The fandom demands cartoon accuracy & Hasbro, Takara & Toyhax/Reprolabels are doing cartoon accuracy. From coneheads, to goofy human faces to cell shading. The fandom demands proper scale. Now they're packing tiny Legends scale figures in deluxe boxes. And voyagers in leader boxes & totally ripping us off in the process. Just so the figures scale properly. (I personally prefer the old larger leader class & won't waste my money on the tiny Siege/Earthrise leaders) So if the fandom has so much power & influence over Hasbro & Takara why is it unable to get the last few G1 toys updated? Look how many times Hasbro produces the same characters. We just got Mirage, Ironhide & Wheeljack in Combiner Wars & we already have new ones. Look how much effort & materials went into producing all those Bumblebee figures since 2007. And yet they can't produce a full figure of Fangry or Squeezeplay? All they can give us are their heads? What bout Snapdragon, Slapdash, Venom, Barrage & Ransack? Why doesn't the fandom have any say in which characters are made? It seems to have influence over everything else. Why do we have to be 100% at the mercy of whoever at Hasbro decides which characters get made? How do they even choose which characters to make? Does anybody know? In my opinion we should have some way to let Hasbro know which characters we want & don't want. We should be able to let them know that they are making a character too much while others not at all. After Chop Shop, I've been waiting forever for them to finish the deluxe Insecticon team but now I'm losing hope, patience & interest. I don't want to continue collecting if I have no hope of ever completing my collection. Why should I waste money on the same characters over & over again while I can't even buy 1 of the character I really want? I am still absolutely shocked that they made a new Misfire. Do I really need to feel *shock* that they made a character? Why do I need to be shocked & feel disbelief that they actually made a certain character? You know what I mean? It shouldn't be a big deal. All of the original G1 cast should have at least 1 new figure by now.
This argument really doesn't hold up well at all when you consider we JUST got Apeface, Spinister, Impactor, etc. Not to mention the entire Prime Wars trilogy right before it. We are very rapidly closing the gap on the last handful of missing G1 characters. And bullshit that they're doing cartoon accuracy because anyone "demanded" it. Hasbro has been full swing doing toy accuracy for the last few years/lines. Why else did TR Misfire have blue eyes, among many other examples. And if you somehow haven't noticed, they've been offering fan votes for some years now- that's how we got an obscure character like Impactor in the first place. Pretty much everything in your post is negated by just taking a glance at what's actually been happening for the last five years.
While I totally understand your frustration at some characters seemingly always getting the shaft (sighs, gestures vaguely towards signature), the fact that I received in the mail yesterday a new toy of Crosshairs, based upon his brief G1 cartoon and commercial appearance, manufactured for a mainline Transformers series in the year of our Lord 2019, means maybe the problem isn't as bad as you fear it is. Hasbro is slowly, very slowly getting around to characters that haven't gotten a lot of love. Heck, Titans Return was pretty much entirely based around that premise and that was, what, two or three years ago? Yeah, they always have to make toys of Optimus and Bumblebee and even some of the more obvious 84-85 guys like Inferno and Wheeljack because that's the moneymaker, but the idea that I'm about to get home and find a very accurate and readily-available (that is to say not a convention exclusive or available through similar hoops) figure of gosh-dang Spinister waiting in front of my apartment would've been absolutely alien at the start of the decade and is a sign of much greater and more obscure characters to come.
I’m always one who will argue quality > size. War for Cybertron has been way better than Prime Wars figures. Yes Shockwave might be tiny but he is way better than any of the Prime Wars leader figures. but I’m also getting tired of the same characters over and over again. I’m also tired of G1 again and again and again. Things are getting stale. I have said this before, I would like to see a reboot along the lines of beast wars. Throw away the same 5 characters, make complete new ones, forget about the tropes.
Aaron Archer said like 20 years ago when Armada was full charged, that from now on (at that time) every incarnation would have Optimus and Megatron as their faction leaders. Not that it was different in the past (I fail to remember which season didnt have Optimus and Megatron as leaders besides season 3 of g1) but he stated that in some interview.
I hate when people say we're being "ripped off." This is the most into Transformers I have been since being a kid. These figures are amazing with their detail, paint, accessories, customizing etc. I couldn't care less if they're 10% smaller. I will keep these for the rest of my life. I loved Prime Wars a lot.....but mostly for what it was. Fun toys to go buy and play with, good comics representation, but WFC feels far more definitive. If I am paying a few more bucks for a great Astrotrain I love and will always keep it's well worth it. However, I do want to see more characters. I think Hasbro is doing a nice job with character selection, but hope to see Powermasters and more down the road.
Because it's not the fandom Hasbro listens to. They only listen to the loud people who always want the same thing over and over again, but with more cartoon accuracy.
Funny enough he actually told me that on Instagram - I forget who I was talking to about it, but I was in a conversation where I mentioned that I was sorta bitter that Gigatron's name got changed when RiD2001 came out in America, and Aaron mentioned that every Decepticon leader's name will be Megatron no matter the source material. I'm still mad about Gigatron, but I guess I see their point.
Hasbro, like any successful company, does listen to fandom opinion, but it listens WAY more to spending. Which is actually good business sense. Yes, there are those amongst us that might not want the same characters over and over, that might like to see the completion of missing character figures over the years... but Hasbro has to weigh that with real potential sales. It will always dictate the direction of a line. They know Optimus Prime, Megatron, Starscream, Bumblebee, and Soundwave will sell, so you can pretty much count on those characters having toys in every line, sometimes in multiple waves. They will always aim for the safest bet. It's good business sense. But we do get others thrown in along the way. Stuff that won't do as well overall, but thanks to the sales of the core figures, Hasbro is willing to take a chance on. And, if those do well, Hasbro will proceed accordingly. If they don't... hey, look at this new Optimus figure!
Power of the fandom? Actually is not like things work, there is no such power of the fandom. People, the fandom, are media consumers. George Lucas knew that and many companies understood that too. Hasbro needed a cartoon to influence children in order to buy robots that transform into vehicles. Mattel needed a cartoon to buy his new He-Man toys. The so called fandom is created by companies in order to make money, and right now fandom is formed by collectors of different ages, and the main media is focused in more commercial targets. The fandom doesn't demand cartoon accuracy, Hasbro wants to sell toys, design media with the characters that these toys represent and then implant the idea of buying toys and merchandising about those characters. The technique has been improved with the years. Sorry, is all the way around, you are another media consumer, you dont tell Hasbro and the other companies what to sell, they tell you what to buy.
This is why I tell people to buy stuff on their endless wish lists if/when it's made. I notice certain names come up in waves. The most recent was Apeface and Snapdragon. My response was "ape what and snap who? those people better buy them because I sure won't." I roll my eyes when "fan demanded" figures get made and go to clearance. Fan demand is too often half a dozen people and their sock puppet accounts. Same applies to most reissues, a very loud but very small subset of collectors crying for them. Don't be the boy who cried wolf...
Opinions are great, but let's be realistic. Shockwave is an average toy at best. I like him, I wouldn't have bought him if I didn't think he was neat. But from just the stance of playability alone, there's quite a few Prime Wars Leader class releases that are much more funtional as fun and engaging toys than Shockwave.
Yeah right! The hell it doesn't!!! This has to be the most untrue statement ever posted in any Transformers forum. Any character can be made super popular by just giving them more screen time. Bumblebee is the ultimate proof. Just compare Bumblebee before 2007 & after 2007. Before 2007 he was pretty much non-existent. Now he has his own live action Hollywood movie, the only character to ever get his own movie. Hasbro can make Apeface & Snapdragon or any other character as popular as Bumblebee if they wanted to push them as hard. So don't write off the lesser known characters. It's all about screen time. Why is Starscream the most popular seeker? Because Thundercracker & Skywarp never got any screen time. And that's the psychology of it all. People only care about the characters they see the most of.
