Off the top of my head:
The spychangers/gobots (any deco will do. Although I'd prefer the RID01 characters)
The crossformers
The stormtroopers
The colorchangers (I don't actually need them to change color)
The rotor force and laser rods
The small car and jet teams from G2
The predators
The turbomasters
the G2 powermasters
The smaller headmasters

And that's just G1! Ideally I'd rather them pull stuff from ALL of the franchises. I particularly want new versions of the Energon autobots. That line is begging to be revisited with modern engineering. Armada too.

 

I'd love a chug armada range tbh. I'm not sure what size that naval commander is, but yeah deffo more armada and minibots! Plus I can't imagine Hasbro digging up armada stuff any time soon.

 

G1 Sentinel Prime, with matrix chamber that can hold MP10's Matrix.

Armada Tidalwave, with lights, proper hands and knees. Scale? - Big
I mean it, put me in touch with a company. I'll crowdfund it to get this off the ground.

F--- trying to "compete", I just want to get it done, it doesn't have to be a smash hit. Even if it is a hit, thats no guarantee they'll put out the the amount they should. Look at MakeToys "Utopia" (Metroplex) they could put out a second wave of that beautiful beast and it'll sell out, they're going for $700+ on Ebay now.

 

My list :

Flamewar
Nautica
Velocity
Fulcrum
Pretender Beasts(Especially Carnivac)
Ruckus
Needlenose
Fangry
Liege Maximo
Lightformers
Pyro
Surshot
Pointblank
Deluxe~Voyager Scale Blitzwing
Deluxe~Voyager Scale IDW Seekers
Legend Scale Throttlebots
Deluxe Scale Scamper
Voyager~Leader Scale Scorponok
Ultra Scale Dinobots
IDW Monstructor
Landcross
Deluxe~Voyager Scale IDW Armored Car Soundwave
Voyager Scale CW compatible Motormaster
Stable Liokaiser
Downsized POTP Predaking
Oversized IF DJD

 

I would love a company to grab G1.5 / G2 and just OWN it like Planet X owns FOC.

The Predators, Cyberjets, Acceleratosrs, Skyscorchers, Rotor Force, Laser Rods, Spychangers, Turbomasters, Flipchangers, Stormtroopers and Aquaspeeders...plenty of easy remolds and recolors for max profit and a playground that Hasbro isn't likely to get al up in arms about...

 

This forum is such an echo chamber about this exact thing.

It may seem like "everyone" wants a figure, but if it's only 30 people actually saying that in any given thread (which will seem like a huge consensus in the context of these discussion threads), a production run of even just a few hundred figures is a great way to lose a bunch of money. Putting up a poll asking about interest isn't a great way to really suss it out either, because more people will vote "yes I want that" and then later decide they don't actually want to drop $400 on it.

There have been several crowdfund attempts recently that went nowhere because there aren't actually enough people willing to put up the money. MMC's "Supermax" was one of those figures that "everyone" wanted and "everyone" was willing to pay for, but less than 500 people were actually willing to put in for it.

Maketoys' attempts at crowdfunds went so poorly they didn't even bother keeping the website online.

MaketoysCrowdfund

Even Hasbro's Unicron - Hasbro, who heavily advertised it, an official product, marketed to collectors who love to say things like "yes I want a 2+ foot tall Unicron I would pay anything for it" - needed to have its crowdfunding deadline extended because, I guess, someone at Hasbro really wanted to make it and convinced the higher ups to let it run for longer anyways?

And make no mistake, it is certainly competing with Hasbro/Takara. Why would you pay $80 for a single Fansproject headmaster when you could spend that same $80 on four headmasters from Hasbro (or two from Takara) that were still pretty good? It turns out enough people decided the Fansproject figures weren't worth the extra cost and so FP abandoned the project (and everything else they were working on). Why spend $400 on the Protectobot team from Maketoys if you can get the whole team from Hasbro for less than $100? Combiner Wars put "good enough" product out there for collectors and it didn't make financial sense to try and bankroll new classics-style combiners.

You are fooling yourself if you think any 3P would just throw away money like that. They might be run by fans but they're still being run as businesses. Why do you think Fansproject disappeared when they did? Why do you think Maketoys vanished (and now they are back just in time to re-release an MP Starscream after Takara has already announced a new MP Starscream, which seems odd to me)? All the stuff they were releasing got outdone by Hasbro faster, for cheaper and in far greater quantity - there was no way they could compete. And if they can't make money on it, they're not going to keep making figures just to pile them up in warehouses and then sell at massive discounts years after the fact (except Fansproject, they seem to be doing that exact thing right now).



To your specific example, active listings are not the same as actually sold prices:

maketoys utopia | eBay

The last two Utopia figures that sold were (at time of posting) listed at $350 OBO and $275 OBO. With "best offer" listings, ebay doesn't publicize the final selling price, but however you look at it, that's less than the original asking price for the figure ($400).

Whereas the official Metroplex figure - which was produced in far greater numbers because Hasbro and not Maketoys, is selling for double or triple its original price ($125, iirc) in far greater quantity:

generations metroplex | eBay

 

Hasbro doesn’t seem to want to touch anything outside of G1, so do characters that truly need updates

Bulkhead, Lugnut, Sentinal Prime (animated, not that other bullshit), animated prowl, lockdown, breakdown, Knockout, Oilspill, pharma, riptide, fulcrum and any of the MTMTE cast that hasn’t been done yet.

hell, If we want to go g1, I’d also take a siege style Bumblebee since the earthrise one looks so bad. Maybe have him match the comic design?

 

I want a good Brawn/Outback and other minibot molds up to par with the current offering of official minibots. Aside from that Transmetals from Beast Wars to go with kingdom would be awesome and characters from outside G1 that would fit with Hasbro's current aesthetic would be great

 

Cute Hat Lyzack!!!!

...and her brother's team as well. Bonus points if they're CW Compatible.

Also agree with a lot of the other comments. Transforming Actionmasters, characters with designs they aren't likely to touch for a while like the UT and IDW designs, Characters that have barely been touched by either side (omnibots for example) and I'll add in missing gaps in teams Hasbro left unfullfillled (pointblank and Sureshot Chug, please!) And even more KO skittlebot combiners in the same vein of that one set with yellow silverbolt and green Alpha Bravo. I'd totally love a Blue Cyclonus, Menasor, Sky Reign/Liokaiser and Victorion in skittle flavors.

Lastly, tap into the ideas Hasbro scrapped themselves! Chug Prima leader sized figure! FOC BW Megs! Combinable Armada Demolisher! Come on!!!

Edit: and one-off characters that would've been cool like Stardrive.

 

More crossover style figures. I really want some G.I. Joe vehicles as transformers (Hound as a vamp would be awesome)

 

Alright, hold it right there.

First off, that is a listing for a figure "out of package", the value drops, fast.
Second, the last 3 I've tried to get a hold of went for $600, here is one such listing- MAKE TOYS - CITY BOT SERIES - MCB-02 UTOPIA transformers metroplex *Please Read* | eBay , starting bid is $550 dude, not just that, it has 'play wear' and the box is ruined via water damage. It has 5 days (as of this post) left and already has 9 watchers........... its going to sell and sell big.
Third, your example was listed as "Local Pickup only" (for whatever reason) the dude was cutting himself off at the knees, stupid move.
Forth, those seekers sold out
Fifth, I backed HasLab's Unicron, they extended it because they had emailed requests for more time. They reached 120% of the stretch goal. It was a smash hit and I am proud to have been a part of it.

Finally, I'm saying, 'let us try'. If it works, great, if not, so be it.

 

The starting bid is $550? That means nothing. There are 0 bids. That means the 9 people watching it aren't willing to pony up $550 right from the start. It might get 1 bid and sell for $550 because someone really wants it, and that doesn't tell you anything about market value at all - just that the one person willing to pay that much already did (so they're not even a potential customer anyways). It might get in a bidding war and sell for $800, and all that tells you is that maybe half a dozen people want one? How does that in any way translate to high demand for a niche product? Where do you get the rest of the numbers from that make up the market research that show it makes financial sense to do a run of even a few hundred figures?

A 3P isn't going to just spend a bunch of money to "try" unless they don't care about staying in business. If it works? Great. If it doesn't? They're out of money and all they can do is some repaints and reissues with "premium finish" on it and hope that gets them enough money to keep going (assuming any of those reissues even get released).

In fact the first crowdfund maketoys seeker sold out, and the second one didn't get enough backers. And Maketoys was laughed into the ground for quality issues on the first one, and it all went so poorly that they recently had to come back and say "wait, I still function!"

MMC did a crowdfund attempt for Ocular Max "Not Artfire" figure and managed to reach just the minimum funding they wanted to do it (and it barely made it to that level). The one they tried after that (which I linked above, for "Supermax") didn't get enough backers.

To use the Hasbro model as a positive example - that was a massive effort by a huge company to make 8000 figures and they blanketed websites and man did it succeed... after they gave everyone more time to come up with the money that they so readily stated they were willing to put down for such a thing. If they'd ended the funding then they originally planned there wouldn't be a big Unicron coming next year.

But the third party crowdfunds? 230 backers on one, produced because MMC really wanted to make it anyways. Less than 500 on another, not produced. Maketoys made one, and couldn't reach 500 on the other. There are not a lot of people interested in 3P figures, especially when compared to official product, and that's why 3Ps are, ultimately, in competition with Hasbro/Takara for these things. If they manage to get something out before an official one comes along it will probably do well for them. If Hasbro drops Combiner Wars on everyone when we're in the middle of classics combiner teams being released, and Titans Return headmasters halfway through the Function(x) line? Then it's all over.

We are posting in an echo chamber of people clamoring for a niche product. It makes it seem like there is far more demand than there actually is - and these crowdfunds illustrate that.

However you slice it, I contend that the demand for these figures is not nearly as high as this place makes it seem. And unless everybody starts doing crowdfunds that prove otherwise, or 3Ps start posting things like how many figures they're putting in a production run and what the sell-through rate is like, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

These are all figures I'm hoping to get from Hasbro within the next couple years, maybe as exclusives parallel to Kingdom or in whatever line comes after it, but if Hasbro doesn't make them, I'd love for 3P/KO companies to step up instead. And while the post just says 'CHUG-scaled', I'm going to specifically mean WFC/SS86-styled because some of these figures already exist in earlier CHUG styles that don't fit in so well with the current lines:

-A new-Leader-sized (like, a head or two taller than ER Prime in robot mode) toy-inspired Jetfire, including removable armor. I'd want the jet mode to be pretty close to the Valkyrie design (changing the details are okay of course, don't want to get Harmony Gold going after 3P companies) and the robot mode to be broadly similar in transformation and overall design to the Valkyrie while also incorporating details from the Classics/Generations/Siege figures and overall changing the styling to fit in better with WFC and look less anime-ish.
-Combiner teams where the individual members are perfectly good, fleshed out figures in their own right (so, not Combiner Wars). Mainly I just want a good CHUG Swindle haha.
-Earth mode versions of '84 and '85 bots that were only done in Siege. Sideswipe(/Red Alert) could be easily done by copying the shape of ER Sunstreaker's vehicle mode and using it for Siege Sideswipe and Hound should be easy too, Mirage might require an all new mold though to fix the bulky rear spoiler.
-Skids, maybe based on the engineering of SS86 Jazz with an altered transformation to allow for door wings?
-Maybe a KO of ER Sunstreaker with a full yellow paint job and a spoiler and gun? I still haven't seen the official figure in person though so I'm hoping I'll be one of the people for whom his colors look better in person, because if they don't it'll be a deal breaker for me.
-Assuming Hasbro doesn't do additional runs of the impossible-to-get Amazon exclusives (Coneheads, Prowl/Ironhide, Ratchet/Lifeline), some KOs of those would be nice for those of us who missed out or whose preorders were cancelled and are unwilling or unable to pay scalper prices. Ratchet and Ironhide could incorporate remolded feet too for better vehicle modes.

 

Gentlemen's wager then? I say it sells.

Come on sunshine, take the bet.

 

Oh, I'm sure it will sell. At least one person probably thinks it is worth $550. I'll put it on my watch list and check it in a week.

But if it gets just one bid, then all we know is that at least one person was willing to pay at least $550 for it, and 8 other people were curious to see if it would sell at that price.

Even if all 9 people watching it bid on it, that means you've got... 9 people interested in it. Actually just 8, since obviously one of them would have one now. That is not the kind of clamoring for a figure that makes it worth their while to produce more.

So what about this one single listing makes you think there's sufficient interest for Maketoys to actually make more of them?

 

This is what I do for play money, I've been doing this for quite some time, the demand is there. That's comerse, that's collecting. It works, and you can make quite the pretty coin doing it. But I'll tell you this, a 'can't win, don't try' mentally works for no-one.

 

Oh yes, as a hobbyist seller clearly you know how much demand there is for an expensive niche item.

It’s not “can’t win, don’t try” it’s “not a financially viable business proposition.”

 

I just want Generation Toy and Gcreation to make more and more Autobots

 

MTMTE/Lost Light/Wreckers stuff, and finishing off the Headmaster Jrs and Targetmasters that Hasbro can't be bothered doing.

ABSOLUTELY THESE. Particularly the Onslaught because he was just about perfect. :'-(

 

This falls into a few categories for me...

Marvel G1/G2 Grail Figures That I Just Want In Any Scale, Please, I'm Begging You, How Is This Taking So Long?!
Jhiaxus
Nightbeat
Ratbat
Bludgeon
Xaaron

IDW Stuff I Specifically Want to Scale With Reformatted/CHUG:
Anode/Lug
Nautica
Thundercracker
The Scavengers
Ratchet
Pharma
Have I Mentioned I Want a Nightbeat?

Straight CHUG G1 Figures:
Megatron (the WFC ones are okay, but the 3P Legends ones show how much better they could be)
Galvatron (Maybe the Kingdom one will obviate this need)
Dinobots

Beast Wars Guys Who Could Be CHUG or MP Since I Have Both on My BW Shelf:
Scorponok
Terrorsaur
Tarantulus (Original or Transmetal)