I know a lot of you guys are butt-spewingly rich enough to buy whichever Tformer whenever the heck you want. And with that, you go and buy every dang one, like PACK RATS!!!!

(I'm only teasing you guys). BUT.....

For me, there are factors that play heavily on my decision to buy Tformers. I'll go with the immediate example of ROTF: Right off the bat, Optimus Prime is my baby daddy, so I always snatch up his Leader Class as soon as I can. But on my first night of ROTF hunting, I bought Voyager Screamer because I only had about $25 to spend, and he was the pertiest and biggest thing I could afford. Now then, I'm not going to buy anymore ROTF toys until AFTER I see the movie - that will help me decide which characters I liked the most, which thus helps me prioritize which ones I want to buy. Right now I'm thinking I want all of the Deluxe Autobots (except the biker chicks - they're non-scale, and that makes me go "boo!". I'd rather buy the biker chicks in Legends Class, since that scale is more accurate). But again, I won't go browsing for any of this stuff until after I see the movie.

Just for shits and giggles, I have 4 Optimuses (varying classes), and 4 Screamers (varying classes as well) - making them the most recurrent characters in my collection of *cries* 22 Tformers.

 

This is funny, I know, but I watch the reviews on YouTube. Peaugh, in particular, helps me get a feel for the figure, then I know which ones I want.

Leader Prime is worth the hype, just let me say. he is the only ROTF figure I have bought so far. I will pick up Leaders Jetfire, Megatron, and Starscream on clearance. I couldn't wait for Prime, he was too awesome.

 

The voices in my head. They tell me which transformers to buy and they're usually right.

 

Peaugh, Runescape227 (or some number like that), and BikerTrashWolf are my favorite Tformer toy reviewers.

Leader Jetfire and Megatron look like poop to me. I really like Voyager Megatron though. Still waiting for a Jetfire that tickles my fancy.

 

Video and picture reviews are a HUGE part of it for me.

Also if I Happen to like the robot mode/character

 

Easy, I'll make a list & stick to it.  

The only preview figures that interest me from Botcon are Animated Arcee & Hot Rod, TFCC Punch/Counterpunch & Universe Drift. The only other figures on my "to get" list are USB Hub Blaster & the FansProject Rodimus Trailer & Springer (that is if Hasbro don't shut 'em down before then... heh).

I have absolutely zero interest in anything ROTF & that'll save me plenty...  

 

I'd watch reviews and I have personal liking of the designs.

 

I guess the pictures on the internet are what get me interested in the figure first. But that can be a little tricky because what Hasbro shows off and what it actually looks like after it's in production can vary a good deal.

So the big test is seeing the toy in person to see if it will hit my cool buttons or not. Some figures do this and it's a buy other figures no matter how well they are made or how popular they might be just don't hit the cool buttons and I pass them up.

Not really big on exclusives either so even though they might look nice I often think of how many other figures I could add to my collection for the price of just one exclusive.

It's really just a gut feeling I've grown to trust. I've tried going against the gut feeling and I ended with toys I had to give away because they just didn't do it for me.

 

well before i found this site, i just went with caught my eye and looked cool in package , led to some disappoint i assure you , but nowi combine info from reviews and reported problems and all other opinions and even they way they get posed in the comics to help me decide

 

BikerTrash is awesome. I hold his opinion very high.

 

I know what you mean. Arcee from the first movie looked really cool; I bought her, and she was really cool. But there were 2 things that didn't stop bothering me.
1. She wasn't in the movie, so I knew that design didn't count for squat, since they were likely to change it (and they did!)
2. She was way too huge. Like I said in the first post, I like most of my Tformers to be in-scale. I wound up donating her to the Good Will.

 

Blurr was the only Animated toy that really caught my eye (didn't care for the character though). I snatched him up quick. Now I'm anxious for Animated Arcee. I don't own a single Fembot; I need to amend that.

 

1 of each mold, makes it much easier for me.

 

First and foremost, I look at articulation, and what poses a toy can pull off. That's why I like pictorial reviews, because they tend to do this better than video reviews.

I then check what the figure looks like. I have no set rules for what I think looks good; some things look cool, others don't.

Then, after I have chosen a figure I like, I check the prices. As a rule, I like to stick to Deluxes and smaller, because they are cheaper and have some of the best molds. I will very rarely get a leader, as they are waaaaaay to expensive, have annoying electronics and don't pose well. Also, their weight always makes me think I'm going to knock them down and break them.

 

For me it's really just a mixture of what looks good, and what I can afford

 

Actually it's a pretty complex mechanism, weighing desire, availability, budget, reviews, and other factors.

Some Transformers, like Galaxy Force Noisemaze and Animated Leader Megatron were purchased at first chance/look, Noisemaze online and Megatron the first time I saw him in the store. Others, like Animated Starscream and Voyager Bulkhead were purchased last mid-May thanks to having both a sale and a coupon that I could use to purchase them.

Certain Transformers I purchase due to their price, getting a deluxe for $7, having a coupon for $5 off, or because if I didn't get it then, I'd either never get it or pay twice the price later, but all have to fit in my budget. I don't set a hard budget, but I have my limits and I adhere to them, and there's a lot of looking ahead. Sometimes it changes. For example, I planned on getting Titanium Grimlock and Prowl, but I decided that I had insufficient interest, and bought a few Animated Deluxes instead. In addition, I've almost completely cut myself off from spending for a while to "make up" for a recent HLJ order from their clearance sale. I also allowed myself to splurge on Animated knowing that I would get almost no ROTF.

Given that we can almost always count on a few repaints and on top of that there's sometimes a pretty major difference between Hasbro and Takara's, I often wait and try to cherry pick the best paint job/version of the offering. For example, I got Henkei Smokescreen, passing on the US version due to the (IMHO) infinitely better paintscheme. In addition, waiting allows me access to more reviews to make a well informed decision and usually a few choices of decos. While some people focus on only getting one version of a mold, instead I try to focus on only getting one size scale/high quality version of a figure.

However, all of this is moot if I don't like the figure. I don't buy everything, far from it. In some cases, like Armada I got fewer then 10 Transformers, Movie 1 I got 5, for ROTF I've only got Baron Ransack; I'm only planning on adding Ejector and maybe Sideswipe. On the other hand, I've got almost all of Car Robots/RiD and I've got just about every Animated figure. The Transformer has to look good, offer decent posability, and have that extra "oomph" to get me to buy it, either because of something it does, how it will look with others, or it's own aesthetic.

I suppose there's also a bit of denial anytime I think too hard about how much I've spent on TF's over the years.  

 

normally, i just decide which character i like the most and get those figures. And only get one of each figure- no point in multiples. It's just more money for the exact same thing.

If it's a nice figure (on sale...) I think about getting it, but i'm not a completionist, so getting every figure doesn't really matter to me. Now if it's a favorite character, but the design just sucks- then i wouldn't waste the gas to go to the store or the money to purchase it. Just not efficient.

 

...is this a stealth survey by Hasbro?