True. I guess that makes his whole argument invalid, then, doesn't it?

 

Just pointing out the tigatron being talked about was botcon 2016 combiner wars tigatron not botcon 2001 transmetal tigatron

 

I don't think he was confused on that point... he was surprisingly specific.

I mean, yes, BotCon 2016 Tigatron (and BotCon 2016 Ravage) were disappointments. Even Pete agrees on that point. Yet some people are complaining about the entirety of FunPub's exclusive model using such figures as the basis, ignoring a plethora of other figures that FunPub caused to exist which are quite nice.

 

Second paragraph of the first quote specifically states defense of the tigatron from the x-9 ravage mold whereas the discussion was referring to the combiner wars molds, don't know if there was confusion or not but the bw mold isnt the one that was being discussed

 

In reality, with the amount of product out there, and the way almost all of our premium product comes from Japan or 3rd parties at a higher cost to us in the U.S., there just is no need for a fan club that creates overpriced half-assed versions of characters. For instance, I can get a totally unique and awesome looking Obsidian now from MMC for much less than the boxset with the weak Obsidian remold. Why should I be able to do that? And why would I be foolish enough to buy the inferior version for more bundled with a bunch of other weak items? MMC doesn't even have the economies of scale Hasbro can tap into to share costs, so what are we missing here? Why do I have to import MP-39 Sunstreaker? I can't get that highly sought after item from my own fan club or anywhere else in America from Hasbro? Did they really think Universe Ramjet is something people want another version of? Do we need several bad versions of Tigatron? Is a Counterpunch toy of any value without the Punch? What if he has a shrunken head that you purposefully hide from view until people receive him in the mail? Etc, etc.

As our fandom has grown since Beast Wars and the internet and importing, the fan club model they chose to use basically became extortion and has only catered to a very small clique of fans who often like things more for what isn't Transformery about them than what is. It is no surprise that fact, along with their unethical business practices and bold faced lying, led to the destruction of this club. Once 3H left and it became overly corporate, it became detached and they took on voices from the fandom that did not steer them in a strong direction. I should definitely hope that what replaces it is something worthy of our fandom and not just another cash grab taking advantage of people who will buy anything and catering most specifically to a snotty, snobbish group of fans who do not at all share the views of the fandom at large. I say if it isn't something of value to us, we have every right not to support it. It must provide value to the fandom - not to a few.

We have yet to hear really great details on what the future plans exactly are in total. I don't find that to be a promising sign. Hasbro has a huge opportunity in front of them here to do something great, but I just can't see them putting the effort into it. Great things take great effort and care. See the Masterpiece line. Unfortunately, also see who has no involvement.

 

You practically repeated what I said. Yes. He was specific about the x-9 mold. Surprisingly so, given the context. That leads me to think he was intentional about switching gears on that point, because those CW molds were being used as the basis of an argument against FunPub/BotCon's practices more widely. He then demonstrated that FunPub has also done a number of (other) very nice toys.

 

I will always call out fun pub on their failing but I really don't think it's going to get less corporate now a massive corporation has taken direct control of it. If it gets better or not remains to be seen but what Hasbro has done so far has not filled me with confidence.

 

Unless you're a time traveler, you couldn't have known in 2013 what would exist in 2017. That would be impressive. That's not even dealing with the fact that there are plenty of folks who only buy official product.

 

Ah I'm following now, though 01 tigatron was the only 3h botcon figure on his list of good figures, so he is right that funpub still did do some things right

 

Got to 'extortion' and stopped reading. Same ridiculous rants that this poster has been making for years. Not even worth responding to. Totally over the nonsense.

 

Exactly. Both 3H and Funpub, under the Botcon banner, provided many awesome figures over the years, proving that the business model of making a convention for the fans, by the fans, provided a lot of great figures and great shows.

You don't have to like all the figures. But you can't deny that there were some figures over the past 22 years that you DID like. I didn't love ALL of the Botcon exclusives or subscription figures, but they did produce some real home-runs. This is why I prefer having a variety of choices of exclusives to buy rather than having the option of one per year (which really isn't an exclusive at all).

For example, I never thought I would own a Grand Maximus Pretender shell, but somehow Fun Pub was able to provide that gold nugget before they closed their doors. I regret every Botcon that I didn't have the time or money to go to.

Which brings me to my next question:

Of those of you who are Botcon nay-sayers, who is going to Hascon?

 

I'm not going to Hascon and I'm not a Botcon nay-sayer either but some of us are perfectly happy with a different way of handling exclusives. Some of us, including myself, aren't even arguing that Hasbro is producing a better convention with better pricing but we do like the idea of "time limited" exclusives. I don't think folks should get so defensive (or combative) on either side though.

 

That's Afterburner rant for you. I like to think he'd be fun at parties.

 

personally i liked the majority of the ideas put forth by funpub at least. there are definitely figures that i wish i could get and i wish i could have gone to a 3h and a funpub botcon, but i also dont mind hasbros first attempt being a bit lacking considering its their first attempt. i also dont mind that their con release is a timed exclusive, it gives fans that go the bragging right of getting it first, but also gives fans that dont go a better chance of getting it. also in a way you can think of hascon getting headmaster arcee as a sort of passing the torch. wether or not people realize it both botcon 2016 and hascon 2017 are mild throwbacks of a sort to botcon 2001, the first time a convention was allowed to make exclusives using hasbro owned characters. botcon 2016 referenced this year specifically and the 3h era in general by releasing:
cw tigatron, a repaint of ravage which was a direct homage to his appearance in beast wars
cw megatron, a direct reference to an abandoned 3h concept exclusive from the universe days

hascon 2017 is a more mild throwback to botcon 2001 in that one of the first official characters botcon was allowed to make into an exclusive was arcee, its kind of fitting that she is also one of hascons first offerings

 

Better pricing? Your desire to have a non-exclusive "exclusive" in exchange for a convention that prices out 90% of us doesn't make sense.

$165 for a three-day pass, or $60 for a one-day pass. $75 for three day pass for each child over 2 years old. And I just discovered that you can't buy two one day passes for yourself. You either go one day, or you go 3 days.

$642 for a VIP ticket, which doesn't get you a box set of 5 figures and attendee exclusive, you get a goodie bag. And it lets you pick only one bonus add-on event.

$216 for the Hall of Fame event. Includes a Stan Bush concert. At Botcon, the Stan Bush concert was included in the price of admission.

$216 for the Last Night movie event. At Botcon, movie screenings were often at no extra charge. I can remember sitting in a theater watching Transformers the Movie (1986) on the big screen.

$216 for story time with Stan Lee. At Botcon, the panels with celebrity guests were at no extra charge. I have attended panels with Judd Nelson, Weird Al Yankovic, and just about every Generation 1 and Beast Wars voice actor and actress.

Now imagine you're bringing a family of four. Quadruple everything above, and tell me how a family can afford this. That add-on Hall of Fame dinner will cost you $864!!

Forget the handling of exclusives, because if it's not an exclusive, then it really doesn't have much to do with the convention itself. It's just another figure you can buy online. And by the way, One exclusive each year basically means you're looking at 10 exclusives over the next 10 years? Botcon would give us 10 exclusives EACH year for fans that wanted more! You could always just buy one exclusive a year if that's all you wanted, but some fans may want more than that, and the demand is there.

The point of an exclusive is just that: you can't just go buy it online. It's something special. It's part of the event. It's a souvenir. If there was a massive supply that everyone could just buy online after the convention, then it's not really an exclusive at all. If I'm going to muster $3,000 just to go to the event, I'd like to think that I picked up some rare treasure to justify the amount of money I spent on going.

 

I agree, I am happy with the one exclusive Generations figure that we are getting from Hascon. I just wish that there were more. I looked at the concepts from Pete's Robot Convention of what would have been exclusive for Botcon 2017, and I would have loved to pick up some of those! Especially that alligaticon Optimus Prime from Skullcruncher... I probably would have picked up a couple of those!

 

Oh no doubt, more offerings would be nice, but a single figure is understandable considering it's their first year. I'm sure if hascon has a second year there will likely be more offerings or even if they do a new club sort of thing and have club exclusives throughout the year

Pre funpub botcon was 2 exclusives a year so it's not like it was always 10 exclusives a year. Also exclusives can always be bought online, you just have to pay a markup which means there's not much actually special about them either

 

I sortof agree with Afterburner there. Alot of the club's choices when they were running the show were baffling. The stuff Pete was showing here as "maybe if we hadn't lost the license" seem like they were pulled from the archives of a Bizarro FunPub.

Of course I also feel that Hasbro frequently goes about halfway in their designs and misses a great many opportunities to stand out as a result.

 

And the majority were well received and sold great. Yes, out of the 220 or so toys that were made possibly 20-30 can be seen as questionable, but the other 190? Taking in to account when they were made? The 2017 'could have been' set would have fit right in with those.

 

Totally agree on the first point here, something smells fishy about the supposed "canceled funpub exclusives" they're showing off at PeteCon. They don't seem like ideas that FunPub would have come up with, they seem like someone ran in to a digibash subforum, grabbed all of the most popular ideas, and put them out there themselves. "Oh, we were totally gonna make everything you all wanted next year if we hadn't lost the license. Sucks that that happened.  " Stuff like Override out of TR Blurr and Gator Optimus out of Skullsmasher I'd absolutely seen before in Digibash threads.

I do believe some of them were genuinely going to be BotCon exclusives, namely the stuff in the Pretenders Boxset. Painting an Optimus Prime toy in Optimus Prime colors for a BotCon boxset ABSOLUTELY seems like the sort of decision FunPub would have made. The rest of them, the ones that seem like they would have been really cool ideas? No way.