So most of us here knows what happened with G2 back in the 90s. Interest in Transformers waned in the late 80s. G2 was suppose to bring life into the brand, but it failed to do so and it looked like Transformers was dead until Beast Wars revived it.

I often wonder what were the factors that contributed to kids not having an interest into G2. Was it the lack of a new cartoon? Was it the video game industry continuing to suck oxygen from the toy market at the time? We’re any of the new designs or gimmicks introduced just weren’t effective?

I doubt it is one reason why G2 didn’t live up to Hasbro’s expectations, I’m sure there were more then 1.

 

I suppose no original cartoon was one factor.

 

Both of these as well as the fact that there just wasn't a nostalgia market for Transformers yet, as G2 was only a few years after G1. It wasn't until RID/UT came out and the nostalgia boom of the 80's that G1 like Transformers came back again with stuff like the MP line, classics and Alternators (A time which some people here think we're going by again for whatever reason).

With that said and Armada now being 19 years old as well, MP Armada when?

 

Lack of a new cartoon, dominance of new rival brands (TMNT and Power Rangers), kind of lazy execution with half the line just being old G1 toys with occasional new colors. And I think at that point the franchise as a whole was just bloated with characters.

If they'd wanted G2 to succeed they really should have tried to produce a cartoon. Imagine if Toybiz had tried to market new Spider-Man toys in the 90s and all they had on TV was reruns of Amazing Friends.

Honestly it's possible that there was just no chance of G2 being super successful. The line ran from '92-'95. MMPR started in '93 and was a juggernaut basically hitting it's apex with it's own film in '95. Much like everything against G1 from '84-'86, there was just nothing that could be done to topple it.

 

The fans just all, well grew up. Also, Hb was half assed in its support and was like all over the place. The Marvel Comic 12 ish backup was solid but the interest just faded. Even Japan supported it but not until BW did the fans really start trickling back (blame it on the NES/Genesis/SNES/Gameboy) then later PSOne and PS2..........many factors but the primary was that, most fans grew up and found grrls and boysssss

 

No real cartoon other then cg ads. Just reruns with most of the new transformers missing.

They should have made a cartoon.

The rap ads didn't help also.

 

A big part of the problem was too many of the early G2 toys were just redecos of G1 stuff with new soundboxes and missile launchers added. Why would I buy another Diaclone mold Optimus Prime or Jazz or Starscream when I already had the originals still in decent shape? While it wasn't all old molds, there were enough of them to make G2 feel like nothing new or interesting.

By the time the cool stuff like LOP and Dreadwing and the Cyberjets started appearing, I'd mostly stopped paying attention to G2. There were X-Men figures to buy. Literally the only G2 figures I bought when G2 was the active line were Bumblebee and Hubcap, for parts to fix my G1 Bee and Cliffjumper respectively.

Fortunately, by the time Beast Wars brought my interest back full force, the more interesting late G2 stuff was still on the shelves, often at a discount. I think I got the big G2 Megatron for $15 at KB Toys in 1998 or so ...

 

For an 80s fan I already seen the show without the annoying cube thingy which I hated.

For new kids it was probably the animation quality vs cartoons of that era. Animation was stepping up it's game.

I also imagine a lot of kids were confused at the toy store considering that most of the characters looked nothing like the on screen characters being completely different colors at times.

Those are my thoughts of it.

 

Gonna go with the flow and say it was because of a lack of a new cartoon. Even today there's still misconceptions about G2. With the reputation you'd expect a cartoon, but it was primarily a comic, but actually was the G1 cartoon with CGI reskinned transitions. Feel confused? Yeah, even I was when I first heard about G2.

 

That might have actually worked Considering that amazing friends never had a toy line

 

G2 was just too X-treme for the Geewunners, but not X-treme enough to keep up with the totally radical age it was born in. It's just as well, G2's failure probably encouraged Hasbro to go balls-to-the-wall with Beast Wars. But even so, this Geetoower wouldn't have it any other way.

You're telling me! You can imagine my surprise when I found out my Combaticons were colored completely differently, and don't get me started on Megatron.

 

How can you look at the decos and still wonder? They looked like someone tried to chug the liquid inside glowsticks and then barfed all over the toys. They no longer looked anything like real world vehicles.

 

Have you seen other 90s toys? They were almost all colored like that.

 

Garish color palettes were coming in well before G2

Heck, I'd say they even started to a degree with the Movie and Hot Rod

 

Honestly? the lack of new Media hurt the line immensely. G2's 'failure is a Failure to launch and more a continue of the downward spiral that killed the G1 line without new Cartoon of some kind the Transformer brand suffers. Hasbro learned from this, which is why we've had some form of cartoon for the last few years. even if the cartoon has nothing to do with the alternate lines like selling PoTP/Siege during the Bumblebee/Cyberverse seasons the Transformer Brand is represented, and thus Hasbro can shift product easier. and don't bring up the fact there was a G2 cartoon, it was not new media, it was a re-run of the same cartoon people had watched previously and was not enough to grab new watchers.

 

That's why so many franchises went into a tailspin.

 

G2 failed? News to me. It had a ton of toys, comics and a long run by the standards of today. Seems like the only job it had to do was to drag out the success of the brand till Hasbro thought up something to do with it.

 

I think the only thing G2 failed to do is repeat the success of G1...which were impossible shoes to fill when a lot of the toys were just redecos of the G1 stuff. They broke some new ground with some new toys, but none of that had the support of a new modern cartoon. I was 15 when G2 started and saw it as Generation 2: The search for more money. Plus, I was too old for toys by that point and my 80s toy nostalgia wouldn't start to kick in for several more years.

 

There's a reason the brand was saved by Beast Wars, G2 almost killed it with it's terrible sales.

 

I mean it did still grab some new watchers, though sometimes I feel like I was the only one.