Notabot wrote:I have to ask (and not in an accusing way), but if you had paid $20 for them, would you be more disappointed? I know that when I pay big money for something, I'm a lot more likely to force myself to like it. I think a number of 3rd party toys wouldn't get such good reviews except that people have paid so much for them, they need to like them at least a little.
Early video and photo reviewers are not to be trusted, full stop. If they get the figure for free, are overwhelmed with NEW THING giddiness, and can't wait long enough to do the review to actually work with the figure first, positive bias is unavoidable and the review is kind of useless.
After the figure comes out, it's hyperbolic in both directions, I think. Either tiny flaws (that sometimes aren't even flaws) are magnified and lamented as the end of the world, or the thing snaps apart immediately but it's okay because it can be fixed.
It's more complicated than that, though. Sometimes these companies do churn out lemons only to include to replacement parts in subsequent releases (frequently with the combiners). It's not altruism but rather that they need to make good on their promise of product so that customers will buy potential future releases too. So some quality control problems
can be overlooked because they are frequently ameliorated later on. Contrast this with Takara's approach to fixing Masterpiece Rodimus: "buy another one".
At the other end, you have people complaining about things that aren't real problems at all. Specifically I'm recalling Fierce Attack (Onslaught), to which one person posted on TFW a series of images documenting QC problems and included a picture of a joint that had a seam in it from where the two plates of the mold connect. I mean... really? Every piece of molded plastic has that. That's not to say that Fierce Attack is problem free, but it's hard to take people seriously when their complaints are that ridiculous.
And also you have a heterogeneous group of companies producing these things. Some of them seem to approach their offerings as a passion project unto themselves while some are clearly just chucking things out as quickly as they can. The former tend to have fewer of the QC problems that the latter have. But at the end of the day, they're in the same situation: none of their stuff is "legitimate", so they either need to race stuff out the door to avoid potential redundancy or take their time and offer something remarkable. Hasbro has the overwhelming advantage here by not just owning the brand but also have much more experience making these things
and having the ability to take their time developing products as they don't have to worry about being... outclassed? Outdated? Redundant? Obsolete? Er, no matter how awful something is that they put out, it's still has the Transformers brand on it. Compare the Maketoys Green Giant and Fansproject Intimidator to the Combiner Wars Devastator and Menasor. The former are almost unarguably better, but they'll never be official products.