I would buy a CHUG Slipstream that looked like a female Starscream (rather than a repaint of a male Starscream or another figure), but that might be the only CHUG/Siege figure I want right now that isn't about to be released by Hasbro.

 

As someone with no interest in MPs, yes please.

I’ve just about lost interest in 3rd party stuff these days. And really, it’s not because I don’t have interest in buying 3rd party products. Other than the occasional Planet X release or the like, no one is making things I would like to spend money on.

Seriously guys, there’s so much that could be made! Chug bulkhead, all the animated decepticons, Breakdown, knockout, etc.

Give me some creativity. I’m getting G1 burnout bad.

 

I need MMC to keep putting out more IDW type stuff.

 

Siege gave us a lot of things that has been missing for many years.

I can't believe it took them so long to give us a properly sized Soundwave.
A lot of it I'm still not happy with.

-Ironhide is a mess, Rachet looks terrible. I want an earth mode version of those two with a much better design.
-Voyager dinobots, leader Grimlock. Why is this so hard?
-All 6 seekers updated with earth jets. I'm expecting this will happen soon ethier the new movie seekers will get made or they'll just make them in the next line, who knows its been 12 years since they released the seeker mold and they've still not bothered to upgrade so not holding my breath.
-Tracks and Wheejack. For one this mold is awful, for two, they should have separate molds.
-Voyager Powerglide, his toy is disgraceful

That's about all that's left now for me personally. That could take another 10 years though.
Would be nice if 3P would take care of some of it, especially the dinobots and seekers..

 

Yes

Move to toon accuracy means I've stopped buying MP.
CHUG is my main focus now.

 

Yes. If you don't want CHUG, just don't buy it. More for us.

 

Yes. I’m so tired of everything being Masterpiece.

 

Price might be the issue preventing it - people don't like paying $50 for a 3rd party deluxe as much as they might once have done when they can get a bigger figure for not much more. But where key characters are missing I can't see why not it's worth doing the odd one - but not making an industry out of it the small scale is the popular thing it seems now as well as Movie toys and the occasional MP scale still.

 

No. It's a losing business prospect for a 3P.

I say this as someone whose 3P figures are almost entirely classics-types (Fansproject and Maketoys). The 3P market is small, the market for 3P classics type figures is even smaller, and even for those people it's a tough value proposition compared to Hasbro/Takara pumping out updated versions of just about everyone.

Fansproject tried it with their headmasters but they were slow enough getting them out that 1P did them all before FP could even finish releasing what they'd shown. You could probably argue that some of them were worth the premium compared to, say, the Takara version pricing - Smart Robin in particular is an excellent figure - but for most, $15-$20 for a Hasbro figure vs. $80 for an FP figure wasn't going to be a choice that went in FP's favor.

Everyone who tried classics combiners got shut down by 1P pretty definitively. Why pay $400 for a combiner when you could pay $80 for one? Was the 3P figure really 5x nicer than the 1P?

Even MT tried doing more classics figures with the CD line, and while that started off seemingly strong it has still only seen four unique molds in three years and they've been awfully quiet about plans for more recently.

The majority of 3P collectors seem to be going after MP-style figures, and even that space is getting very crowded. It's a matter of which 3P can get a "good enough" figure out before 1P releases an official one, because once that happens the interest in the 3P figure starts to fade (For instance, there has been a steep drop in aftermarket prices for MT Gundog since MP Hound went up for preorder last week - a few months ago the figure was selling on ebay for $150+ and recent listings have sold for $90-$100).

3P is stuck in MP and Legends for now if any company wants to make a profit, and even that is a coin toss as to whether what they make will be well received by an increasingly picky fanbase. It remains to be seen if branching out into different lines (BW, UT, etc) or more unique stuff (like the beast bot things DX9 and GT are doing) will pay off (the exception to this is, I assume, MMC and their IDW-inspired figures. I can't imagine they would still be making those if they weren't selling well).

 

Yes, mine is trash with horrible tolerances.

'Cause Combiner

Don't know about tracks, we'll definitely get a new Wheeljack.

Very good point, 3rd party chugs a niche in a niche. But CD is not really for chug collectors, it is very stylized while chugs are g1 with more details.

 

Igear seems to have covered you on the Voyager Vanettes and Coneheads and Fancy Cell Toys' Astrotrain is a bit taller than a voyager....a leadager?
Anyway, I added the voyager Grapple and Deluxe Punch Counterpunch for scale.
Do I think 3rd party will continue?....seems a bit bleak with all the MP and Legends going on, but I can hope I guess. My collecting has gone to a crawl because of the market's current focus...I am picking up the Siege Springer and Jetfire though...I'll see if they are good enough to replace my current figures of the same name.
carry on...
edit: also Toyworld's Dinos, even though they combine, seem to fit in well with MY CHUG collection...their Grimshell is "leadager"

 

don't matter to me.. mp scale or chug.. if it looks good to me... I get it

 

If there's a market for legends and MP figures, then theres a market for deluxe and voyager scale as well. A simple "experiment" any 3P can do is simply KO and upscale legends into deluxe size and downscale MP a la MP10 to voyager. If there's a demand then you can start designing original figures. If not, then at least they didnt spend on R&D.
I got some flack saying the IF36 Tyrant wasnt worth the $60 regardless of all the goodies it comes with, but i'll gladly pay that for a 3P deluxe if it offers the same amount of extras.
Yes, Hasbro is delivering updated versions of several figures over the past couple years, but as many has said, there are still definitive versions of characters that can be made. Just like gaps in MP collections exist, so do in the other size classes.

 

i want the older idw style figures from the all hail megatron era. i know there already is a lot for that in chug scale but i want more
we need more 3p chug figures

 

Yes, chug 3p should definitely continue

 

OSKO Dinobots from MechFanToys are my CHUG Dinobots.

They could go a long way simply by ko’ing existing CHUGS and making improvements that Hasbro has dropped the ball on... like Siege Megatron.

 

Until I get the Turbomasters and the Predators, my collection will not be complete

 

I'd like to take a moment to redirect this to my 3P-compatible CHUG thread. 3P CHUG compatible listing (in progress)

That being said, I've largely bought CHUG-style 3P to fill the holes left in my HasTak CHUG collection either due to lack of an official option or the HasTak-offering was unacceptable. Example in case being getting UT's Soundmixer for a Blaster because Hasbro just can't give him his own dedicated mold, or at least not one hindered by gimmicks to the mold's detriment.

 

I have quite a few of them, but I guess I still want hyper-toon accurate versions. These new 3rd party Legends look like they jumped right out of the TV. It’s a shame CHUG scale is sort of all over the place in aesthetics.