Well, the mold itself is hella fun, and they did a very nice color layout on it. I never crossed paths with the Machine Wars toyline myself, but I love that Starscream regardless.

 

If they made Cybertron Thundercracker into an exclusive, I'd refuse to buy it (he's the single reason I avoided Cybertron when it was out).That stupid arm thing killed it dead.

 

wait til non-attendee packages arrive to lower the main 5

 

TBH, I prefer the movie mold for Sandstorm, Thundercracker and Skywarp. I don't really have a problem with them using movie molds for Machine Wars, considering the fact that the return to machine characters was the selling point.

Prime Skyquake WAS a terrible choice and it would've been much more bearable if they made that mold of Starscream (which could've been considered a throwback to MW Starscream being a repaint of G2 Skyquake). I don't think they'd ever use that mold though, because wasn't it used for Leozack at another Botcon?

Also, including Obsidian, Strika and Blastcharge was just plain weird. Would ANY of the other MW characters not have been a better choice? If Skyquake was used for Starscream, another plane mold couldve been used as Megatron and Megaplex, for example.

 

I did some quick look-overs at eBay completed listings for Botcon 2013 today, the Friday two weeks after Botcon.
No graphs from me this time but this is enough to get a rough comparison of things with my previous data sets for Botcon day 1 through two weeks later. All prices are disregarding shipping, but you can generally assume either free shipping or something in the neighborhood of $7-10. Sticking to the as-sold sets here rather than split-up sets.

Box Set
search term: botcon 2013 box -devastator -depth -depthcharge -birdbomber
Only 56 hits on "completed listings" (sold and unsold), that seems low, though come to think of it, it would have been known that Primus/Iacon did not sell out even before the convention, correct? Seeing as how Fun Pub always announces it when things sell out.
First couple of days sales look to be in the $350-$400 range. On June 29 they were selling for $300 with several unsold. They have stayed at $300 or less since then, hitting a low of $255 on July 8.
$365.00 in the club store. Iacon package was the same. Yes, the secondary market price is below the original Fun Pub price. Sellers are taking a loss just to unload these because nobody wants them. Truly the worst Botcon for toys in recent memory according to popular opinion.

Mirage & Thundercracker
search term: botcon 2013 Mirage Thundercracker
148 hits on "completed listings" (sold and unsold).
Sales on June 28 are mostly $130-140 with a few plus or minus $10 more. June 29 had them more in the $120-130 range early in the day and sinking to $100-110 late in the day and staying there for June 30. Into July it's mostly unsolds, even at the lower prices. The sold ones are mostly $100 plus/minus $10, with a few outliers at higher prices.
$87 in the club store.

Electron & Sandstorm
search term: botcon 2013 Electron Sandstorm
52 hits on "completed listings" (sold and unsold).
What sales there were during Botcon weekend are a mix of $120-130 and $150-160 sales. Into July it goes to $100-110 range with a couple at $120 or $130.
$92 in the club store.

Blastcharge
search term: botcon 2013 blastcharge
140 hits on "completed listings" (sold and unsold).
June 27 sales were up there around $150, sliding to $90-120 on June 28, down to $80-100 by late in the day June 29, mostly holding there on June 30, starts to dip below $80 on July 1. One with the flag and stickers from the actual class got only $120 at this point. July 2-3 you see $60-80, beyond that it's down to $40-60.
$75 in the club store. Again, actually cheaper on eBay than from Fun Pub. Possibly because neither the character nor the mold are very inspiring as some previous custom class toys have been, although the previous ones had extreme rarity alone going for them as well.

Kreo Botcon set
search term: botcon 2013 (kre, kre-o, kreo, kreon) -devastator
135 hits on "completed listings" (sold and unsold).
Sales at $40-55, though mostly $40-50, all the way from June 28 to July 2. $35-50 range July 3 onward to the present.
$30 in the club store

Now, the exciting stuff! eBay or on-site at the convention only!

Starscream
search term: botcon 2013 starscream
115 hits on "completed listings" (sold and unsold).
June 27 running the range from $100-150, June 28-July 1 settling in at mostly $100-125 with the occasional outlier at a higher mark, July 2 to the present hitting below $100 a little but mostly still $100-125. My guess is long term stable at $90-110, which is roughly average for the Primus set extra toy.

Rainmakers
search term: botcon 2013 (rain, rainmaker, rainmakers) ; impossible to reliably separate set of 3 from split-up set with search terms
560 hits on "completed listings" (sold and unsold), but again this does include both full sets and split-up sets.
Focusing on the full 3 pack here. $165-225 on June 27. June 28 $185-235. On June 29 $200 is a popular price, full range $175-205. June 30 starts to dip to $160-$200. July 1 sees further sliding to $150-185. July 2 $140-165, and unsolds starting to crop up. July 3-4 $130-155, some outliers going higher. July 5 the outliers are taking over, back up to $150-175. July 6-7 back down to roughly $130-155. Sliding up again on July 8, big range from $130-180, starting to be as many unsold as sold now. July 9 mostly $150-165. July 10-11 $140-160.
Very volatile overall, bouncing back and forth across $150. Long term, my guess is solds at $150 max generally, falling demand will try to drag it to $130 but sellers will mostly list at $150-170 I expect. Despite being more or less the only set from 2013 that people wanted, it's in the end about average for a Botcon troop builder 3 pack.
Singles mostly $70-90 early, falling to $50-70, then to $40-60. Sunstorm higher than the other two generally.

Kreo Devastator
search term: botcon 2013 devastator
58 hits on "completed listings" (sold and unsold).
I'm under the impression this was a give-away by Hasbro, similar to the Matrix Optimus of 2011. As such we will likely see it again at SDCC and perhaps free with Transformers purchases at the Hasbro online store and/or sending in receipts from your local store.
Pretty much all in the $10-20 range, however some much lower July 5 and beyond.

Just out of curiousity, I poked back into my records.
2012 Bard of Darkmount (Primus extra) auctions through day 14: 114
2011 Fisitron (Primus extra) auctions through day 14: 203

2011 Box set auctions Botcon open through day 14 (leaving off the pre-Botcon eBay preorders): 75 (I guess 56 of 2013 box sets listed isn't all that low after all)

Both of 2012's extra sets of two are invalid for comparison, one has the SG Optimus and other I didn't take records because it didn't sell out at the con and had very few eBay sales once the con ended. Let's check 2011:
Sideswipe & Toxitron: 157
Galvatron & Thundercracker: 197
Granted, a lot of these sales we are talking about are from during Botcon weekend, before anybody really knows if they are going to sell out or not (though I assume it's generally assumed everything will). Compare to this year's at 148 and 52. 148, okay. 52, holy cow. Sellers weren't bothering with the Electron & Sandstorm pair even before the end of the convention made it clear they would be in the online store.

Anyway, a bad year at the con means a good year for those of us who stayed home. I'm so happy at how much of this stuff I got without touching eBay. Starscream and the rainmaker set are probably safe to buy now if you are careful, though I will wait a while longer myself.

 

Only thing I'll add to that is that the last two year's free attendee figure is now selling for $40-$60. So what matters for Starscream is whether he has long-term popularity. I'm going to keep my pants on and check ebay for him in another year or so to try to get him for a decent price. I'll pass at $100.

Also I've been watching the singles from the box and it seems like most are going for $50-$60 now (ie: before the at-home people got theirs) and I would expect them to go for less as time goes on. The exceptions are Strika ($80-$100) and Obsidian ($60-$80) so we'll see what happens there.

 

I sort of see it from the opposite perspective, I dont think its fans not appreciating niche characters, but FP not getting them right. They tend to mess around with them or compromise.

FP rarely do anything but top notch work on the big names when they do them. Maybe its because they know how to do them or maybe Hasbro are more demanding, maybe its knowing that there will be a whole lot more anger if they screw up Prime than Thunderclash or Pyro so theres no experimenting with the formula.

If it had been Megatron in the box rather than Megaplex I expect there would have been a new head on it. If MW Prime had been part of the set I doubt they would have ever considered using Energon Rodimus for it.

That sort of thing

As for including 2 BM characters they appear to be the only popular part of the boxset. Sure they could have stuck in another prime and Megatron and it might have sold a bit better, but I dont believe those two lowered the popularity of the set.

 

I think an increase in prices for the sets make for a situation that a collector needs to judge whether they really love the set enough to buy it. Before when prices were cheaper collectors would blindly buy anything as long as it had Botcon associated with it. The electron, sanstorm set was $92.00, the Mirage, Thundercracker set was $87.00, and the Rainmakers was $99.00. Question I have is does the above prices include the sales tax or not? What was the sales tax if it was not included in the above costs for a set?

 

Its whatever the tax is in California. And yes, they charged tax.