It's both. Labour costs are going up, but the shareholders aren't going to let that eat into the bottom line to accommodate.

 

That and the publicly announced 50% profit increase Hasbro is aiming for within only a few years.

 

Sure, but the proportion of labor costs historically is FAAAAAAAR out paced by the demand of quarterly profits. Quarterly profits outweighs the importance of long term investments and survivability. Corporations would rather profit today and die tomorrow than survive at a smaller scale in perpetuity.

There you go. short term gain far outweighs long term sustainability. This is far bigger than Hasbro, but it is a unsustainable path that leads to periodic bubble pops resulting in hardship for those "labor cost" folks.

In the end, yeah I'm not making excuses for Hasbro, if the prices go up I'll take my business elsewhere and just be selective in my Hasbro figure purchases, as I have been.

Do I think there new stuff has been excellent? Sure, but not at current price. Which is why I either was picky (bought SS Ironhide, Jhaxius, and Laser Optimus at retail price regretting the prime) and anything else at clearance prices.

 

They're practically beholden to, or suffer a shareholder revolt.

This is the danger of publicly-traded companies. The money-on-loan system insulates them from hard crashes, but they're beholden to ever-increasing profit margins as an expectation of fiscal health, even if that makes no sense from a logistics standpoint.

The few rare corporations out there that appear to act fairly, and in their customers' best interests 100% of the way? You can bet your ass that there's no public money involved.

 

Yep. It sucks because we know the reason it’s happening, just sucks to see it happen. In order to maintain shareholders insane expectations, they keep slashing and slashing away at budgets, plastic, parts count etc along with increasing prices. So much talent within the company as well.

 

I would just jump in here, this won't even be a final release copy, probably a display price or something, similar to what PrimeVSPrime does, His voyager Ironhide review only had one pistol where the final release came with 2. Not only that, the tolerances on this scourge figure are way off and I hazard a guess the chest and head will not pop off that easily.

Wouldn't be surprised if another accessory was included in the final release copy. Doubtful but possible.

All in all, won't lie, kinda surprised it's a leader class figure, we know this isn't any new standard because of recent leader class figures, however each individual figure does not have its own budget, the budget is for the class size itself, so I'm gonna guess Primal is a beefy boy, and Scourge got the short straw.

 

According to JTprime Primal isn’t in wave 1, but rather wave 3 towards the end of the year. So primal wouldn’t take away any budget in this instance.

 

Oh you are right, they beholden, thats how the system works. My point is it sucks and it's not my problem nor is it the fault of the labor folks building the stuff. All I'm going to do is not pay for high price low value stuff  .

 

Here's some comparison pictures between Scourge's Studio Series figure and on-screen Peterbilt 359 mode:



Edit: and here's concept art the figure was probably at least partially based on, judging by the color of the windows and some subtle details like the additional detailing on the grating between the smokestacks that's not on the on-screen truck:

 

Yeah, I'm definitely getting the inevitable upgrade kit for that, assuming this example of the figure isn't just missing parts that go there.

 

Interesting, thanks for posting! Seems he has the gun attachment the wrong way around, and it is pretty cool that they tried to make it a legit part of the alt mode, although I don't like how the cannon and claw are interchangeable.

Kind of sad how these days I immediately start thinking "OK which 3 things would I want them to improve with an upgrade kit?" DNA can't make those kits fast enough! I'd for sure have them make a cannon that doesn't require the claw hand to be removed, and maybe if they can figure out a way to have the back panels fold up a bit more so they don't show from the front. Not sure if he needs any additional weapons or accessories as I haven't seen the film yet.

 

It's atleast 90% there. I can excuse the rear but it really needed those gas tanks. Sucks the figure turned out so compromised in general.

 

You're not the only one. I'm burnt out on the same old same old, I want something different and this fits the bill.

 

$55 plus tax!

 

Digibash courtesy of Mason Brown via Twitter:



As others have already pointed out, I also knew this guy would look great as Lockdown.
​

 

I hate the weathering affect they did, it feels more like a 2 year old drew on it...

 

I was under the impression the assortment of waves had 1 overarching budget, so waves one through 3 or whatever would share the same overall yearly budget

 

In Smyths where I live you can get a plastic military cargo plane army toy that's like the size of a Titan class for 50 bucks, meanwhile the tiny modern voyager transformers cost near that too, it's pure greed from Hasbro and nothing else, there's no valid excuse

The last live action leader figure that actually felt worthy of being a leader was ROTF Jetfire, and how long ago was that? Like 3 years?