heavily inspired by the G1 toy for sure, but that leg transformation was a uniquely elegant solution.

There seems to have been some unwritten rule in the 3P world that ripping off Hasbro is cool, but not each other. The iGear seekers, Guttur's legs using a MP Grimlock-style panel flip, Bullsfire Swoop, no-one got especially angry about that, because Hasbro are a massive multinational company and it's sometimes cool to stick it to the Man. Ripping off one of your own kind, one of your 3P brothers-in-arms, that just seems like a low blow, IMHO.

I like competition, I like consumer choice, and I hate that the politics are overshadowing the toys. But to encourage third parties to carry on innovating, to carry on finding new ways of folding up robots, I for one will be supporting the engineering wizards who push our hobby forward.

 

This is not accurate. There is no hip kibble shit on the iGear Seekers.

 

Please add these quotes before adding to the hearsay. Not an attack but it seems a little biased without quotes then seeing your sig and running a fan club for their competition.

 

I remember, Coke gave us a fridge, but we weren't allowed to put Pepsi in it. So we never stocked Pepsi.

 

Quakeblast really doesn't look like a direct copy of Quakewave to me. Obviously they look similar, but that's because they're each trying to mimic the same character and each broadly use the transformation scheme for the original Shockwave. As a consequence I really can't see any justification for FansToys outrage and their stated intention to keep retailers from selling this.

I agree with the OP that this sort of behaviour is strongly anti-consumer, and other companies doing this sort of thing would be a bad thing for us as fans. How would people who support FT here have felt if HasTak had sent down a similar threat to every retailer carrying third party versions of their characters? That could have killed (or at least badly wounded) this whole side industry, and I think HasTak would have more justification in doing that than FT have here.

There's enough neat stuff coming out now that I see no need to support a company who would indulge in this kind of action. Maybe some later information will come to light that makes this stance seem more reasonable, but as it stands I have no intention of buying anything else that FT makes.

 

Mastermind Creations pulled this same bull when CloneDroid Project: Sixshot came out. I was able to find CloneDroid without an issue, So I'm not to worried about it. IF you decide to get Cloud9 I am sure you can find it easily

 

I think we are the bullies...

 

I forgot about that! I find Fanboys get upset when you say things like that, I used to see it all the time with FP. in fairness Daca did some slamming too. I hope your Floyd Mayweather shoulder roll is good to dodge some coming shots lol.

OMG LMAO!

 

Trolling or not, I agree 100%

 

FT has rode the QW glory for how many years now? So what if a new kid on the block wants to take a stab. Good for them I say. I own a first run Quake, got a translucent on order, and will more than likely buy Clover ud 9's release just to see how it is. Why? Cuz Shockwave is cool as hell and I love Transformers & transforming robot toys.

 

I think it would be more accurate to say that some people are and some people aren't.

I'm certainly not bullying anyone. I'm civilly registering my opposition to someone's actions, while also being very complimentary to their existing products.

Some people online are certainly bullies. Not denying that. And I'd like to avoid such a mob mentality in this topic. But I'm not one of them, and neither are a lot of posters who happen to share my opinion or similar views.

 

i love FT stuff, almost all of it, however unless they have more information than we do, I will say they are being unreasonable here. It looks as if C9 did copy the transformation scheme and added their own refinements to the scheme (feet tf looks different might be same scheme) and changes to the actual figure (which is readily apparent). Now beyond that....we don't know. I mean if we find out later that something else is amiss....than that is another thing. I mean its one thing to completely KO a figure and make changes (what happened with that hexatron KO with the knee flaps), its a whole other thing to just "KO" an overall transformation scheme. While the TF scheme might be the "hard part" in the initial design process, it is not as if that kind of idea (that is what it is, just an idea) like the way the legs and backpack are handled on QW was patented (i mean i've seen patents on less novel ideas but lets face it US patent law is broken).

do i like fact that C9 is trying to benefit off of work done by FT? not particuallary...but i think tha tis because it results in a largely similar figure, when they could have done more or differently.

FT's move here strikes me as a powerplay to shut competition out. lets face it....this isn't a KO.

 

No honor among thieves

 

It upsets me that FT would do this. If their product is better, the sales will show. No need to block sales unless they're possibly afraid they'll get beat. I mean really, how many ways are there to make a transforming weapon like Shockwave? The transformation is going to be similar nine times out of ten. Bad from FT.

 

firstly we don't know if cloud 9 will get beyond a test model, even a final version could have QT issues, paint problems, plastic quality etc.
as a former engineer heres my thoughts on the design

Now I'm borrowing these pics from other posts as comparisons .

This is the guy there meant to look like. If you were doing model of Abraham Lincoln, you'd expect it to look like Abraham Lincoln


Quakewave , the first MP scale shockwave


Quakeblast - now why a name with Quake in it ???

a lot of people have pointed out the legs of quakeblast look a lot better, so potentially a better looking shockwave.

The upper bodies look to transform in roughly the same way , which is also the way G1 shockwave transforms.
The legs look similer but not identicle, but I cant be certain.

another thing to note is Quakeblast has a trigger in Gun mode, and looks like it lights up the gun , something Quakewave does not another improvement over Quakewave.

until someone has both of these in hand I cant say anything is a direct copy .
The only thing I find at all questionable is the name , Why use Quake in the name. ?

 

So to get a dumbed down better understanding......, w/out going thru oodles of thread pages..... FT is mad at C9 for "copying" their "copy" and are threatening to pull the plug on thsir products to distributors? Or am I way off in my understanding of what details I only know at this point?

 

The name does suggest that there's a lot more behind this than just trying to shut down competition. The name feels like a shot at FT.

 

It would be wonderful to get both sides to make some sort of statement about this beyond the quotes we have.

Does anyone know how to get in touch with either company? I'd love to shoot them an email or two inquiring about this and with any luck, maybe even diffusing it? I abhor conflict if an alternative exists.

EDIT: In case anyone missed the responses...

In response to whether they are certain the transformation is identical (apart from external aesthetics):

When asked for further clarification on what if any pressure was applied to retailers:

So at this point I must withdraw my boycott and my initial opinion. No retailers are being threatened. It is now my responsibility to ensure that message gets out.