Yeah my bad  
Forgot that was a trademark issue.

 

as mentioned before, it's not just black and white.

1. you mention sweatshops, and even if hasbro tak tom used such factories, so do C9 or FT... but FT and C9 have ALSO stolen IP, and C9 has ALSO stolen engineering. Layers of issues. Once again some people paint them all with the same brush, and some consider each step adding to the evilness of the respective company.

2. you shouldn't buy into the whole social outcry about factory wages. If companies were actually violating human rights codes they would have an international backlash. Just because the workers in these factories are getting paid peanuts (and therefore why every global merchandise company will go to these companies to produce their goods), doesn't mean that they are necessarily being mistreated. They may be getting paid a poor wage compared to developed nation standards, but they are getting more than if they had no work at all. The reason why labour costs so little is because people know that if they choose not to take the job because the pay is so little, that someone else will. It's not like the company's are chaining them to the factories in the majority of cases.

regardless, the fact remains that your statement was that people are trying their best to defend xyz company. I disagree, I feel that they are trying to point out why they dislike abc company, yet don't mind xyz. Saying that abc is worse on their scale. It has nothing to do with fanboyism or white knighting, but more to do with these people being able to see companies on a sliding scale of morality, rather than simply lumping them all together.

 

If I recall correctly, I read somewhere a while ago that Hasbro/tak tom were able to release cease and desist orders on the sale of the igear jets?

 

The last few iGear jets - Woodland, Ice storm, and the G2 Ramjet - were in the prototype stage and around 20 of each were produced. These suddenly became unavailable and were no longer mass produced or sold through regular channels.

I dont pretend to know what happened, but I guess it was one of two things:

1. Hasbro/Takara went for iGear directly, and although no direct case was brought, enough saber rattling was done to convince iGear not to pursue these further.

2. Hasbro/Takara went after the retailers, not with lawyers but in a case of 'stock these and we wont supply you' and iGears retail channel dried up.

iGear did suddenly start selling things direct around that time, and so I would assume that it was a combination of both of these in smaller amounts, but like I say, its all conjecture at this point and I have zero inside information.... and REALLY want a Woodlands green iGear Acid Storm!

 

Great idea. Thanks!

 

Actually, it takes a higher skill labour force for getting these high end toys...

 

It's a bit weird that they'd shut IGear down for that and not try and shut anybody else down.

FT is becoming a pretty large legitimate business thanks to IP theft from Takara and, with their new MP Hot-Rod, they're now purposefully DIRECTLY competing against Takara for sales on Hastaks own IP.

3rd party has always been given a bit of leeway as half the characters are prob never going to be produced by HasTak but this goes way beyond that. If anyone was going to start causing them to freak out and shut down 3rd party i'd have thought it'd be them lol

 

For the Igear thing, they were selling directly the jets, from what I recall.

It was the sharks that they did sell through BBTS. And that was not stealing engineering as the jets did, so that helps.

I hear Igear and Toyworld could be one company now. Don't know if it is the case, but I placed an order for one of their sharks on their website, and they refunded without any explanation, and no responses to any of my emails.

 

You guys realize every single one of you is creating your own definition of ethics and morals to fit your own biased opinion and worldview and legitimize the particular company you prefer to buy childrens toys from, right?

 

senpai has returned  

 

Yeah, and? Don't we all do that for everything in life?

 

Oh, damn, you're right! It's about to become More of the Flies up in this mofo.

 

Is More of the Flies the sequel to Lord of the Flies that I've never read? because that sounds awesome.

I kid, I kid!

 

Ok, get my agent on the phone because if that doesn't already exist I'm starting my first draft TONIGHT!

 

Why does someone pointing out facts make them an FT fanboy? These are both clearly representations of Shockwave, and objectively they transform the exact same way (again, notwithstanding the small additions C9 added. ) Are the four other FT Dinobots meant to be Grimlock representations? No. Do they transformation elements from MP8? Yes. But bottom line, do the take MP8's tranfsormation to make their own Grimlock? That's a no. FT fanboyism or not, ethics questions aside, it's an objective truth that Quakeblast transforms the same way that Quakeave does and both are takes on the same character. Everything that was distinct and unique to Quakewave's transformation is present on Quakeblast along with everything that's not.
I don't give a flying fuck about FT or their products. I don't own any and don't really have any desire to. I've watched reviews out of boredom but that's it. But it's still clear as day that Quakeblast's transformation is lifted from Quakewave wheras the FT Dinobots aren't copying an entire transformation to represent the same character.

 

I don't have any facts about legal actions either, but it's relatively easy to prove engineering/KO theft "look judge, the parts are identical", compared to infringing on IP or likeness given changes in styling, details and names.

and seriously, I don't think anyone has claimed that FT (or any 3P Grimlock) does not have elements in common with MP-8, only so many ways to fold back a t-rex head and turn the neck/stub arms into wings after all. Hell we all said that Scoria's leg/butt transformation was straight up MP-8.

As far as Grinder being only a slight tweak, we haven't seen enough of the transformation on Grinder to know for sure, but if it turns out to be the case, you can bet someone will pull out a pitchfork. QB may borrow/follow the vast majority of QW's transformation, but I don't think that's necessarily a plus or minus, it just is. If you think QW had a great transformation, then it's great, if you think QW took too many cues from the original toy, then you'll think it's not so great. The fact that the scheme is so similar is cause to be a little disappointed. I own MP-8, I'll almost certainly buy Grinder, and if Grinder is essentially MP-8 with regards to transformation/articulation, I'd bee a little bummed about that too.

+1 to More of the Flies.

 

Wow is this thread off the rails.

 

Sooo... Where could I get this figure from? Chimungmung? It's sold out at Robot Kingdom..

 

TF-Direct.com maybe ???