It doesn't matter if the person who bought the toy decides they like tweaking the process, the problem is the photographer are tasked with trying to sell it.

And the entire point of your reference is people have devised a way to make it look "better" than stock. When they do something wrong in these pics, it's never described as them doing better, and it's definitely not what Hasbro intended the final state to be. So why would a person allegedly paid to help move product do this?

Unless doing it wrong is the toy equivalent of failing to do a basic math puzzle in a mobile game commercial, Hasbro is absurdly lenient about the material they prop up to "help" push sales.

 

You also should remember that complicated designs or not, the people doing these promo shoots likely have to get through all kinds of product in a session and do not have the time to mess around with a single Transformer making sure tab A is always in slot B or some other part you can tuck away is in its little hidey hole.

 

Because, IIRC, a lot of product shots like these are usually done by unpaid interns. (at least that was the case five-ten years ago when it was mentioned at Botcon) Hasbro supposedly does try to send someone knowledgeable to these sessions to make sure the product is presentable, but it's not always viable. (especially if photography is outsourced)

Moreover these physical sampled shots are becoming a rarity when CGI renders arguably do the job just as well, are more flattering, and can be handled in-house by the designers rather than random photographers. That further removes the necessity to get high-quality poses when the majority of marketing uses the renders.

 

Re: mistransformations in stock photos. My take is, simply put, nothing in life, but especially in professional life, no matter how simple or straightforward, is fully exempt from Hanlon's Razor, Murphy's Law, or both. Ensuring that no matter what, something somewhere will go wrong or be published in a less than ideal state at some point, almost no matter what they do, with no ill intent or negligence required. That's just life. It's the same reason massive budget films with state of the art technology still have obvious stunt doubles and camera and crew reflections caught in people's glasses and continuity errors and eye line errors etc. etc.

And since collectors are really the only ones who pay close enough attention to notice or care, let alone raise any serious objections to it (up to and including calling for someone bring it up at a convention, as if they don't already know and that interaction will be, finally, the thing that changes it,) it's just not worth it to anyone in charge to micromanage shoots to the degree necessary to make sure it never happens. And as long as it's happening at all (which it likely always will be to some extent,) these discussions will be had.

As such, it's not worth worrying or being this irked by to me personally, but for those to whom it is, knock yourselves out.

 

Pretty much. And really, has anyone here honestly just not bought a Transformer they wanted because an official promo pic of it was mistransformed? Since these photos are just to fill space on something like an Amazon.com product page, I doubt they have ever had that much of an impact on the collector community (other than for people to joke about online from time to time).

 

@GizmoTron @SPLIT LIP @AnonymousDwell You all three nailed it in one. I can't thumbs up hard enough for more than once.

 

Anime export usually has mall exclusives for sale. Should I expect them to get this one as well?

 

Robotkingdom also usually carry those TTM exclusives. I got my Matrix Buster Big Convoy from them. Stay on alert.

 

You might want to look somewhere else. I ordered Siege Nemesis Prime from them last August and I still haven’t received it. It was due March 2021. They won’t reply to any of my emails for contact forms I fill out.

 

They're notoriously hard to get a hold of. I've used them for a decade with no problems, though.

 

Thanks. Maybe I will get my figure someday then.

 

anyone have a line on any imports of this yet? I know some people have gotten theirs and curious where they've gotten em from

 

Stores in HK, like hobbybase.

 

Canadians can get it from Gamestop, it started showing up in stores today !

 

Sku?

 

764567

 

When is this guy going up on Pulse?

Watch it be the day of my surgery.  

 

I believe during pulse con.

 

That's the 22nd and 23rd right?

If so then cool, I'll be home and bored by that point, and looking forward to any kind of excitement, even if it's just trying to check out before it sells out on me.

 

Yeah either on those days.