Thanks, but my guess is that anything not directly demonstrated by metrics is deemed "coincidental" to them. You and I recognize the halo effect that 3P has had on the scene, but it's not something that easily translates to a spreadsheet.

 

Out of all of this. I’ll feel most bad about how all these great designers don’t get to work and make cool figures. Even if some are pretty slap dash and only designed so people will buy them before offical toys, there are others who really love what they do and show it in their figures. I only hope that they can get into work that fits their talents, it’d be a shame for them to lose that.

 

As much as we continue to see the impact this move has had on the entire unlicensed side of the fandom, I still can't see it having all that huge of an impact in the long run. Much like the RIAA or MPAA never stopped, or barely even slowed down music and movie pirating, speeding tickets haven't significantly stopped speeding and reckless driving, drug raids and seizures have never had a significant impact on stopping drug trafficking or usage, this too will simply lead to the market evolving in various ways to meet the demand, because there's simply too much money changing hands for everyone to just give up.

Zeta already showed the industry just how hilariously easy it can be to get around Hasbro's crackdown on Core Star, and I strongly suspect moves like that might become more common place, and that operations will become much more decentralized, making significant seizures and supply interruptions more difficult, as well as making litigation even more costly to pursue for IP holders. Add to that the potential of releasing "incomplete" figures in variously branded BAF formats or unbranded "upgrade" kits with no obvious connection to each other, produced in separate factories, and good luck proving intentional IP theft to a court. It might add more cost to the end consumer, but given the recent price hikes of Has-Tak releases, I don't see that being a significant deterrent to most collectors if it does.
/rant

 

3P: Of course we would like to, please kindly let us know if your area have 10K people within 10 KM willing to work in our factory, including your grandmom? We don't have age discrimination, as long as with glasses she can assembly 10 transformers in 30 minutes, she will be hired on spot.  

 

I get that millions in profit isn't enough for Hasbro so I don't mean to make light of the situation. I know they're hurting. I know this. But is this more of an ego stomp to the designers who watch their figures get improved on, then the true fans (us here on the TFW boards) drool over them and exclaim "WeiJiang is the best!" So the designers go home and cry to their cats about the hard work they do while WJ sweeps up the acclaim and riches. The cats bolster the designers egos so they go back to work the next day and have a good cry infront of the legal team. Legal gets down on one knee and swears an oath to hastle a country known for stealing the design of anything we ask them to make with their less than well paid work force. Since these people were sternly monitored while distributing their last figure, Hasbro has surely won. No other company, renamed or not, will dare challenge the fact that Hasbro created all of those characters and will protect them against foreigners.

You know... maybe if they moved factories back to the states. Yeah. We could taste some of that sweet chemical run off, fresh plastic dew found shimmering on flowers. Put money back in Americans pockets as their employers try to treat them as inhumanely as possible. Sure, profits would be down but no Americans would steal those designs! Man... that'd be sweet.

 

I don't necessarily believe the Hasbro designers are miffed at having their designs improved upon. I don't think any of them set out to create figures with intentionally gaping hollow bits, no ankle tilts, parts that could do with die cast, etc. They are given a task to build a figure with X amount of material under a certain budget; that means certain sacrifices will need to be made. They are designing a toy to be mass produced as cheaply as possible to be sold for as much profit as possible. WJ and others are also trying to make a profit, but they aren't chasing entirely the same audience - the people buying Hasbro products include we, the hard core fans as well as mainstream buyers who browse the toy shelves - kids - with more of an emphasis on the latter. When WJ or another company makes a KO with improvements, they are clearly catering to the hard-core fan who likely feels unfulfilled by the official product, not the general buyer.
If Hasbro were smarter about this, they'd try to make this process work to their benefit, and share a bit in the profits, rather than shut the scene down, which as I've said, only hurts the franchise.

 

Orson was pretty vocal about the dichotomy recently. Not to put him in the spotlight but I'm sure other designers feel the same way. I know I would. It's easy for us end-users to belittle and bemoan all the compromises that a figure has to go through from concept to end-product because we're not the ones stuck having to deliberately take our masterpieces and disfigure them for the sake of $2.50.

I really can't say enough how much respect I have for designers like Orson, but I also raise a glass to the Black Apples of the submarket who extrapolate and fine-tune a design back to what it could be if the original designers were given complete autonomy and an unlimited budget.

KOs aren't going anywhere for the same reasons that people still buy champagne in a box. I vote with my wallet supporting only the good quality designs from both mainline and 3Ps.

 

I certainly hope that also holds true for 3P as well. The hard-core fan will chase down a quality product, bottom line. I think there's room enough in the market for products catering to the mainstream consumer and the seasoned collector.

 

Agreed. I imagine 3P is a drop in the bucket compared to profits from mainline sales. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen a 3P product in a brick and mortar store (at only one of seven specialty comic shops I used to frequent). Meanwhile all the targets, walmarts, and marshalls are riddled with pegwarming one-step bumblebees.

The avid collector will seek and ultimately pay a premium for their grail of the year from niche e-tailer XYZ. Avid collector and his kids will also probably buy from mainline, making the impact to HasTak's bottom line negligible if not imperceptible.

 

I generally assume most official designers don't care all that much about the 3P scene. They're hired to design a figure, given set parameters to work with, and the factories mass-produce it and often flood the store shelves with it. The official designers typically all get paid the exact same rate in advance, whether the figure is eventually a complete dud with fans, or is flying off shelves. The profits all go to a small group of investment companies, meaning the 3P would seemingly have almost zero impact on the official designers one way or another, outside of their individual gripes with what someone else did with a design they don't even own and have no legal say over, as the official IP holder could just as easily have done the same, for better, or worse.

There have been a few official designers to pop up on various boards here, but I've found it's best to not to discuss them much at length as discussions tend to get rather heated and things quickly devolve to the usual Has-Tak Vs KO, which can quickly get an entire thread shut down because even individuals further up the chain have been known to take some hardline stances themselves. Best to focus on the KO/3P side of things in these threads.

 

Cool.
Got BSL peru kill KO for my son and seems every bit as good as the original, but I think those guys are another arm of UT if I'm not mistaken.

Also got the black repaint of BB voyager voyaer from WJ. I heard a few folks had quality issues with theirs but mine is doing just fine.

Repaints and rereleases of 3P figures seem to do pretty well in most cases. I'm hopeful that the WJ/BM MP ironhide will eventually see the light of day.

 

Yeah, would absolutely love to see the Black Apple OS Ironhide get released at some point. Even with the DNA upgrade kit, the shoulders of the original are a nightmare. At least with an OS version we could see what "could" have been, even if we never got a proper MPM scaled version with better shoulders.

 

Wait, Unique Toys is kill? I actually liked them as an underdog, yeah some releases had issues but they were plucky. Their Galvatron while flawed was fairly nice.

 

Not necessarily "gone" but no longer making releases under the UT brand. They still have DX9, Newage, and likely TransCraft related to them to release through. Either way, their MPM scaled Galvatron is slated to be their last release under that brand name

 

So given what happened, think it's worth taking the dive on the official, overpriced MPM Starscream (which has tons of paint choices I don't like), or gamble, let it pass and hope Legendary Toys or someone else KOs it with a better paint job next year?

 

Paint makes a big difference, for its price tag the paint job is pretty lame so at least I will wait until somebody inevitably releases a KO.

 

Customs? photoshop? or has someone already teased this? (prior to the recent crackdown this would have been a given- but it stills seems likely)

 

Chosen Prime has Galvatron up for preorder (maybe other places too), but they anounced these will likely be made to order meaning if you don't preorder you may have a hell of a time getting one, just FYI. I preordered.

 

God, why’d Wei Jiang have to fly their wax tower of Babylon into the sun?

Nobody needed a slightly cheaper iron man anyway​

 

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